Juniper Networks, the industry leader in network innovation, today introduced a virtualized version of its flagship MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routing platform to deliver the industry's first full-featured, carrier-grade virtualized router. The Juniper Networks vMX 3D Universal Edge Router, which operates as software on x86 servers, gives service providers and enterprises the ability to seamlessly leverage the benefits of both virtual and physical networking so they can rapidly deliver services and cost-effectively keep ahead of customer demand. Juniper also today unveiled a new set of capabilities designed to help customers build High-IQ networks that leverage the benefits of virtualization and automation.

It is estimated that there will be 50 billion networked devices worldwide by 2020. Service providers are pushing connectivity beyond simple access to fuel economies and deliver more personalized and life-enhancing services. As the appetite and reliance on customized services grow, service providers are looking for ways to address this need while staying profitable and capitalizing on revenue growth opportunities. This requires service providers to adopt a more agile business approach, one that allows them to develop, scale up as well as scale down new services at the pace of business, while also maintaining a high-performance infrastructure to keep up with increasing traffic volumes.

Likewise, enterprises are also looking for ways to increase business agility, as seen by the adoption and deployment of cloud services and private clouds. As enterprises look to the cloud to drive agility and efficiency, having a network that is as flexible and dynamic as the cloud is critical. As a fully functional virtual router, the vMX brings cloud-like agility to the network, allowing businesses to quickly roll out new applications, resources and initiatives to support internal and external clients.

By virtualizing the company's flagship routing platform -- first introduced in 2006 and today powers most of the world's top 100 service providers -- Juniper brings the feature-set and proven history of performance and reliability of the MX to the cloud. The software-driven technology delivers the agility to scale up and scale out as quickly as customer business needs dictate. Customers can combine the vMX with Juniper's complete physical router portfolio delivering the tools service providers and enterprises need to maintain a common operations environment for both virtual and physical routers, while matching network investment with revenue growth.

With the vMX, carrier-grade routing can be deployed in the time it takes to spin up a virtual machine, scaled elastically with virtual capacity, and if the need arises, migrated to the high-performance physical MX Series platforms for high-volume workloads. This provides customers with greater freedom to start small, experiment with new services, grow rapidly and stay profitable throughout the entire service lifecycle.

vMX News Highlights:

• Full MX Series feature-set supported on x86 servers: Because the vMX runs as software on x86 servers, service providers and enterprises can rapidly deploy new routing services based on an established Juniper MX pedigree. The vMX allows organizations to explore new ways of service creation and delivery models by reducing the risks and costs associated with a hardware-centric service roll-out. Service providers and enterprises can easily redeploy x86 resources to adapt to changing business priorities as customer demands shift.

• Junos and Trio Optimized: vMX runs on Junos OS, one of the most widely deployed routing operating systems in the world, and supports the same programmable Junos Trio chipset features as the entire MX Series portfolio. For current Juniper customers, this means access to a powerful feature set that works seamlessly across existing physical and virtual infrastructure with no new training required.

• Built for the Cloud: vMX, built from the ground up to run natively on x86 servers, can be orchestrated by Contrail and OpenStack and managed by Junos Space. The complete vMX feature set delivers a consistent operator and end-user experience, providing customers with the flexibility to use physical and virtual routers based on business needs.

Availability:

Juniper Networks vMX will be available in Q1 2015.