Juniper's OS Turns 10

This month, Juniper Networks Inc., celebrated the 10th anniversary of JUNOS software, which made its first debut on July 1, 1998. Since then, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper has delivered a decade of on-time consecutive quarterly JUNOS releases.



Over the past decade, Juniper claims to have consistently designed, developed and delivered new JUNOS software releases on a time-tested quarterly release cycle to target the changing networking needs of more than 30,000 service provider, enterprise and public sector customers around the world. Currently, JUNOS software runs across a broad portfolio of Juniper platforms and integrates a set of features for routing, switching security and a host of advanced network services.

"JUNOS software is the culmination of the understanding that a single network operating system must continually evolve to keep pace with the escalating requirements for scale, performance, reliability and security," Juniper founder and CTO Pradeep Sindhu said in a statement.

And as JUNOS continues to grow, demand for certifications around the software is exploding. Last year, Juniper created the JUNOS FastTrack Program, which to date has enrolled 30,000 partners and customers from 156 countries looking to become JUNOS-certified. JUNOS software introduces what CEO Scott Kriens calls "the power of one;" one operating system creating a network platform. Here we look at a few key milestones in the first 10 years of JUNOS.

On September 16, 1998, Juniper unveiled the M40 (pictured), the industry's first wire-speed OC-48 Internet backbone router to deliver Internet scale, Internet control and performance in a single system.



The M40 router served as the inaugural platform for JUNOS software.

With more than 4,000 platforms shipped to more than 200 global customers, Junipers T-series, including the multi-terabit T1600 (far left, among other T-series routers), is a scalable, feature-rich and flexible core routing portfolio that offers scale, performance, reliability and security to some of the world's most demanding IP networks.



With a non-disruptive upgrade path to multi-terabit capacity, the T1600 enables service providers to increase network capacity without adding incremental systems to the network so they can speed new service deployments, deliver a solid end-user experience and maximize their existing T-series investments. Additionally, Juniper says the T1600 can deliver 25 percent more capacity with nearly 40 percent less power consumption compared to the competition.

All Juniper's T-series routers run on JUNOS software, a single source operating system that enables consistent operations, network scale without disruption, and interoperability and service agility.



Pictured here is the T640, a member of the T-series.

In March, nearly 10 years after JUNOS first hit the streets, Juniper announced the integration of new security services into the software with the release of JUNOS 9.0. JUNOS 9.0 saw the addition of services from Juniper's ScreenOS software for implementation on its J-Series services routers (pictured). Wrapping in security services, JUNOS 9.0 addresses the challenges of managing complex and often disparate operating systems to secure applications, data and network infrastructure. Juniper's J-series service routers running JUNOS 9.0 give network admins the ability to couple routing and security to manage networks more effectively and enable them to meet evolving business requirements, while cutting costs.

"This is a significant innovation milestone for Juniper because through this initial integration, security is now an intrinsic part of JUNOS software," said Juniper executive vice president and general manager of the Service Layer Technologies Business Group, Mark Bauhaus said. "We will continue to invest in the innovation necessary to make JUNOS software the underlying network operating system that supports the world's fastest, most reliable and secure network infrastructure."

The Juniper MX-series (pictured) is one of Juniper's fastest ramping products, with a run rate of $300 million in its first year of shipping. Running JUNOS software, the MX-series delivers high performance and scale in a range of compact, efficient form factors, letting users reduce power, space and cooling requirements by as much as 60 percent, Juniper said.

In December 2007, Juniper unveiled the Partner Solution Development Platform (PSDP), which enables users and partners to develop specialized applications on JUNOS software. PSDP marked the industry's first partner development platform for a carrier-class network operating systems, Juniper said, giving customers and partners the ability to accelerate innovation and the deployment of new revenue-generating services, while also reducing operational costs.

The built-in security and stability of JUNOS software, combined with its modular architecture and single code source, creates a foundation for delivering performance, reliability, security, scale and TCO. Adding in the application-, industry- and technology-specific expertise of customers and partners with the continuous systems availability and automated operations efficiency of JUNOS software can fuel innovation, accelerate the deployment of new applications and simultaneously advance the fundamentals and economics of high-performance networking.

Juniper overtook a posh New York City hotel in January to unveil the industry's worst-kept secret, a line of enterprise Ethernet switches based on JUNOS software. The biggest launch in Juniper's 12-year history, the EX-series Ethernet switches (pictured), gave Juniper an edge to become a legitimate contender in the enterprise networking space. On Juniper's recent second quarter 2008 earnings call, CEO Scott Kriens said the EX-series has sold $10 million in the second quarter alone and is now deployed in more than 100 global companies.

When Juniper announced the EX-series Ethernet switches in New York on January 29, Juniper executives buzzed with excitement.

Here, Juniper CEO Scott Kriens (right) and founder and CTO Pradeep Sindhu (left) seal the deal as the public gets its first glimpse of Juniper's foray into the world of switching.

Introduced in February, the Juniper Control System (JCS) 1200 (pictured), is being billed by Juniper as the industry's first and only high-performance Control Plane Scaling Platform. JCS 1200 introduces independent scale of control and forwarding plane resources in IP networks to help maximize service growth, operational efficiencies and control. The independence of control and forwarding resources is a revolutionary step for IP routers and provides much greater flexibility in the way providers can build networks and deploy services.

JCS 1200 ensures maximum scale for network services, increased efficiency and investment protection for network build-outs, and greater resource control for rapid service rollout.