The London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of the largest Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in the world, has selected Juniper Networks exclusively for a new network infrastructure enabling its members to interconnect and share video, cloud and other content-rich traffic. Telindus Ltd. is the local integration partner. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“We believe a huge proportion of the UK’s traffic passes across our infrastructure with LINX passing approximately 1.5 Terabits per second of traffic at peak, and our members expect consistent, reliable throughput. The architecture will allow us to offer a sophisticated carrier platform from which we can launch new services such as VLAN tagging and 100G ports,” said John Souter, LINX’s chief executive officer. “We’ve chosen Juniper as our desire to build a layer three platform led us to a vendor with a reputation for robust, carrier-grade networks, and their ability to provide high-performance at scale. Traffic levels are only going in one direction – next year we have to factor in even more growth resulting from the Olympics bringing the world to London – so our investment in Juniper enables us to build a fast, cost-effective platform for the long-term good of our members and their customers.”
The network is being built in two phases.
The first phase of the new architecture will comprise Juniper Networks MX Series Ethernet Services Routers, and Junos Space, Juniper Networks’ programmable network application platform. Junos Space Network Activate, an MPLS network automation application, is also being deployed within the first phase.
Network Activate is designed to enable LINX to automate the configuration, monitoring, management and trouble-shooting of its MPLS services, making it highly responsive to user and application requirements.
The second phase, scheduled for deployment in the first half of 2012, is slated to include Juniper Networks PTX Series Packet Transport Switches and will run on Junos OS, Juniper’s single operating system in common with the phase 1 deployment. The PTX Series will combine native MPLS packet switching and optical transport capability end-to-end within a single network layer.
The LINX infrastructure comprises 10 Points of Presence (PoPs) across London, from Docklands in the East to Slough in the West. The MX Series will be deployed within these PoPs and in the core. http://www.juniper.nethttps://www.linx.net
- In June 2011, Juniper announced that Telefonica’s Research and Development division (Investigación y Desarrollo, I+D) was testing its Converged SuperCore architecture
- In March 2011, Juniper Networks introduced two Converged Supercore platforms for packet optical transport.
Juniper’s new architecture calls for a single network management system for the entire transport network — Junos — for both the optical layer and the packet layer.
The aim is to combine the efficiency of MPLS, the simplicity of switching and integrated optics to deliver network scale with fewer network elements.
By collapsing the packet and transport network layers, the Converged Supercore would help carriers save money in network management and operations, whike taking uncertainty and cost out of core network provisioning. Juniper is forecasting network CAPEX cost savings of 40 to 65 percent compared to traditional architectures and a 35 percent savings versus a pure IP routing solution.
The new Converged Supercore switches are based on a new Junos Express chipset that is optimized for high capacity transport and features the on-chip traffic engineering, full delay bandwidth buffers, algorithms optimized for packet transport and embedded error detection required to support differentiated traffic types and patterns without disruption. Junos Express is built in 40 nanometer technology with 3.55 billion transistors. It represent an R&D investment of $40 million. Junos Express is the second chipset in the Junos One family of processors, which the company developed in-house.
Some highlights of the products:
PTX5000 scales to 384 10 GE interfaces, 64 100 GE interfaces and 192 40GE interfaces in a single chassis. The architecture delivers 480 Gbps per slot and is designed to scale up to 2 Tbps per slot. Packet processing is rated at f 720 Mpps per slot. The PTX5000 features fully redundant, High Availability hardware (cooling, power supply, routing engines, control board and SIB). In addition, the PTX supports 50 ms redundancy switchover under load.
The PTX9000 switch, is double the capacity of PTX5000, and is the foundation of the converged supercore delivering statistical multiplexing, high capacity MPLS switching and Multilayer packet-transport manageability.
Juniper will be offering a suite of 10/40/100GE short-reach and ultra long-haul DWDM interfaces.
The PTX Series will be available for beta trials in the third quarter of 2011.
