DataCenterNews Asia Pacific - Specialist news for cloud & data center decision-makers
Story image
Setting a new standard for sustainability, performance and automation
Thu, 22nd Feb 2024

In the realm of innovation centred on user experience, a fundamental truth stands out: not all products are created equal. This was strikingly evident with the iPhone's debut, a device that not only redefined the mobile phone industry but also set a new benchmark for what technology could achieve. At Juniper Networks, as we iterate the introduction of our newest innovations, we're invigorated by the spirit of such groundbreaking change.

Our focus is on 800GE networking for the AI era, engineered to revolutionize the industry with three key tenets: sustainability, performance and automation. Like the iPhone, Juniper's 800GE solution is designed to be a game changer. It marks Juniper's redefinition of user experience and simplicity for 800GE networking.

Sustainability is at the heart of 800GE, echoing the growing need for environmentally conscious networking in the operators' realm. Performance is our promise and our DNA, ensuring unparalleled efficiency with scale. Automation stands as a pillar of modernization, streamlining operations and paving the way for simpler, more predictive operations.

Juniper's PTX 800GE routing solutions are a key component of the industry's first – and recently announced – Juniper AI-Native Networking Platform. Featuring the groundbreaking Express 5 silicon, the new PTX10002-36QDD fixed platform and the PTX10000 modular line card (LC1301-36QD), these solutions are designed to scale and transform data centre networking for AI workloads as part of Juniper's AI-Native Networking Platform. Today, we're extending the transformative power of our 800GE PTX platforms to diverse WAN use cases: core and peering locations, data centre edge and interconnect networks, cloud metro aggregation and much more. And it's not just about 800GE. These routers streamline integration and deploy seamlessly in existing environments, offering double the 400GE port density or high-density 100GE with or without breakouts.  

For service providers, cloud providers and large enterprises, keeping up with customer demand is a constant challenge. Internet traffic will increase threefold through 2028, and cloud and edge workloads are accelerating throughput requirements for metro networks, data center interconnect (DCI) and the data center edge. Meanwhile, new use cases like generative AI—with AI models dramatically increasing the scale and automation of data centre networks—are unleashing traffic growth on a level never seen before. The Juniper PTX solutions provide the capacity and scale to meet the challenges of the AI era and beyond. They deliver superior performance, sustainability and experience-first automation with the versatility to transform your network into a next-generation revenue engine.

Redefining Sustainable Networking
As operators evolve their networks to forward ever-larger traffic volumes, power consumption—and its associated costs and carbon emissions—can quickly spiral out of control. In AI training clusters, DCI, peering points and other high-traffic use cases, it's essential to find operational savings anywhere you can. 
Juniper PTX 800GE routing solutions ensure sustainability for environmentally conscious networking and offer a competitive total cost of ownership across multiple layers, including:

  • Sustainable silicon: New Express 5 silicon raises the bar for energy-efficient networking performance. The Express 5 silicon is significantly more power-efficient than the previous generation Express 4 silicon, with an impressive 49% improvement in watts/gig. 
  • Sustainable systems: The new PTX platforms are built on an optimized design leveraging fewer and more power-efficient silicon chips. They also feature energy-efficient chassis designs and advanced Junos power management capabilities, like powering down forwarding engines when not used. The PTX10002-36QDD, for example, doubles the capacity of previous-generation platforms in a footprint of the same size. It delivers a 54% improvement in Watt/Gbps compared to the previous Express 4-based generation fixed router, the PTX10001. 
  • Sustainable operations: PTX solutions enable intelligent automation capabilities to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve system efficiencies. For example, Paragon Automation delivers an overall TCO saving of 27% by optimizing link utilization.

Juniper PTX solutions also support transformative IP over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (IPoDWDM) taking Juniper's Converged Optical Routing Architecture (CORA) to the next level with 800G ZR/ZR+ possible on every port concurrently. Moving from traditional, siloed IP and optical control planes to a converged mesh architecture lets you dramatically improve network utilization and sustainability. CORA collapses network layers, frees up unused WDM capacity and eliminates the need for external transponders in many applications—enabling up to 54% power savings and 55% lower carbon emissions.

Unleashing Network Performance Without Compromise
Leveraging Express 5 silicon engineered to revolutionize 800GE networking, the new PTX platforms set the industry benchmark for port density, radix and efficiency, meeting increasing capacity and scaling demands. Whether supporting new or traditional use cases, in scale-up or scale-out architectures, Juniper offers solutions to meet your needs. 

