Recently Juniper announced its new Junosphere product, which allows partners, resellers and customers to build virtualized Junos networks in the cloud. As of yet, there have been a few blog posts out there on Junosphere, some being better than others. Not that those articles are poorly written, they just clearly don’t have the full picture (or simply don’t “get it”). This is part 1 in a multi-part series on Junosphere, which aims to clear up misconceptions.

In this part, I’m presenting an exclusive Q&A with the Product Management Director for Junosphere, Ashwin Kovummal.

One of the points that I see brought up often in various other blogs is the decision to make Junosphere a cloud-based application, rather than a local application running on our laptops. Can you explain the reasoning behind this decision? One blogger mentioned the potential security implications for uploading customer configurations into the cloud.

Ashwin: What you’re seeing is the first iteration of an exciting new technology from Juniper. Junosphere is about creating and managing big, complex topologies using VJX (Virtual Junos).  One of the main factors for hosting Junosphere in the cloud is scalability and performance– Junosphere is designed to create complex large scale network models using routers that run standard Junos.

We know it has value for our large customers, and made sense as a starting point.  But we’re already using for lots of other uses inside of Juniper, and as it grows up we plan to address a lot of the features that make it more usable for other customers that have an interest in it, but unfortunately aren’t the target market for the first release..

Some have stated that Junosphere is only available for resellers and partners. Is this the case, or is Junosphere an order-able line item, available to any customer?

Ashwin: Junosphere SKUs are an orderable line item, like any other Juniper product. Any customer can order them.

Another common point of criticism is the inability to order Junosphere without going through a reseller. It’s been rumored that Juniper might at some point introduce a web storefront that will allow payments of “rack time” to be taken via credit card, similar to other online rack vendors as well as Cisco’s Learning Labs ( http://is.gd/ciscolearninglabs ). Is there any truth to this at all, and if so when can we expect something to be in place?

Ashwin: Currently Junosphere is ordered via purchase orders like any other Juniper product. However we are always evaluating needs of customers, and ordering via credit card is certainly something we are considering. Stay tuned.

There have been blog posts lately that have mentioned that the Junosphere labs are fixed configurations, which don’t allow flexible topologies to be built. Can you shed some light on exactly what the options are as far as lab scenarios as well as classroom based scenarios?

Ashwin: Actually the opposite is true: Junosphere was designed expressly for flexibility and scalability, and customers are free to design and build topologies as they wish. These topologies are only limited by the number of virtual machines a customer has purchased. (In the current model, customers buy access to Junosphere based on the number of virtual machines and amount of time they wish to use them for.)

In addition to allowing customers to create their own topologies, our Junosphere Classroom product does come with predefined scenarios and topologies, but the intent of these is only to make it easier for customers to get started—they in no way limit the ability of the customer to create their own topologies.

One thing I know many of us are wondering: what platforms are being emulated currently, and what could be coming in the future? Specifically, is there support for the EX and MX lines with full switching capabilities?

Ashwin: As you know, Junos is the operating system that runs across our routing, security and switching product lines. While Junos is consistent across our portfolio, each product line has different Junos modules enabled—EX Series, as you point out, are enabled for switching while other products like the SRX are enabled for routing and security.

In the current Junosphere release, the first platform is called VJX1000. The VJX1000 runs Junos and is enabled for routing and security features, with full control plane, data plane and management plane capabilities.  In the future we plan to expand the VJX Series line of platforms that will bring in additional functionality.

A question brought up by Jo (@jk22262) is whether it will ever be possible to use purchased time over multiple sessions (eg. buying 24 hours of time and being able to use it for three 8-hour sessions). This has always been a point of contention for other rack vendors, but with Junos being virtual hardware, it’s much more feasible, I would imagine.

Ashwin: Currently, each time slot is for a continuous 24 hours. However as the product evolves based on customer needs, other options are certainly being considered.

Robert (@robertjuric) was wondering what plans, if any, there are for classroom type labs specifically designed for certification? Specifically, defined topologies and objectives, potentially matching the Juniper courseware available for purchase from Juniper.net.

Ashwin: When a user orders a Junosphere classroom SKU, they get access to a set of pre-defined topologies, which they can choose to use. These topologies are based on materials in the Juniper courseware. We are continuously adding to this list of topologies.

What do you feel sets Junosphere apart from rack vendors and Cisco’s cloud-based IOS-on-UNIX certification training labs?

Ashwin: A few things:

• Realism: VJX1000 ( Virtual router) runs the same Junos like our other products. We have the same regular release cadence for VJX1000 .  It not simulated router or a reduced functionality product—rather a fully functioning product  with control plane, management plane and data-plane.
• Scalability and flexibility: Within the Junosphere environment, users are free to create virtual networks consisting of anywhere from a handful to hundreds of virtual routers, in any topology they desire.
• Extensibility: Because of the flexibility and running actual Junos, Junosphere is not just for education; rather it can be used for research and experimentation with new routing protocols, topologies and techniques.

Can you give us some insight on the Junosphere roadmap? What new features and improvements are planned?

Ashwin: We can’t comment specifically on a roadmap outside of an NDA conversation, however the possibilities of Junosphere are virtually limitless. If you consider that Junosphere is a virtual environment where you can create real networks in the cloud, it’s easy to imagine the various ways in which Juniper customers could use this capability: network planning, experimentation, service acceleration, professional development—these are all some of the potential use cases.

Where can people get more information on Junosphere?

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/software/junos-platform/junosphere/

And there you have it, folks! In subsequent posts, I’ll be presenting a hands-on (well, my hands, that is) demo of Junosphere and some additional goodies!

I would like to thank Ashwin Kovummal for his participation, as well as Mike Bushong for setting me up with Ashwin. Thanks guys!

Filed under: Juniper, Network by Chris Jones on June 10, 2011
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