CALIFORNIA, USA: Juniper Networks introduced a new "3-2-1" data centre network architecture, reducing it from three to two layers, and to a single layer in the future with Juniper's "Project Stratus" fabric.

This is seen as a direct hit on Cisco's Nexus switches and indirect jabs at the company's legacy in data centre networking.

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"Legacy data centre networks are inherently complex, and they often force an unacceptable trade-off between user experience and economics," said David Yen, executive vice president and general manager, Fabric and Switching Technologies Business Group, Juniper Networks.

Customers can now eliminate an entire layer of switching from their networks, delivering lower latency and higher performance, smaller footprint and lower power consumption, simplified management and lower total cost of ownership.

By applying Juniper's Virtual Chassis fabric technology to the access layer, Juniper eliminates the need for aggregation -- a primary source of complexity in the data centre network -- and can reduce the number of switch interactions by up to 99 percent compared to legacy three-layer networks.

"Juniper has been fundamental in helping us build a faster, simpler and more cost-effective data centre network infrastructure," said Michael P. Diliberto, CIO, Priceline.com. "We've reduced our network operating costs dramatically by occupying far less rack space and consuming less power than our old gear."

The company also announced new 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches that yield up to 5x lower latency and the delivery of new routers that improve performance throughput by up to 8x; along with a data center roadmap that converges networks.

Today's announcements overcome the "old network" approach of adding more boxes to boost performance, which adds cost and complexity to the data centre.

Juniper's unique data center approach is supported by Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partners IBM and Dell, as well as key customers including NYSE Euronext, Priceline.com, and PUMA, among others.

Expanded switching and routing Portfolio Juniper's switching portfolio now includes the new EX4500 Ethernet switch, which is the first fixed Junos(R) based switch for 10 GbE networks, and new high-density 10GbE EX8200 line cards -- in addition to the existing EX4200 switches that include Virtual Chassis for 1 GbE networks.

Available this month, the EX4500 switch supports up to 48 10 GbE interfaces, consumes 44 percent less power and reduces total cost of ownership by up to 22 percent over competing platforms.

The EX4500 switch will add support for Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), expected in the second half of the year.

Expected in early 2011, the EX4500 switch is on track to add support for Virtual Chassis fabric technology via software and hardware upgrades.

The EX4500 is expected to also interoperate with existing EX4200 switches in the same Virtual Chassis, allowing customers to mix 1 GbE and 10 GbE attached devices within the same fabric.

Planned for availability in Q3 2010, the new EX8200-40XS line card brings 10 GbE to the access layer for end-of-row configurations.

Juniper also announced general availability of its MX80 3D routers, which enable smaller data centers and remote locations to deliver enterprise services up to eight times faster than competitors.

Originally announced as part of the MX 3D family in October 2009, Juniper's MX80 3D is a 3.5" edge router that promises to drive down data center capital and operations expenditures by eliminating complex spanning tree and bottlenecks from scaling.

The MX80 plans to add support for Virtual Chassis as a separate license, expected in the second half of 2011, allowing data centers to extend virtualization and link network resources together to create more efficient and agile IT infrastructures.