In January 2010 I had my first introduction to the Juniper Networks’ product range when I took part in the implementation of four SRX 240H Gateways in two HA setups. This consisted of an external and internal cluster protecting a virtualized cloud base. These devices were chosen for their all-round flexibility, extensive onboard features and costing.  Discussing this with my manager, enlightened me to the fact that we could implement this installation into some limited CAB space in our Data Centre due the numerous onboard features, requiring no extra hardware for our VPN, IDS and Home User setups. Scalability for the next 5 years was key at the time, coming from a mostly Cisco background, the prospect of having to learn “on the job” seemed a challenge.  The extensive JuniperKB and JNet forums are somewhere I’d recommend for anyone in this position.

The first aspect of the installation that stood out was the varied costing options. At the time the SRX setup was coming in at around 40% of the cost that I would have predicted, thus leading me to assume that the performance aspect of these devices could not stand up to the rival market.  However, the SRX boasted an impressive 1.5GB/sec performance and a variety of WAN routing options such as T1/E1, ADSL and an optional 3G expansion all in one incorporated unit, pretty impressive to a new unbiased onlooker.