TCPmag.com | Q and A: What's the Difference between Cisco and Juniper?

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Q & A Archive

Q & A

What's the Difference between Cisco and Juniper?

by Scott Morris

Question:

June 12, 2002

Hi, Scott,

What's the real differentiator between Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks?

Regards,
-- Nick Choukair

Answer:

Nick,

Strictly speaking, Juniper (16 points) is worth more in Scrabble than Cisco (9 points).

Otherwise, that's really not a fair question! There are many major differences between the two of them, both in technology and market approach.

Juniper has chosen to concentrate on the core of the network. Remember, the three layers to the network are Access, Distribution and Core.

Access is where everyone enters the network -- hubs, switches, low-end routers, cable modems, all that jazz.

Distribution is where more intelligence and aggregation takes place -- bigger routers, multilayer switches, firewalls, VPN concentrators, things like that.

The Core should simply focus on speed and quick decisions -- redundancy, reliability and pure "speeds and feeds."

Juniper made an early name for itself based on the speed of its devices, and the fact it had the first shipping (oh, and working) OC-12 (higher density) and OC-48 cards. Now that the world is moving to OC-192, Cisco has actually beat Juniper to market on a card for that.

Juniper has made some interesting technology advances for what is termed as "wire-speed" firewalls and things like that. Cisco offers some new technology as well as offering some similar features.

Juniper recently bought Pacific Broadband Communications to enter into the core of the cable modem market (cable headends). Cisco has been there for quite a while already.

Cisco offers products in all three layers of the network. The IOS software is a lot more flexible than JUNOS to that end. JUNOS, on the other hand, is tighter code because of not needing the interoperability.

So there are arguments pro and con for each! Both have their places. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Both will survive (I hope).

There are a myriad of technical specifics for choosing one over the other, but all of them depend on your network's design and business needs, growth and what you're trying to accomplish. Despite the fact that I have a lot more Cisco experience than Juniper, I wouldn't always choose one over the other. Each has its place.

In most network designs, from the ground up, I'd choose Cisco. In some core designs (and in Scrabble every time), I'd choose Juniper.

To answer your question succinctly: everything and nothing at all. They each have a different approach to the same perceived problems.

You'll find Juniper online at http://www.juniper.net.
Cisco, of course, is at http://www.cisco.com.

-- Scott

back to question

Scott Morris, quadruple CCIE, JNCIE and all-around uber-geek, can often be seen traveling around the world consulting and delivering CCIE training. He recently accepted a new Senior CCIE Instructor position with Internetwork Expert! For more information on him check out http://www.uber-geek.net or for CCIE training check out http://www.internetworkexpert.com. You can contact Scott via editor@tcpmag.com. You can contact Scott about "What's the Difference between Cisco and Juniper?" at editor@tcpmag.com.

Current TCPmag.com user comments for "What's the Difference between Cisco and Juniper?"
1/3/10 - alaa from amman says:	compare bw cisco and juniper
1/4/10 - Sanoj Zubair Ahamed from Kuwait says:	We are currently using Juniper srx 240 as our firewall. We would like to go for Cisco 5520 for our new building in the same campus.Kindly suggest.
1/4/10 - Sanoj Zubair Ahamed from Kuwait says:	We are currently using Juniper srx 240 as our firewall. We would like to go for Cisco 5520 for our new building in the same campus.Kindly suggest.

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