Juniper MX Series

Summary

This chapter has covered a lot of topics, ranging from software to hardware. It’s important to understand how the software and hardware are designed to work in conjunction with each other. This combination creates carrier-class routers that are able to solve the difficult challenges networks are facing with the explosion of high-speed and high-density Ethernet services.

Junos has a very simple and elegant design that allows for the clear and distinct separation of the control and data planes. Juniper has a principle of “distribute what you can and centralize what you must” There are a handful of functions that can be distributed to the data plane to increase performance. Examples include period packet management such as Hello packets of routing protocols and point of local repair (PLR) features such as MPLS Fast Reroute (FRR) or Loop Free Alternate (LFA) routes in routing protocols. By distributing these types of features out to the data plane, the control plane doesn’t become a bottleneck and the system is to scale with ease and can restore service in under 50 ms.

The MX Series ranges from a small 2U router to a giant 44U chassis that’s able to support 20 line cards. The Trio chipset is the pride and joy of the MX family; the chipset is designed for high-density and high-speed Ethernet switching and routing. Trio has the unique ability to provide inline services directly within the chipset without having to forward the traffic to a special service module. Example services ...