BANGALORE, INDIA: The desire in business to be linked to a "green" designation has grown exponentially over the last year, with many companies announcing initiatives aimed at reducing their eco-impact.

There have been admirable strides made by many consumer brands, even including some seemingly unlikely sources, such as automotive companies. For technology, the focus has typically centered on the computing and general purpose processing industries, but Juniper Networks, the leader in high performance networking, is working to change that, bringing a sense of social responsibility to the networking industry.

The implications of continued stresses on energy resources and the potential effects of excessive consumption are hard to ignore; this isn't a passing fad. Routers form the underlying foundation of the Internet and worldwide communications infrastructure; their ubiquity makes them an important part of the social consciousness.

As a result, Juniper believes it must not only be an enabler of accelerated globalisation for its customers, but also a proponent of trying to improve its energy efficiency on a global scale.

There are technology limitations and natural evolution that play a role in how much Juniper can push the boundaries, However, the company took an important first step with its recent introduction of the T1600 - a new core router that consumes 30 percent less power and requires 30 percent less cooling than competitive platforms.

In addition, the solution follows Juniper's commitment to reusing hardware and line cards whenever possible to reduce waste, providing both environmental and economic benefit. The T1600 reuses the existing T640 chassis, which means customers can upgrade their solutions to achieve the industry-leading 1.6 Tbps of throughput, without needing to dispose of their existing hardware.