Junosphere Classroom- The Power of Clouds and Virtualization Meets Networking

[#1]

I am very excited to announce Junosphere Classroom today – a new cloud-based service, designed for educational institutions to teach students and professionals networking concepts and protocols by providing a “hands-on” virtual experience.

Junosphere Classroom is our first service offering based on Junosphere, a new cloud environment that enables the creation and modeling of virtual networks and elements running the industry-leading Junos® operating system (OS). It enables students and professionals to gain hands-on experience in creating carrier-class network topologies, configuring Junos routers, and executing labs, all in a virtual environment. 

This is a first for the industry and it showcases the kind of innovation that is possible at Juniper Networks.  A huge number of Juniper Networks functions and departments came together to deliver this great product to our customers.

The networking industry often learns from the computing industry, and this is a great example of the use of virtualization and cloud technologies applied to a networking challenge.  Junosphere Classroom gives you Junos on-demand, at scale, whenever and wherever you want it.

This revolutionary approach to teaching networking is fundamentally different from anything on the market today. We are excited to be the first to make its core OS available in a fully functioning virtual environment, where entire routers and networks can be created, modified and experimented with.

Please read the press release and see the materials posted to learn the specifics about Junosphere; below are some of my favorite sound bites to add more color:

• Scale at Internet size – not even the largest companies on the planet can have enough lab and test gear to recreate Internet-sized networks; virtualization gets you to Internet scale in an affordable cost envelope.
• On-demand – time is one of the few things we can’t make more of.  Customers and employees love the fact that they can instantly create topologies and try new features without the need to cable and re-cable and re-rack and look for power outlets – it’s simple and a huge time saver.
• Green clouds – it really helps service provider, enterprise, and university customers that need to green their lab and testing environments; they can rent capacity (power, cooling) only when they need it.

Here are some examples of Junosphere in action:

• Educational institutions, like the Queen Mary, University of London are using Junosphere to try new types of routing protocol research and collaboration; hastening the progress of innovation around the industry through faster access to real network and large scale network environments.
• One university piloted a new routing protocol course offering to its students– in multiple locations for the first time, unconstrained by the physical location and quantity of real routing gear through the power of the Junosphere cloud.
• Our very own Juniper Networks channel and account teams use Junosphere to educate customers on the principles and operation of Junos OS, which help accelerate deals and allows customers to overcome unfamiliarity with Juniper products by sampling them in a virtual environment.
• Our Service Providers and Enterprise customers will also use Junosphere to cost-effectively train new employees and expand knowledge/skills of existing employees without the need to travel.

This is just the beginning, and I am excited to hear more from you about your ideas on how to use this new service.  Thanks for tuning in.

[#2]

Hi,

This is a real amazing concept that juniper has roled out to promote junos in the Networking fraternity. This will help a lot of candidates to prepare for juniper certs and get certified & promote juniper products in the market without worrying about expensive rack rentals or buying physical gear to learn junos.

Can you please throw some light with regards to the Juniper appliances it emulates like J-series router, Ex Switches SRX. Can all the features of Junos be tested on this platform even hardware dependant features like Ipsec/nat.

What level of certifications can be achieved by a candidate preparing through this virtual Junos.

I think juniper should post a video of the Virtual Junos tutorial to give a look & feel of the same on their website. If possible please include a Demo test link where people can actually see it that would be really exciting.

I hope this facility becomes available to individual candidates also not be restrcited to only learning partners.

Sebastan

[#3]

Junosphere is a tool that allows someone to use Junos software. Practical, hands-on experience with Junos software is an important part of preparing for Juniper’s certification tests. So, theoretically, the skills you can practice here will be useful in helping you to achieve any level of Junos certification. Currently a formal certification preparation program mapped to Junosphere  is not available; however, Education Services training, whether delivered on Junosphere or other Juniper platforms, can also be an important part of preparing for a certification. Junosphere can be used to prepare at all levels of the three Junos cert tracks but not necessarily all areas of functionality represented in these tracks (i.e. switching and some SEC functionality).

[#4]

Hi Virtualnet,

Thanks for your prompt response. Looks like a great start & checked that it currently supports all the routing protocols of 10.3 Junos for J-series. I hope they will develop the product to include SRX & EX switches in the future as well.That will help to prepare for JNCIE-ENT & JNCIE-SEC completely on Junosphere

Thanks & Regards

Sebastan

[#5]

Does it also simulate different types of interfaces or only ethernet interfaces? What are the prices for renting a classroom?

[#6]

Hi Chris73 --

The links that are in place today should be considered point to point connections... since it's all software, there aren't any actual WAN links.  Yes, we will add other types (like ATM or POS), but it will still be SW-only (ie, no layer 1 errors).  The Junosphere pricing is $5/day/router & you can buy as many router or days of times as you need.  Thanks for your interest.