Juniper launches Ethernet switches with built-in NAC

Juniper Networks Tuesday announced a family of enterprise smart-switches it says are smaller and cost a third of competitors' switches.

The EX switches support a range of features including high availability and network access control (NAC). The NAC support, which Juniper calls Unified Access Control (UAC), enables the switches to enforce access policies rather than rely on firewalls, VPN gateways or switches made by other vendors.

All these switches are built around the same modular JUNOS operating system that Juniper uses to run the rest of its gear. The company says use of its JUNOS means customers deal with the same set of features, configuration and management tools that other Juniper devices use, which can translate into less training costs for network administrators

The Juniper announcement comes on the heels of Cisco's big Nexus data center switch announcement Monday.

The Juniper EX series switches include three different families. The 3200 switches are fixed-configuration 24- or 48-port boxes with 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet ports supporting power over Ethernet (PoE). They can also support 1G Ethernet and 10G Ethernet uplinks. The switches will be available in March and pricing starts at US$4,000 (AU$4,497).

The 4200 series is built on modular chassis meant for data centers and large corporate offices. They also come in 24- and 48-port models and support PoE as well as 1G Ethernet and 10G Ethernet uplinks. They also have a 24-port fiber option.

These 4200 series switches are stackable, and 10 of them can be linked to create a single virtual switch supporting up to 480 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, 40 1G Ethernet or 20 10G Ethernet ports. They also come with hot-swappable power supplies and multiple fans. The switches will be available in March, and pricing starts at US$6,000.

The 8200 series are core switches for 10G Ethernet backbones that come in two models. One has an eight-slot 1.6Tbps chassis that supports up to 64 ports. The other has a 16-slot 3.2Tbps chassis that supports up to 128 ports. The switches will be available in the second half of 2008 and pricing has not been announced.

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