Juniper Networks unveils app acceleration switch, QFX5100-AA

MUMBAI, INDIA: In a bid to reach out to the IT decision makers in the BFSI segment, Juniper Networks has introduced an application acceleration switch, QFX5100-AA.

The company said that the switch enables financial institutions to significantly boost performance of real-time, latency sensitive applications. With the switch, also comes a new packet flow accelerator module, QFX-PFA, a data center switch that consolidates compute resources and customizable logic into the network.

To be available in Q32015, the QFX5100-AA and QFX-PFA will enable financial services providers to streamline their network operations while empowering their customers to make split-second analysis based on significant amounts of data. Key benefits include:

A holistic data center network architecture that builds on the Juniper Networks' QFX5100 with a new 40G Ethernet switch that combines the Intel Xeon processor E3-1125C v2 with Broadcom switching silicon, and the QFX-PFA module based on the Altera multi-100G field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

Better visibility and an application-centric view of the network through Juniper’s Cloud Analytics Engine that includes high frequency network monitoring and data analysis to improve overall performance.

The switches are integrated with Junos Space Network Director to ensure automated and simple data center management from a single point of control.

They support Java as the programming language to simplify logic programmability.

Ideal for financial services institutions, the switch and module, built in partnership with Maxeler Technologies’ software, improve the performance of applications that handle market data feeds, social media feeds, order execution routing and big data analytics, allowing financial firms to make decisions faster and take advantage of real-time market opportunities.

“The possibilities of compute-integrated networking are transformative across a broad variety of financial services, including equities and commodities exchanges, market data providers, high-frequency trading, and credit processing. We see great potential in other sectors for this technology, including energy, research, education and large enterprises. With the introduction of QFX5100-AA and QFX-PFA, we are delivering new computing capabilities within the data center network to ensure that our customers can make the most informed split-second investment decisions,” informed Andrew Bach, Chief Architect, Financial Services Team, Juniper Networks.

“Juniper Networks’ new switch, powered by the Intel Xeon processor E3-1125C v2, provides the performance and added intelligence needed to improve the ease of application integration. This solution, which embeds applications directly into the switch and utilizes the power of distributed computing, allows customers to take advantage of greatly improved performance,” said Sandra Rivera, vice president & general manager, network platforms group, Intel.