Gunning for the edge of the enterprise

After tasting success in the high-end routing space, Juniper Networks is now eyeing the enterprise market for entry-level access routers with its J-Series. If the company succeeds in making a dent in this price-sensitive and very competitive market that’s traditionally been dominated by Cisco, the latter may be in for a surprise says RAHUL NEEL MANI

VIJAY YADAV feels that Juniper’s entry into the enterprise space is a welcome step, and calls it the end of the monopolistic era

IT’S the proverbial case of puny David taking on mighty Goliath. The market for low-end routers, worth nearly $2.5 billion worldwide and currently dominated by Cisco, could soon be a battlefield. Upstart Juniper Networks may be a fairly new company in routing, but it’s one that’s already challenged Cisco’s hegemony in the high-end core routing arena with some degree of success. Juniper’s entry into the low-end access routing space may seem surprising considering that two years ago CEO Scott Kriens emphatically stated that the company would not enter the enterprise market because of requests from its service provider customers not to compete with them for enterprise business. Thus, Juniper’s volte-face is expected to change the dynamics of the low-end routing industry.

The right choice

Initially code-named Pepsi, the J-Series router family from Juniper has three models, all of which feature two Fast Ethernet ports, a USB port for hooking up external storage, compact flash memory slots (one in the 2300 and two in the 4300 and 6300). The 2300 router is an 8 Mbps device with one WAN and one expansion slot, the 4300 router offers 16 Mbps with six WAN ports, and the 6300 router is a 90 Mbps device, also with six WAN ports.

Initially the routers will run a version of Juniper’s proprietary JUNOS 6.4 OS. Each router will have one base system processor with an additional processor on every I/O card for scaling up and additional features. The software for the forwarding and control planes are separate, and these are distributed across the main processor and the I/O processors. It was rumoured that Juniper was intending to fit these routers with a security guard from the recently acquired NetScreen, but this hasn’t happened, at least not in the beginning though Juniper is pitching the NetScreen 5GT-ADSL security appliance along with the J-series.

Says Java Giridhar, country manager, India and SAARC, Juniper, “We address the needs of service providers and enterprises that find it hard to meet the demands of present-day converged and distributed network infrastructure.” He adds that the demands of voice over IP, networked enterprise resource planning systems, and even the basic separation and prioritisation of voice, data and video traffic are all severely taxing legacy systems.

It is no coincidence, that the company’s J-Series routers correspond to Cisco’s bestselling 1700, 2600/2700 and 3600/3700 router lines. Analysts say that this is part of Juniper’s strategy to invade Cisco’s enterprise turf and give a fillip to its Infranet initiative to unite the industry around a common standard and make the Internet a business-viable network. Also, Juniper’s $4 billion acquisition of NetScreen in April this year was a clear sign that the company had backed away from its avowed intention of not playing in the enterprise market where it might have to compete with its service provider customers.

A bumpy road ahead

According to RANAJOY PUNJA, Cisco is and will remain the leader in the enterprise networking space

Juniper’s street credibility gives it a good start,but the road to success poses some tough challenges. Giridhar, however, is confident: “We’ve enjoyed remarkable levels of success in tough markets before and we know from experience that the market can judge technologies designed from the ground up to meet the most difficult challenges of networking infrastructure on their own merits.”

According to IDC, Juniper holds the largest market share in high-end core routing in the APAC region. Frost & Sullivan has identified the company as the fastest-growing network security vendor in this region. Says Alok Shende, industry manager, Technology Practice, Frost & Sullivan India, “Juniper has great technology and they have decided to bring it to a logical market—the enterprise. It’s becoming true for vendors across the IT space—if you have a technology, leverage it in as many markets as you can.”

However, Ranajoy Punja, vice president, Marketing, Cisco Systems India, isn’t buying this argument. Punja says that Cisco is and will remain the leader in the enterprise networking space. He feels that although Juniper’s move into low-end routers represents a notable play in the enterprise market, it falls short in functionality. “Cisco offers a far superior Full Service Branch (FSB) value proposition that encompasses services integration, comprehensive security and IP telephony, and enables a single-box solution for the convergence of security, voice, video and data,” he states.

Vijay Yadav, country manager, 3Com, feels that Juniper’s entry into the enterprise space is a welcome step. “Earlier there was a boundary between the enterprise and service provider business, but now, in the IP world, whoever focuses on specific verticals is going to lose and that’s why it’s a logical business extension for Juniper,” says Yadav. He calls it “the end of a monopolistic era” and says that customers should have more choice.

Punja counters that Cisco will continue to grow its market share. “We invest in creating new products and solutions to address long-term requirements. We spend upwards of $3 billion on R&D every year, of which half is invested in creating solutions for enterprises. Our success in new-world technologies such as IP telephony, wireless networking, network security and storage is testimony to the continued customer confidence in our solutions.”

The introduction of the J-Series may seem a calculated move to enter a market that seems to parallel the dynamics of the core routing market, which Juniper has successfully broken into—at Cisco’s expense. After all, if the company can prosper in an area where many others failed miserably, why can’t it succeed in the low-end space?

