Juniper SRX Series

Chapter 3. SRX GUI Management

In the beginning, there was the command line. At the time, the small single line of text that was printed out on a Teletype was the greatest evolution in human–computer interaction. If you showed this to the average six-year-old, she might play with the paper and laugh. However, give that same child one of today’s smart phones and she will cruise the Internet on it as an expert. This small story tells us that the user interfaces for the world around us have changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Today, the focus on usability and the design of an interface is truly an art form. Unfortunately, the SRX does not have a user interface that is so easy a six-year-old can use it. It does, however, have a series of tools that do simplify many of the management tasks.

The SRX has several different GUI tools that administrators can use to maximize the effectiveness of their management. The SRX has an on-box web management console called J-Web. J-Web originated with the J-Series router back in late 2004. From there it has been molded and developed into the tool it is today. Because managing each device individually would be impossible, Juniper also offers several solutions to simplify the management of dozens of devices.

In this chapter, we review all of the available options for managing an SRX using a GUI. We take a look at the various management platforms and the best practices for using them. Because each platform has lots of depth to it, this chapter is ...