Interop: Juniper SRX Chassis Means Network Flexibility

Juniper Networks on Monday introduced two SRX dynamic services gateways designed for network architects who need to scale integrated services and network capabilities on a single architecture.

The SRX 5600 and 5800 chassis are available now and were highlighted as part of Juniper's suite of announcements at this week's Interop New York conference and expo.

Chassis-based infrastructure is nothing new. Rather than having standalone devices stacked up, a chassis provides redundant power and cooling, a fast backplane for moving data between ports, and the ability to add networking and application-specific blades as needed. Juniper's SRX Dynamic Services Gateway is a game-changing chassis offering flexible application processing.

The SRX 5600 is an eight-slot model with a starting price of $265,000, which includes the chassis ($65,000), an I/O module ($100,000), and a Service Processing Card (SPC) ($100,000). The SRX 5800 can push 60 Gbps firewall and 15 Gbps intrusion prevention. The SRX 5800 is a 14-slot chassis priced at $268,000, which includes the chassis for $68,000 an I/O card, and an SPC. The SRX 5800 can push 120 Gbps firewall and 30 Gbps intrusion prevention. The SRX runs JunOS, the same OS found on Juniper's routers and switch line.

The SPCs can run any one service or all services on the card, depending on your needs. Initially, the SPC will support routing, QoS, NAT, firewall, IPS, and UTM. Juniper is planning to add more services in the future. There are no additional licenses required, just enable the service.

The pricing is premium, but the flexibility in processing and scaling upward may offset of the costs of fixed processing line cards in other chassis systems, particularly when the slots begin to fill. This represents another step in Juniper's path to being an enterprise infrastructure player.

To help put the Juniper gateways in perspective, InformationWeek has published its 2008 independent survey of nearly 500 business technology pros about their use of network access control. Download the report here (registration required).