Slide Show: Juniper's New Ethernet Switches

Juniper Networks on Tuesday lifted the veil of secrecy and revealed three series of Ethernet switches that for the past couple of months have been the industry's worst kept secret. With the introduction of the switching line, Juniper hopes to take away some of Cisco's 71 percent market share in the enterprise Ethernet switching market.

Juniper unveiled its first ever line of enterprise Ethernet switches at its Global Enterprise Event in New York City. The switches, dubbed the EX line, comprises three series: the EX 3200, the EX 4200 and the EX 8200.

Here Juniper founder and CTO Pradeep Sindhu (left) and CEO and chairman Scott Kriens welcome celebrate the new edition to Juniper's product portfolio. The duo unveiled the switches, rumored to have been called Hurricane, to the tune of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorpions.

The EX 3200 series is a fixed configuration Ethernet platform designed as a standalone solution for regional, branch and corporate locations. It's available in 24- and 48-port configurations for network access with plug-and-play 10/100/1000BASE-T connectivity. The EX 3200 will also be available in full and partial PoE to support IP enabled devices like IP phones, security and WLAN access points.

The EX 3200 also has optional four-port Gigabit Ethernet and two-port 10 GbE uplink modules with pluggable optics to support high-speed connections to other switches or routers. It also has a field-replaceable power supply and fan tray to lower mean time to repair. The EX 3200 will be available in March and has a list price starting at $4,000.

The EX 4200 with Virtual Chassis technology is Juniper's stackable switch, which, like the EX 3200 offers 24- and 48-port 10/100/1000BASE-T connectivity and full or partial PoE and optional GbE and 10 GbE uplink modules, plus a 24-port fiber switch offering 100/1000BASE-X support.

When using Virtual Chassis technology, up to 10 EX 4200 series switches can be interconnected over a 128 Gbps backplane, creating a single virtual switch supporting up to 480 10/100/1000BASE-T ports and up to 40 GbE or 20 10 GbE uplink ports. All EX 4200 switches include high-availability features such as redundant, hot-swappable internal power supplies and field-replaceable, multi-blower fan trays to help deliver maximum uptime.

The third and final switch series Juniper unveiled Thursday was the EX 8200 line of data center switches for high-performance and high-density 10GbE core and aggregation deployment. The series will comprise two switches, the EX 8208 (right) and the EX 8216 (left) The 8208 is an eight-slot 1.6 Terabit chassis, while the 8216 is a 16-slot 3.2 Terabit chassis.

The EX 8200 series will also offer high, wire-speed 10 GbE port densities, 64 ports in the 8208 chassis and 128 ports in the 16-slot 8216 chassis. Two fully equipped 16-slot EX 8200 switches will fit in a 42-unit rack and offer 256 wire-speed 10 GbE ports per rack. The price for the EX 8200 series was not released. The switches should be available in the second half of 2008.

Here Sindhu and Kriens pose in front of the EX 8216.

Frank Vitagliano (left), Juniper's senior vice president of worldwide channels, said the new switch offerings will strengthen Juniper's channel by giving solution providers a means to offer an end-to-end Juniper solution to their customers.

Dave Gilden (right), a partner with Acuity Solutions, a Tampa, FL-based solution provider, agreed. "This will help us paint a more complete solution. It takes a space that is largely viewed as a commodity and it becomes more strategic to us."

Eddie Minshull, Juniper's executive vice president of field operations noted the release of the switch "represents a transcending chapter in Juniper's history." Later adding that "Juniper is truly in the enterprise" with its switch offerings.

Here is Juniper's messaging for the EX Series of enterprise Ethernet switches.