Firms looking at alternatives to Cisco in the high-end performance LAN switching sector now have another option, after Cisco’s chief rival in the router market, Juniper Networks, recently launched its first-ever enterprise-class Ethernet switches ­ the EX series, formerly codenamed Hurricane.

Juniper will find the enterprise switch market a hard one to crack, given the strong competition it will face from Cisco, Extreme, Foundry and Force10. Juniper’s enterprise portfolio manager, Trevor Dearing, pointed out that the performance, hot-swap power supplies, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Power over Ethernet (PoE) features set out Juniper’s target customers. “This is premium hardware and we are looking at the top-half of the enterprise market, and service providers,” he said.

There are three ranges of switches available, with the highest performing being the chassis-based, terabit per second (Tbit/s)-capable EX 8200 series. This series has two models, the 8208 and 8216, which will be available in the second quarter of 2008.

Dearing said the other two series would fit in smaller offices. “The EX 3200 fixed configuration series would maybe appeal to remote office deployments, whereas the EX 4200 stackable series could be deployed in a bank branch, since it has dual hot-swap power supplies and a hot-swap fan tray for firms needing connectivity in high-availability areas,” he added.

Dearing said that the 4200 series can also be stacked 10 high, giving users 480 ports and a throughput of 1.3Tbit/s, so this could be used as an aggregation switch or high-end access switch, or even a chassis replacement. “Users could also stack the switches through the 128Gbit/s cabling on the rear of the systems. It is also possible to use the 10GbE to create a distributed chassis-type scenario, but all manageable as though they were one switch,” he said.

Quocirca principal analyst for service provision and mobility, Rob Bamforth, said that Juniper was attempting to fill out its range and trying to provide IT managers with an end-to-end offering in its attempt to compete with Cisco, “while recognising that in the number two position in any market, you have to be seen to be trying harder.”

Gartner principal research analyst, Juan Ignacio Fernandez, pointed out that Juniper should have launched switching products earlier, “but has concentrated on its service provider strategy and was probably seeing how far that would take it”.

Another feature that could give Juniper an advantage over its competitors is that the new switches will all run under the company’s single-source network operating system, Junos. “That is a key advantage. Junos has been used by service provider networks for nearly 10 years, and has been tried and tested. This is not 1.0 code; it is 9.0 code,” said Dearing.

Gartner principal analyst, Gauri Pavate, said that although Juniper was very late into the Ethernet market, it now has the capability for customers to deploy an end-to-end solution with switching and routing products all working under Junos.

Both the EX 3200 and EX 4200 series switches are touted for March availability in the UK, with prices starting at £2,000 and £3,000 respectively.