With more choice and flexibility, you can extend 400GE and 800GE capacity anywhere—not just in core and peering locations but throughout the WAN and data centre. Examples include:

  • Core and peering with maximum scale and performance to the network locations where throughput efficiency matters most 
  • DCI/DC edge with advanced EVPN, VXLAN and data centre connectivity with flexible edge options
  • Metro aggregation for more diverse and performance-sensitive L2/L3 services 
  • AI clusters that demand highly efficient deep-buffered networks with maximum radix 

Across all specified locations and use cases, Juniper's 800GE solution consistently delivers superior performance, ensuring no compromises on the following key aspects:

  • Maximum port density and capacity, with full-duplex 800GE throughput across 36 ports concurrently or 400GE across 72 ports concurrently
  • Line-rate MACsec encryption on every port with no performance penalty
  • Extreme-scale to support up to 10 million FIBs 
  • Scalable SRv6, with a dedicated line to support more segment identifiers (SIDs) and 100,000+ Segment Routing (SR) tunnels per ASIC
  • Broad flexibility to support both 400G and 800G common and coherent optics (ZR/ZR+) from Juniper and third parties 
  • Comprehensive "One Junos" feature set including SRv6, Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER), Hierarchical Quality of Service (HQoS) and more to support diverse use cases 

Enhancing 800GE Operations for an Exceptional Experience
To fully leverage the capabilities of today's high-performing networks, outdated operational models must be left behind. The Juniper PTX solutions are at the forefront of this shift, offering experience-first automation to transform the operational and end-user experience. Our PTX solutions support automation—whether you're using Paragon Automation, homegrown tools or any standards-based automation. They provide:

  • Model-driven automation: Automate your own way with broad support for open management protocols and APIs. Juniper PTX platforms support gRPC services, OpenConfig, NETCONF/Yang and native data models. 
  • The Paragon "Easy Button": Paragon Automation use cases can accelerate time to value and automate operations from Day-0 planning through Day-2 operations and beyond. Embedded active assurance can automatically validate network changes, increasing uptime while reducing maintenance costs. 
  • Automated security: In addition to inline MACsec encryption, PTX solutions extend state-of-the-art infrastructure security everywhere. Each Juniper platform has a unique device identity, using the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 framework to automatically validate hardware and OS integrity when booting. You can also embed advanced security services like Corero SmartWall Threat Defense Director (TDD) distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection.  

Start Your Transformation 
Major cloud providers and service providers are in a race to adopt next-generation scale and efficiency. The economics of operating large networks, coupled with the rise of emerging use cases that are shaping the future of these businesses, underscore the urgency of advancing to scalable network capacity and density. Juniper is poised to assist, whether you're ready to start using 800GE or want higher-density 400GE or 100GE with scalable options that allow for growth-aligned investment.

Our solutions are already deployed in every Global Fortune 500 service provider network and in leading hyperscale data centres. Having pioneered the industry transition to 400GE, we understand that incredible topline throughput numbers which were unfathomable to many only just a few years ago, are just the beginning. To actually benefit from next-gen performance, operators need the full, business-ready package: sustainable silicon and systems, automated operations, security without compromise and features and flexibility to support demanding new use cases. This comprehensive package is what Juniper delivers with our new 800GE solutions—ushering in the era of AI.
Need proof? Take it from our customers, including Akamai, Fastweb and Devoli:

"Akamai's Connected Cloud, our massively distributed edge and cloud platform, offers our customers the highest scale, capacity, reach and visibility to keep applications and experiences closer to users. Juniper Networks enables us to achieve an experience-first focus to meeting our key business objectives through our 400GE Juniper PTX network. We are eager to be one of the first to trial Juniper's 800GE PTX Express 5 based silicon solution so that we continue to evolve our global infrastructure and peering networks to industry leading network reach, capacity and density." – Steven Schecter, Senior Director, Network Architecture, Akamai

"Fastweb is excited to deploy a new Data Center Interconnect (DCI) network which will further extend connection to the Fastweb backbone to provide access to the internet and other services with increased performance for our customers. The DCI network is composed of core Juniper PTX10001-36MR and edge MX304 devices. With the launch of Juniper's new 800G PTX products, Fastweb is delighted to see how scaling DCI networks can be innovated to high density 400G, 800G and beyond." – Domenico Cimini, Network Operations and Engineering Manager, Fastweb

"We push ourselves and our partners to be innovative and at the forefront of technology. Juniper has always responded to and met our expectations. The PTX is an industry leader in the 400GbE arena and is key to our move to 800GbE interfaces in the core." – Ken Nicod, Director of Engineering, Devoli