Juniper Unveils 100G Ethernet Adapter

At a time when 10 Gigabit Ethernet is making inroads into the data center, Juniper Networks is looking to the next step.

Juniper is unveiling out what officials say is the world’s first 100GbE adapter, which will be delivered with the company’s T1600 Core Router later this year.

Juniper officials, who announced the product June 8, said such data center trends as virtualization, cloud computing, consolidation and Web 2.0 applications—such as video and wireless services—are driving the need for more speed and capacity in the networks. The same drivers that are fueling the demand for 10GbE also will be the ones pushing the need for 100GbE, according to Opher Kahane, senior vice president and general manager of Juniper’s high-end systems business unit.

"[100GbE] has always been inevitable, it has just been a question of when,” Kahane said in a statement. “Now trends such as cloud computing, data center consolidation and virtualization are making the need for [100GbE] more acute and urgent than ever before."

Juniper officials said the 100GbE router interface card will enable enterprises and service providers to run their network-intensive applications now and prepare them for the eventual advent of 100GbE.

According to Verizon, that is just a year away.

"Verizon is targeting 2010 for commercial deployment of 100G," Glenn Wellbrock, director of optical transport network architecture and design for Verizon, said in a statement. "The trials conducted in our network to date have focused on proving that our existing optical transmission systems are ready to support 100G. What has been missing so far is a true 100G client-side core router interface, so we are encouraged to see Juniper announcing 100 GE interfaces for its T1600 routers."

Juniper is showing off the 100GbE adapter at the Interop Tokyo 2009 show, which runs June 9-12, and will have the adapter deployed in customer pilot programs by the end of 2009.