This can't be good for JUNIPER!!
NOVEMBER 02, 2000
PREVIOUS NEWS ANALYSIS
Alcatel Takes On Juniper
Alcatel SA (NYSE: ALA: Paris: CGEP:PA) is turning partners into competitors
as it introduces two new routers today: the 7770 Routing Core Platform and 7420
Edge Services router (see Alcatel Boxes Clever ).
In spite of being a Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) reseller, Alcatel is
aiming its terabit router at Juniper’s core product, the M160, and it’s pitting the
new 7240 against Juniper’s M5 and M10 edge routers.
It wasn’t too long ago that Alcatel also had reseller agreements with Cisco
Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), the dominant vendor in the router market. Back
in the mid-1990s the company resold Cisco routers as part of its turnkey
solutions.
“We’ll maintain our relationship with Juniper,” says Yves LeMaiter, VP of
marketing and business development for core data products at Alcatel. “But for a
large, scaleable router we will propose the 7770 instead.”
Alcatel has wanted its own routing products both in the core and at the edge for
sometime. Back in 1999 the company bought Xylan and Packet Engines, two
enterprise switching vendors, and it's combined the IP expertise in these two
companies with knowledge from its optical group to build its own terabit router.
This contrasts with the strategies of two of its rivals, Lucent Technologies Inc.
(NYSE: LU) and Siemens AG (Frankfurt: SIE), who've tried to take a short cut to
market by acquiring router startups.
Both have run into problems. Lucent's acquisition of Nexabit has been far from a
roaring success (see Lucent Faces "Exodus of Nexabit Staff" and Lucent Cleans
Up Core Routing }. It's still struggling to get Nexabit's terabit router accepted by
service providers. Siemens has had an even worse experience. Its spinoff,
Unisphere Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq: UNSP) had to scrap plans based on its
acquisition of Argon (see Unisphere Trips, Stumbles ). It's now developing a new
product from scratch.
All of this goes to show how difficult it is build a terabit router. “It’s not the same
as building an enterprise router,” says Emeralda Swartz, director of strategic
marketing for Avici Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: AVCI; Frankfurt: BVC7). “This is a
drastically different product that requires a lot of time and effort on both the
hardware and software sides.”
It's also tough to penetrate a market that's dominated by Cisco and Juniper (see
Cisco, Juniper, Lock Down Internet Router Market ) -- another reason Alcatel is
reselling Juniper routers while it gets its act together.
Once the new 7770 platform is released, the company plans to discontinue
selling Juniper routers to new customers. Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto:
NT) and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERICY), which have also acquired enterprise IP
switch expertise, are also reselling Juniper routers until they come up with their
own solutions.
So why build a core router when you can resell one of the market leaders? For
one, Alcatel says that by building its terabit router from scratch, it can eventually
integrate management and control features with its optical transport products.
That's something it says it could never do with Juniper’s router.
Secondly, the 7770 is designed to be more scaleable than what is currently
offered from Juniper and Cisco, says the vendor. These other routers use a
central switch fabric design, which means that adding more capacity means
adding additional chassis.
Alcatel says it has taken a distributed approach to its design, which allows
service providers to add capacity modularly, scaling from 640 Gbit/s to 5 Tbit/s in
one chassis. But Alcatel isn’t the only vendor using a distributed architecture.
Avici is already shipping a product with a similar design that also scales to 5
Tbit/s.
“It sounds like they’ve been reading our marketing slides,” says Avici's Swartz.
And like Juniper and Avici, Alcatel says its terabit router will be able to forward
packets at line rate regardless of what kinds of filtering and quality-of-service
features are enabled.
So what’s unique about the Alcatel terabit router? Instead of embedding routing
functionality into an ASIC, as these other vendors have done, Alactel is using
next-generation network processors from IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM). Traditionally,
network processors have been too slow to handle packet forwarding at gigabit
rates even without advanced features turned on. This is why older Cisco routers
that use network processors have been criticized so much. But thanks to IBM,
Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), and a slew of startups working on the network
processor technology, a new breed of off-the-shelf chips have recently been
developed (see Network Processors Proliferate ).
“If it's coming from IBM, I wouldn’t doubt it too much,” says David Newman,
president of Network Test. “ASICs are fast but limited. They have only limited
memory, and it's very expensive to make new ones if functional requirements
change."
At the heart of any routing product is the software. While Juniper has developed
its own routing software that is touted in the industry for its stability, Alcatel has
built its code around an IP kernel it licensed from Phase II, a commonly used
open-source routing code now owned by Nortel. Avici has also licensed code, but
it’s kernel is from GateD, something that some experts say might be a problem.
“GateD is a mess,” says Newman. “It’s difficult to optimize and just not a good
place to start. But I guess the real proof of any of these software implementations
is whether or not they actually work in the field.”
The 7770, which is expected to be in beta tests in the next few months and
available for general release in May 2001, will support line cards with interfaces
ranging from OC3 to OC192, with support for OC768 planned for later releases.
As for the 7420 edge router, it offers service providers line-rate packet forwarding
and carrier-class redundancy at the edge. Unlike the M5 and M10 products from
Juniper, the 7420 is fully redundant (every element has a backup), says the
vendor. It will be in beta tests in Q1 2001 and is expected to ship in Q2 2001. |