24 of the top 25 carriers worldwide now use Juniper’s routers with JUNOS, and its share of the core routing market in the Asia-Pacific region is 48 percent, says JAVA GIRIDHAR

Looking at it from a practical perspective, however, merely offering a box with Juniper’s name and proprietary OS (JUNOS) will not ensure success. The products will need competitive (or better) functionality and pricing to be considered a serious alternative. A few experts feel that JUNOS lacks some features available in Cisco’s IOS.

The launch of the J-Series range is not an attempt to attack competitors head-on, insists Giridhar. “These platforms are a natural extension of our commitment to deliver the Infranet vision of public networking with the qualities of private networks.”

Says S R Balasubramanian, vice president, Information Systems, Hero Honda, “Except for pricing, Cisco is the preferred choice in the enterprise because it’s been a trusted name for years. Cisco products are quite stable and have a proven track record. Whether or not Juniper can take its place, only time can tell.” He adds that Cisco doesn’t usually help enterprise customers design their networks, so if Juniper scores on this count it could well take on Cisco.

J is for JUNOS

The J Series’ high levels of equipment reliability come from strong device-level security as well as software stability, effective QoS mechanisms to prioritise traffic without limiting throughput, and remote deployment and management tools that ease operations support in large, highly distributed networking infrastructures.

Another important factor is the modular JUNOS operating system, which has changed the industry model for performance and intelligence at the core of service provider networks. “Since that time we’ve built on our expertise and skill in delivering the most stable, high performance networking systems in the world. 24 of the top 25 carriers worldwide now use Juniper’s routers with JUNOS and our share of the core routing market in the Asia-Pacific region is 48 percent,” says Giridhar.

As a modular, multi-threaded software platform, JUNOS takes a fundamentally different architectural approach vis-a-viv legacy, single-threaded systems. By running multiple functions in parallel on dedicated processing resources, JUNOS delivers high stability with the flexibility to enable advanced routing, QoS, and security and management policies with high levels of performance.

Says Shende, “We expect Juniper to give a close fight to Cisco not only in routers but also in security. While NetScreen was a great player by itself, the value proposition becomes much stronger with a bundled and integrated offer like the one they will bring together. With the security aspect from NetScreen they will not only be trying to emulate Cisco but also do it intelligently.”

Can David win?

Juniper is developing a complete strategy that is becoming increasingly important in the world of convergence. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Cisco is also moving to a modular software architecture. One of the challenges, however, is that access routers are much more price-sensitive than the high-ticket core routers that Juniper has been selling so far. In this space Cisco—and even companies such as 3Com, D-Link, Adtran and Enterasys—have deep roots in the market. A hypothetical price of under $2,000 for the J-Series might not attract many users. To be successful, Juniper will have to change its existing business model.

Initially, Juniper won’t be able to sell directly to the enterprise. Rather, its success in this segment will come only with exclusive partnerships. So who are the integrators Juniper is looking at? Says Giridhar, “We enjoy long-standing relationships with Lucent, Siemens, NEC and Ericsson. These partnerships are among the reasons for Juniper’s success in the IP infrastructure market, where we are now the leaders in the APAC in both broadband and aggregation, and in network security, where we are a top-three competitor in each sector.”

But is that enough to compete with Cisco? Opines Shende, “A major challenge for Juniper will be its lack of channel depth when compared to Cisco. Cisco’s model is entirely dependent on channels and they have very powerful channel partners working across segments. To build that kind of depth is not going to be easy. Even with NetScreen, it’s still not enough. Moreover, the channel for security products may not be completely apt for selling networking products.”

Giridhar says that with the acquisition of NetScreen, Juniper now has over 400 active channel partners worldwide and a two-tier distribution model. “This gives us a powerful sales, service and training organisation that lets us reach out to a broad range of customers.” The company believes that the J-Series is a natural fit in a scenario where a service provider offers managed network services. In this case, the end user gets what is close to a plug-and-play proposition. Training simply becomes the responsibility of the service provider, who manages the enterprise network and provides the value-added service running on it.

Onward, Now

Juniper will need to grab and keep a significant share of the low-end router market to survive in this segment. Ideally, it should grab a 20 percent share within 18-24 months of the launch to stay afloat. Comments Shende, “The magnitude of the dent Juniper can make in Cisco’s position and the time it will take to stabilise in this market will depend on what kind of exclusive partners the company can get, and the depth these partners can provide.”

Vijay Yadav of 3Com says that Juniper is already a respected company in the high-end core routing space. “More and more companies are ready to challenge Cisco in multiple business spaces,” he says. Juniper has the capability to match the breadth of Cisco’s LAN/WAN product line, and with its J-Series access routers the company is hoping to do what others could not achieve—become a viable alternative to Cisco.

Low-end router market in India (Q1 2004)
Vendors	% market share
Cisco	82.84
Allied Telesyn	1.93
Nortel	15.23
Total	100
(Source: IDC India 2004)

rahul@expresscomputeronline.com