Juniper Networks EX4300

When it comes to high quality and ultra-durable networking devices there are no better devices than the ones developed and manufactured by Cisco and Juniper. These two companies take quite a big share of the networking market due to their focus on providing quality services and reliable devices. Many Service Providers are choosing Juniper as their leading networking vendor because of their similarity with Cisco and quite the big purchase cost difference. Even though it will take ages to bring Cisco down from the throne, the leading engineers in Juniper decided to attack the market with lower prices but the same reliability, thus making small steps towards the top. This strategy is proving to be the right one. In the sea of quality Juniper products you will find the widely used Juniper EX4300 Switch. This switch built its name in the business with the quality oriented service and the broad range of features it offers.

The Juniper EX4300 Switch has been built on a familiar chassis. It much resembles the previous versions in the form-factor, however the difference in build quality is very noticeable. As soon as you unpack your switch there are three things that will struck your eyes:

• The two hot-swappable power supplies providing redundancy in case of failure.
• You will notice the two field-replaceable fan modules
• You will be stunned by the port density of up to 48 ports in such a light and compact body

The EX4300 Switch has been developed to deliver high performance and reliability, for lower cost than a vast majority of its competitors, in both campus and Datacenter Gigabit Ethernet access layers. Offering a wide range of neat features the EX4300 is optimal as the starting point of your project. Starting with a single EX4300 unit with 48 ports, you can build your network architecture by simply adding more switches in the stack until you reach 10 switches each providing 48 high speed ports. This solution is optimal for any kind of deployment and delivers a scalable, pay-as-you-grow solution for expanding network architectures. In addition if one of your needs is to expand the network even further and provide 40 Gigabit Ethernet in your core, you can combine the EX4300 together with any model of QFX3500, QFX3600 and QFX5100 series in a Virtual Chassis configuration. This way you would enable a non-disruptive, up to 40 Gigabit Ethernet, server upgrades and simplified management.

One of the most exiting parts of Juniper’s switching solutions is their Virtual Chassis Technology. This technology provides you the option to interconnect up to 10 independent switches and configure them to operate as a single virtual unit. The interconnections are enabled by the multiple 40 Gigabit Ethernet quad small form-factor pluggable plus (QSFP+) transceiver ports. With this solution you will gain up to 320 Gigabits per second switching backplane that will shoot the network performance through the roof. Additionally there is an option of choosing up to 40 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and up to 40 40 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks as well as optional front panel uplink modules offering 1 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for high-speed backbone and link aggregation connections. These optional modules are installed without powering off the switch adding the additional functionality without an unnecessary service downtime.

Another feature to help the engineers find their way around the switch is the integration of an LCD on the front panel. This LCD enables the engineers to make necessary configuration rollbacks or restoring the default configuration in no time.

When it comes to the software, Juniper decided to stick to their roots and implement Junos OS in any of their devices. This is the case with the EX4300 Switch. By acquiring this strategy Juniper keeps the consistency in implementation and managing of their devices without the need of additional and costly training for the engineers. The whole Junos OS software is based on a single source code as a starting point. This is a rather unique solution in the world of networking. In addition all products which run the Junos OS are always being updated simultaneously with the same software release.

The EX4300 Switch is the optimal solution for high performance converged network architectures. With the 12 QoS queues per port the EX4300 offers you enhanced options for traffic prioritization. In addition it supports Power over Ethernet on all ports (15.4 Watts), depending on the model, which can power any end device like IP Phones, Access points and other IP-enabled devices.  

Juniper have designed this switch allowing ease of management and configuration. Every EX4300 switch can be managed with the help of Junos Space Network Director. This technology gives the engineers a possibility to visualize and control the whole network architecture even the largest networks in your Datacenter and Campus environments. Juniper implemented a complex set of intelligence services and sophisticated analytics to help engineers manage the network with ease.

Juniper offers 7 different switch models of the EX4300 Series. Every one of them is listed below:

* The maximum number of 10GbE and 40GbE ports are available with the purchase of an additional module

Regarding the support of pluggable optics the EX4300 Series offers a wide range of support. Together with the OEM pluggable optics from GBIC-SHOP BlueOptics the EX4300 will provide the maximum performance at lowest cost. The supported optics together with their GBIC-SHOP BlueOptics equivalents are listed in the table below:

The main purpose of the EX4300 Switch is to provide high speed connectivity in high-density growing networks. These switches are optimal for deployment anywhere you would need high port density, typically in large Branch offices, Campus wiring closets and as top-of-rack switches in modern Datacenters. With the many ease of management and security features and solutions you will inject some breath of fresh air into your existing network architecture.