Juniper Networks Delivers Enhanced Performance and Features for Its Physical and Virtual SRX Firewalls

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings), the industry leader in network innovation, today at its 2015 Innovation Showcase announced the availability of Express Path, an optimization capability that delivers powerful performance enhancements to Juniper Networks® SRX5000 Series Services Gateways. By boosting throughput to 1 Terabit per second (Tbps) and drastically reducing latency, it enables the SRX Series to manage massive volumes of data traffic traversing today’s mobile infrastructure and data center networks. Juniper is also announcing new application security capabilities with AppSecure 2.0 for its virtual firewall vSRX, formally known as Firefly Perimeter, to deliver enhanced protection for cloud and hybrid data centers.

With the advent of real-time information analysis, high-performance computing and market data systems processing over 100 billion transactions per day, security devices in these high speed networks must deliver both maximum protection and reliable high performance without compromise. Companies building these networks range from enterprises engaged in high-performance computing, financial services firms conducting high-frequency trading, mobile service providers supporting exponential growth of mobile devices, and cloud providers seeking to secure vast amounts of subscriber data from cyber threats. Although five-nines of availability was once considered adequate, today virtually zero downtime is presumed. Ensuring strong network security at the most dependable performance level has been a challenge, often leaving these organizations to compromise frequently on security for performance or vice versa.

Now with a fast track services path that actively manages the security of traffic flows based on sensitivity of the information and performance demands, the SRX firewall will ensure there are no trade-offs between performance and security. Juniper’s approach will deliver increased available bandwidth and performance with six-nines of reliability, while at the same time assuring the proper prioritization and allocation of security resources for all traffic.

News Highlights

Juniper Networks is introducing new Express Path software for its latest I/O cards (IOCII) that allows organizations to deploy the SRX5000 Series flexibly and efficiently in their networks and secure a variety of applications.

• Advanced Security for Traffic Flows:
  • The Express Path capability will allow customers to deploy the SRX firewall flexibly and efficiently in their networks for securing both normal and latency sensitive traffic on a per policy basis within the same line card.
  • Unique to Juniper, Express Path software and hardware optimization enables the SRX to identify and prioritize specific types of traffic to be fast-pathed to IOCII hardware, delivering very high throughput and low latency for applications as needed. This empowers companies to utilize security resources more efficiently and yield dramatic cost savings from the reduced configuration.
  • The solution identifies and prioritizes active session flows to receive appropriate security treatment based on the type of traffic.
• Unprecedented Performance Improvements:
  • Express Path on the SRX delivers unprecedented performance improvements in throughput of any packet size and enables the SRX to deliver latency as low as 7 microseconds.
  • Express Path for the SRX5000 Series Services Gateway can now support single, high bandwidth flows of up to 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps) for fast data exchange of large amounts of information, without disruption. This is highly useful for organizations that have a need to exchange and transfer large amounts of data securely and frequently at high speeds.
  • With speeds of 1 Tbps, Express Path allows the SRX firewall to be deployed in a variety of use cases where speed is essential to the business, including large enterprises with massive volumes of traffic on their networks, financial services firms, governments and service providers (wireline and wireless) securing very large amounts of subscriber data.
• Improved Deployment Flexibility and Operational Efficiency:
  • The SRX firewall performance improvements are achieved without compromising security efficacy. Express Path can be enabled when optimal speed is desired for certain traffic types.
  • The SRX Series Services Gateways minimize upgrade costs with backward compatibility among existing cards and chassis, eliminating the need for “forklift” upgrades.

Additional 2015 Innovation Showcase News Highlights

• Juniper also today announced that vSRX now supports key AppSecure 2.0 capabilities, providing application visibility and control features that help protect virtualized and cloud environments from sophisticated application-based threats. This enhancement to the vSRX rounds out the virtual security solution by adding layer 7 firewall services to its existing suite of services, including integrated connectivity and routing, unified threat management (UTM) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
• Moreover, the vSRX portfolio of software-based network and security services can be used in conjunction with a variety of network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) solutions such as Juniper Contrail, OpenContrail and third-party SDN solutions.
• Today, Juniper also introduced the QFX10000, a new line of spine switches that will offer unprecedented scale, automation and performance to all types of data center and cloud deployments. Additionally, Juniper announced Junos® Fusion for data centers, which will enable customers to manage their entire data center as a single network to ensure simpler network designs and long-term investment protection.
• Juniper also unveiled an enhanced Converged Supercore®, which includes new custom silicon, updates to the PTX router and expanded SDN capabilities via the NorthStar Controller. With these new innovations, Juniper will deliver the industry’s most powerful and optimized core routing platform available to enable service providers to better connect a world amid explosive and unpredictable bandwidth demands.

