iiNet first in the region with Juniper's 100GbE core routing

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 07 July 2011 15:07

Business IT - Technology

Juniper Networks has revealed that iiNet has deployed its high end core routing technology and has been trialling its 100Gbe interface cards, in preparation for the capacity demands of the NBN.

According to Juniper, iiNet migrated its backbone to Juniper's T1600 Core Routers at the beginning of this year and started a two-month trial of Juniper's 100GbE interface cards in May, making it the first telco in Asia Pacific to deploy these cards.

"We're passionate about providing our customers with the very best service and technology," said Greg Bader, chief technology officer at iiNet. "Rather than waiting for the NBN to be rolled out around the country, we're continuously upgrading the iiNet network so our customers can have the very best experience. Partnering with Juniper Networks gives us confidence in the fact that we're using the most advanced technology as we expand our services around the country."

Juniper announced the 100GBe interfaces for the T1600 in June 2009, with commercial availability scheduled for early 2010. They increase throughput 10 fold compared to the then standard 10GbE interfaces. Juniper predicted demand for the new interface would ramp up rapidly, saying it would be needed to handle rapidly increasing network traffic, driven by video, broadband wireless services and emerging trends such as cloud computing and would also greatly simplify operators' networks by enabling them to eliminate multiple 10GBbE interfaces with all the associated need for additional fibre, provisioning and management.

Roger Geerts, Juniper's systems engineering manager ANZ, told ExchangeDaily at the time: "every tender we see now has a requirement for 100GbE." Juniper's largest T1600 customer in Australia is AARNet and CEO, Chris Hancock, told ExchangeDaily "This technology is part of AARNet's future roadmap and we will be examining it closely in the not-too-distant future... It is in AARNet's next four-year roadmap planning cycle."

The market for high end routing technology that are at the core of all major telcos networks is dominated by Juniper and Cisco (although Alcatel-Lucent is expected to soon enter the market, see below) and the two leapfrog each other with successive announcements of their respective offerings.

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