Juniper Networks has unveiled 5th generation of the MX platform, MX Series 5G Universal Routing Platform along with several software innovations to cater for a new era of resource-intensive applications like 5G and secure SD-WAN-based managed services.
Juniper designed its MX Series 5G Universal Routing platform with new silicon for near-infinite feature programmability, as well as open hardware-accelerated 5G Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) for unparalleled performance, said Juniper Networks.
At the heart of the new MX Series 5G Platform is the new Juniper Penta Silicon, a next-generation 16nm service-optimized packet forwarding engine that delivers a 50 percent power efficiency gain (0.5 watts per gigabit) over the existing Junos Trio chipset, which leads to a 3x bandwidth increase for the MX960, MX480 and MX240.
Juniper said that the Penta Silicon enables end to end secure connectivity at scale with native support of both MACsec and an IPsec crypto engine that can originate and terminate thousands of IPsec sessions without sacrificing performance. Additionally, Juniper Penta supports flexible native Ethernet support (FlexE).
Juniper expects this will lower total cost of ownership by as much as three to four times over software-based user plane implementations for MXs deployed in the field.
Juniper is also introducing two new MX variants, MX10008 and MX10016 that will be available during the second half of 2018. Juniper Penta Silicon-powered line cards for the MX960, MX480 and MX240 will be available in Q1 2019. New CUPS support will be available in the first half of 2019.
Manoj Leelanivas, EVP and Chief Product Officer, Juniper Networks
One thing service providers should not have to worry about among all this is the unknown of what lies ahead. That’s why we’ve continued innovating our flagship MX platform to deliver more speed, flexibility, programmability and security capabilities, giving our customers the peace of mind they need as a variety of demands continue to put pressure on the network.
Mike Atland, Director, Network Infrastructure Planning, Verizon
The rise of next-generation wireless and wireline services is having a profound impact on the underlying networks needed to make them a reality. We’ve been a longtime partner with Juniper Networks since the first MX more than a decade ago and are excited to see the unveiling of its next generation MX platform.
