Dell, Juniper Creating Networking Equipment Partnership

Dell and Juniper Networks are entering into a partnership through which Dell will resell Juniper's networking equipment and software, allowing both companies to better compete against similar offerings from Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard.

The two companies announced their partnership on Oct. 27. Dell plans to sell the Juniper products through its PowerConnect product portfolio.

In addition, Dell and Juniper are planning to develop new products that will allow businesses to better use virtualization technology within their data centers. The two companies are developing what they call "open, standards-based solutions" that use CEE (Converged Enhanced Ethernet)—also known as Data Center Bridging—to improve networking technology within the data center.

Dell also plans to incorporate its own iSCSI storage system technology into these new virtualization offerings.

The partnership with Juniper is Dell's second move to broaden its network equipment and software offerings in the face of increased competition from Cisco and HP's ProCurve division. In September, Dell announced it would partner with Brocade Communications Systems to develop unified data center technologies.

At the same time, traditional networking companies such as Juniper and Brocade are looking to develop new partnership to keep up with the likes of Cisco. Earlier in October, Juniper announced solid third-quarter financial numbers, and the company plans to develop its own technology to better compete in the enterprise data center market.

Traditionally, Juniper has focused more on the telecommunications industry, but now several competitors are looking to offer full packages of networking, storage and infrastructure products to businesses that are expanding their data centers with the help of virtualization software.

The new Juniper and Dell reselling alliance will focus on four specific networking products:

·        Juniper's MX Series Routers, which provide multiprotocol label switching network virtualization, low-latency multicast, advanced quality of search and high availability;

·        Juniper's EX Series Ethernet Switches, which offer both high availability and security features;

·        Juniper's SRX Series Services Gateways, which are part of the Juniper Networks Distributed Enterprise Solutions portfolio and allow users to create a single platform for security, connectivity and application delivery; and

·        Juniper's JUNOS software, which automates network operations such as routing, switching and security. The product also includes its own SDK (software development kit).