Supporting Quotes

“As businesses seek to improve the speed of their networks, they’re constantly challenged to ensure their network security scales with the demand. With today’s announced improvements to the SRX and vSRX, Juniper is giving companies the ability to enhance performance with advanced features to maximize protection. Speed and efficacy are critical to keeping the network secure, in both a cost-effective and flexible manner, and Juniper Networks is fully committed to helping our customers do just that.”
– Christofer Hoff, vice president and security chief technology officer, Juniper Development and Innovation, Juniper Networks

“As network threats continue to evolve and grow rapidly, we want to deliver a security solution that’s capable of providing greater scalability and customization without compromising performance or availability. We have relied on Juniper Networks vSRX to not only offer our customers an innovative virtual firewall but also deliver a unique disaster recovery security service that connects, secures and manages workloads while delivering new services, secure connectivity, and an exceptional customer experience. We are separating ourselves from competitors with the vSRX and its ability to spin up services in working environments within minutes instead of months.”
– John White, director of product strategy, Expedient

“As a leading provider of cloud solutions in the UK, we needed a cutting edge security solution to help us deliver on our promise to partners and customers that we provide 99.9999 percent service availability. We partnered with Hardware Group due to their expertise and experience in providing advanced technical solutions and services in this area. Through our partnership with Hardware Group and by leveraging Juniper Networks SRX5000 Series Services Gateways, we are supplying the high performance and intelligent security solution required to keep up with our resilient, scalable, and flexible cloud services. With the SRX, we have the maximum level of defense for high speed networks and protection against all levels of attacks.”
– Piers Linney, co-CEO and founder, Outsourcery

“We were looking for a security solution with high availability, but also operational advantages. With Juniper Networks’ innovative vSRX advanced virtualized security services, we potentially don’t need to send physical kit out to site. We can configure it centrally and we don’t have to hold stock, we can just turn the product on when we need it. Within our Virtual Datacentre, our customers can now easily have all the benefits of the SRX security platform just as easily as they can spin-up another server.”
– James Hickman, chief technology officer, Virtual1

“Today’s threat landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace, consequently we need a platform that enables our customers to be at the leading edge of the curve, without sacrificing the network performance and stability they expect to run their business. Juniper’s SRX5000 Series Services Gateways gives us the perfect platform to solve for this by providing the highest level of security with highly scalable performance. It offers the best of both worlds for us and our customers.”
– Jessica Geis, chief executive officer, Blue Chip Tek

“Juniper is focused on delivering high-performance security services that provide for rapid network scale. SRX is also built to optimize productivity in a highly available, always-on cluster with easy, secure access. ESG Lab recently tested the latest release of the Juniper SRX5400, and found that it offered an architectural approach, next-generation IOCs and SPCs, and Express Path for performance, scale and security efficacy. This makes the SRX5400 a good candidate for organizations considering a next-generation data center firewall with strict performance requirements for throughput and latency.”
– Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group

Additional Resources

• Blog: Juniper Unveils 2015 Innovations in Routing, Switching and Security by Jonathan Davidson
• Blog: Say goodbye to the network performance/security dilemma by Rajoo Nagar
• Blog: Seventh heaven: How vSRX and Layer 7 firewall services can help you sleep better at night by Mora Gozani
• Press Release: Juniper Networks Innovation Showcase Features New Lineup of Breakthrough-Performance Networking Products
• Video: Juniper Networks’ Point of View on Security
• Juniper SRX Series Services Gateways: http://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/security/srx-series/
• Juniper vSRX: http://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/security/srx-series/vsrx/
• Juniper AppSecure: www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/security/appsecure/
• Juniper.net Community: www.juniper.net/community

About Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) delivers innovation across routing, switching and security. From the network core down to consumer devices, Juniper Networks’ innovations in software, silicon and systems transform the experience and economics of networking. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net) or connect with Juniper on Twitter and Facebook.

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