Juniper SRX Series

Chapter 4. SRX Networking Basics

The Junos OS has support for the majority of the available networking protocols. A small device such as an SRX100 supports MPLS, VPLS, switching, IS-IS, BGP, and dozens of other protocols. It is quite amazing to have such a wide variety of technologies available in one device. The SRX is a versatile device. Being able to offer so much protocol support and also offering security features is wonderful. As SRX experts, both my coauthor and myself have discussed hundreds of use cases and deployment models with customers. The majority of these deployments use only the minimal amount of networking features. Around 25 percent of SRX deployments use the more advanced networking features of the SRX. These specific deployments would not be possible if the SRX was unable to support these advanced features. However, when deciding on how to best cover networking on the SRX, we chose to keep the networking section focused on best practices rather than covering the corner case deployments. We want to guide you to supported, commonly used designs that we consider best practices.

The majority of the book is focused on the security aspects of the SRX. In this chapter, we review the basics of getting the SRX onto your network and how to deploy the SRX in what we consider a standard best practice. Because the networking side of Junos is so robust, we often see customers attempting to be overly creative with their networking designs. There is nothing wrong with this. ...