With the installation of any new network there are five important criteria that need to be evaluated when purchasing the switching technology that is required.
They are:
* Simplicity. Historically, it has often been difficult to expand and grow the switching technology to match the continuously changing requirements of the network.
* Performance. Reliability, latency, interconnection issues, scalability and high availability are just some of the on-going facets of current installations and need to be addressed with any network upgrade situation.
* Acquisition costs. Over-provisioning of equipment has been the norm for many years; however, with the advent of virtualisation, for example, the move is to provision simpler hardware, ie, less boxes each with fewer components that will minimise the physical space requirements as well as reduce power consumption.
* Management costs. The operating system of the switching technology has historically been unique to the specific hardware, thus making the operating and training costs an on-going expense.
* Openness and flexibility. Traditionally, the hardware and software combination of switching technology has been of a proprietary nature, thus, there has been little, if any, flexibility and interoperability with solutions from other vendors.
Juniper Networks' EX Series of Ethernet switches have been specifically designed to address the above issues. For instance, there is only one operating system (Junos) for their whole range of switches, thus reducing training costs and much of the ongoing operational expenses; their unique virtual chassis technology combines the high availability and reliability of modular systems with the economics and flexibility of stackable platforms, which deliver a high-performance, scalable solution.
The Junos operating system is a common platform to both the EX range of switches, the SRX series of gateway devices, as well as the J Series, M Series and MX Series routers. As a direct result of the open standards approach of Junos, the EX Series switches can be added to improve legacy networks in a staged approach without the need for a complete upgrade of a customer's network.
“The EX range has already had a major and positive impact for users across the globe,” commented David Naude, Product Manager at SecureData for Juniper Networks' products. “The EX range is extensive with solutions to satisfy the needs for all sizes of user networks. Combining the extensibility of Junos and the performance of the Juniper switches, the EX series is built as the platform of a network that does not require as many refresh cycles, as is the case with most competitive technologies, resulting in a far lower total cost of ownership The technology has taken note of the changes that have occurred within the industry and has provided for the associated benefits with respect of speed, size, power consumption, cooling needs and high availability.”
SecureData Security, part of JSE-listed SecureData Holdings, is the leading sub-Saharan distributor for Juniper Networks.
For further information, please contact David Naude at tel. +27 11 790 2500; fax +27 11 790 2599; e-mail davidn@securedata.co.za.
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Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks is the leader in high-performance networking. It offers a high-performance network infrastructure that creates a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network, which in turn, fuels high-performance businesses.
SecureData
SecureData is a specialist, value-added distributor of perimeter, application, network, endpoint, storage and identity information security solutions and risk management solutions for the African sub-continent and Indian Ocean islands. A cross-section of the available solutions from SecureData illustrates wide coverage of the following information security and risk management domains: business continuity, security appliances and devices, hardware authentication, identity and access management, security and vulnerability management, secure content management, threat management and security services.
SecureData's information security and risk management solutions include best-of-breed solutions, devices and appliances for the perimeter, data centres, applications, network, endpoints, messaging and Web. In addition, as a value-add to vendor, channel and customer, SecureData also provides a full complement of support, pre-sales and professional services around the solutions positioned in each discrete security vertical.
For more information, visit SecureData at http://www.securedata.co.za.
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