WAN Optimization Vendors Launch High-End Appliances
In addition, Juniper launched a new high-end router for large enterprises and service providers.
The new products come as Juniper is working to build up its channel business in the data center space, said Mike Banic, director of product marketing at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. Juniper has created new channel-oriented tools and deployment blueprints to help partners build solutions based on its technology, he said.
The new additions to Juniper's portfolio are designed to meet channel partner and customer requirements for products that boost application performance, ensure high availability and deliver advanced intelligence for data center environments, Banic said.
With the new WXC 590, Juniper is giving partners a way to build WAN optimization solutions with better performance using fewer boxes, delivering one 2U device that supports WAN connections of 45 Mbps for 140 remote sites, rather than a stack of the current WXC 500 appliances, according to Banic. Solution providers also can stack up to three WXC 590 appliances to support links of up to 155 Mbps and up to 840 remote sites. The WXC 500 will continue as a stand-alone product line, he said.
Behind the new appliance's capabilities is Juniper's launch of the latest version of its WAN optimization operating system, WXOS v. 5.4, which enables the higher data center rates and raises the number of supported remote sites. It also adds a new advanced disk-warming feature that should help speed data transfers over the WAN, he said.
The WXC 590, available now, costs $24,995 for a 2-Mbps license. Customers can upgrade to licenses that support higher data rates without having to change their hardware, Banic said.
Silver Peak, Mountain View, Calif., also expanded its portfolio with the new NX-8500, a WAN optimization appliance that can support WAN speeds of 500 Mbps with advanced services turned on, or up to 800 Mbps when only optimizing for network latency.
"We optimize all applications, including video," said Craig Stouffer, vice president of marketing at Silver Peak. "Others can't do that because they only work on TCP layers."
The NX-8500 is available now starting at $129,995.
Juniper also filled out its application acceleration and load balancing product line with two new appliances that will replace current product lines.
The new DX 3280 and DX 3680 will replace the DX 3250 and DX 3650, respectively. By building more features into ASICs rather than relying on daughter cards, Juniper has improved the performance of the appliances without raising the price, Banic said. The vendor also upgraded its DX operating system to version 5.2.
The DX 3280 platform, expected to be available in the first quarter of 2007, will carry a starting price of $24,995. The DX 3680 platform, available now, starts at $49,995.
Juniper, too, is preparing to ship its new M120 router, which fills out the middle of its M-series multiservices edge router, announced in July. The new router supports 10-Gigabit Ethernet data rates. It includes a new hardware-based forwarding engine that helps preserve performance when advanced features like security are turned on, said Beth Gillbrand, director of product line management at Juniper.
Juniper's high-end M-series and T-series routers are still primarily purchased by service providers. About 10 percent of the sales of the two lines go to enterprise customers, with the bulk of that enterprise revenue coming through channel partners, Gillbrand said.
Pricing for the M120 router, scheduled for availability this month, starts at $73,000.