EX8208

[#1]

The release of the EX8208 modular Ethernet switch this quarter was a culmination of nearly three years of development at Juniper.  Rather than take the typical path of acquisition, we chose to create a startup within Juniper to build a new generation of Ethernet switching products.  This extra effort would allow us to deliver a seamless end-to-end portfolio of network infrastructure based on JUNOS® Software and leveraging the silicon and architectural heritage of Juniper's carrier-class routers.  Juniper delivered the first milestone in March 2008 with the EX3200 and EX4200 lines of fixed-configuration switches.  Juniper now expands its switching portfolio with the EX8200 line of modular chassis.

The founding product design team, aptly named Caffeine considering the long days and nights, thought through where to leverage existing Juniper technology, and where to focus innovation.  New silicon was developed to provide a custom data path optimized for wire-rate switching, but we retained the robust packet buffering and queuing architecture of Juniper's routers.  We used the same scalable switch fabric ASIC being designed into the MX and SRX Series of products, and retained Juniper's proven control plane architecture into the new platform.  Most important, we designed the EX8200 chassis line with the power, cooling, and scalability to span multiple generations of technology - capabilities I'll explore in future postings.

Over the last few months, the pressure on the entire team has been intense, with engineers from Sunnyvale to Bangalore working around the clock to bring the EX8208 to market.  Design engineering has been putting the finishing touches on the hardware and software, system test has been putting the product through Juniper's rigorous qualification process, and operations has been ramping up the production line in San Jose.  We had tremendous support from the other business units within Juniper, who we relied on to deliver key components of the hardware and software.  The sacrifices the team made to bring our vision to reality have paid off with the launch of the EX8200!

I recently taped a Vlog on this very topic so if you would like a few more details click the play button below:

Message Edited by ac on 02-20-2009 07:59 PM

Message Edited by ac on 04-17-2009 12:33 PM

Message Edited by ac on 08-06-2009 03:57 PM