MX 204/240/480/960 Series Universal Routing Platforms Datasheet

The MX Series portfolio was designed for agility and built from the ground up to support a universal set of edge applications, helping Juniper customers rapidly respond to evolving business and technical requirements while simplifying operations without sacrificing their current infrastructure investments.

With its massive scale and efficiency, the MX Series is ideal for space- and power-constrained environments. It redefines per-slot economics, enabling customers to do more with less while simplifying network design, reducing OpEx. It also enables the profitable delivery of a broad range of business, residential, mobile, cable, data center, and cloud services while seamlessly supporting traditional and emerging network architectures with adaptive software and pervasive security. The flexibility of the MX Series is enabled by the programmable Trio chipset, which allows MX Series platforms to add support for new features, such as telemetry, without costly hardware upgrades. Additionally, support for the Junos Automation Toolkit and the Juniper Extension Toolkit provide modern programming languages that reduce costs and increase profitability by improving productivity and customization.

This agility is evident in the wide variety of MX Series use cases that have been proven in the world’s largest and most demanding networks, including:

• Business Edge: MX Series platforms support the broadest range of L2/L2.5/L3 VPN services which, in combination with multilayer, multiprotocol resiliency, ensure that customer SLAs are met under all network conditions.
• Internet/Peering Gateway: MX Series platforms support the high performance, reliability, scale, and density needed to efficiently peer with Internet and other service provider networks.
• Broadband Network Gateway (BNG): MX Series platforms offer the highest subscriber density and most sophisticated broadband edge features available in the industry.
• Universal SDN Gateway: The MX Series offers a comprehensive solution for interconnecting virtual and physical networks—as well as between virtual networks operating with different technologies—via support for Multiprotocol BGP (MBGP), dynamic tunnels using MPLSoGRE or Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) encapsulation, virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) tables, E-VPNs, and Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF), along with the ability to send traffic between VRF and global routing tables based on configuration and policy.

• Data Center and Cloud Edge: The MX Series is ideal for data center/cloud edge applications, with support for multiple overlay encapsulation methods, including VXLAN, Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE), MPLSoUDP, MPLSoGRE, 802.1BR, SR-MPLS, and SR-V6. The MX Series also incorporates data plane security with inline MACsec in the MPC-10E line cards, making it a perfect fit for data center and cloud deployments.
• Enterprise WAN: Enterprises and government agencies worldwide use MX Series platforms to build their own overlay network on top of a service provider’s Layer 2 or MPLS network, using encapsulation technologies such as MPLSoGRE, VXLAN, and IPsec for secure transport.
• Universal Metro/Aggregation: MX Series platforms offer a full suite of routing and switching features, allowing you to choose a deployment model that best fits your business and technical needs. The MX Series can be deployed as IP/IP VPN edge routers, Ethernet VPN (EVPN) and virtual private LAN service (VPLS) provider edge (VPLS-PE) routers, MPLS label-switching (LSR) routers, and as Layer 2 Ethernet switches or Layer 3 IP routers.
• Mobile Backhaul: In addition to switching, routing, and security features, MX Series platforms support highly scalable and reliable hardware-based timing that meets the strictest LTE requirements, including Synchronous Ethernet for frequency and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for frequency and phase synchronization.
  

The MX Series portfolio includes a wide range of physical and virtual platforms that share a common architecture and feature set. This enables Juniper customers to select the platform that best addresses their unique business goals and satisfies their scale, density, resiliency, space, power, and value-added service requirements without compromising on quality or features.

MX960, MX480, and MX240 Universal Routing Platforms are modular, chassis-based platforms.

• The MX960 has been proven in the world’s largest service provider, cable, mobile, and data center networks, offering 12 Tbps of system capacity in support of business and residential broadband services as well as peering and provider edge applications.

• The MX480 is a modular, 7.5 Tbps-capable router that supports a wide range of cloud, campus, enterprise, data center, service provider, cable, and mobile service core applications.
• The MX240 is a compact, 3 Tbps-capable router ideal for space-constrained cloud, enterprise, data center, service provider, cable, and mobile service core deployments.

The latest generation of line card hardware for the MX960, MX480, and MX240 platforms delivers multi-terabit crypto capabilities with 256-bit encryption complying with AES-GCM encapsulation per RFC4303; AES-GCM encapsulation per RFC4106; AES-GMAC encapsulation per RFC4543; and AES-GMAC (IPv4/v6) encapsulation per RFCs 4302 and 4543. Along with multi-terabit routing, the latest MPC also delivers integrated Layer 2 MACsec features at flexible interface rates of 10GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE.

The MX204 Universal Routing Platforms is fixed-configuration platforms that supports modular interfaces.

• The MX204 is a space- and power-optimized router delivering ultra-high port density and throughput while consuming just 0.9 W/Gb. It addresses the emerging edge and metro Ethernet networking needs of service providers, mobile, web-scale operators, and MSOs by delivering 400 Gbps of throughput in support of high-density 100GbE, 40GbE, and discrete and breakout 10GbE and 1GbE interfaces—all in a single rack unit.

The following table provides a comparison between the various MX Series modular and fixed-configuration platforms.

The modular, chassis-based MX960, MX480, and MX240 share the following components:

• Modular Port Concentrators (MPCs) provide routing, MPLS, switching, inline services, subscriber management, and hierarchical quality of service (HQoS) among many other features. MPCs may also host interfaces directly or via Modular Interface Cards (MICs) that allow users to “mix and match” interface types. Powered by the programmable Trio chipset, MPCs collect and stream telemetry that identifies resource utilization, loss and delay, and other metrics.

• Switch Control Boards (SCBs) feature an integrated switch fabric that connects to all slots in the chassis in a nonblocking architecture. The SCBs house the Routing Engine, control power to MPCs, monitor and control system functions such as fan speed and the system front panel, and manage clocking, resets, and boots.
• The Routing Engine (RE) provides the control plane, runs Juniper Networks Junos^® operating system, and handles all routing protocol processes as well as the software processes that control MPCs, chassis components, system management, and user access to the router. In addition, unique cryptographic digital identity has been added to the Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0), which is embedded in the latest generation of REs. This addition enables device attestation and enhances security. REs communicate with MPCs via dedicated out-of-band management channels.

The MPC-10E line card is a key contributor to the service provider transformation in the cloud era when deployed with MX960, MX480, and MX240 platforms in a Juniper Secure Automated Distributed Cloud environment. By providing the underlying network infrastructure with scale, agility, routing innovation, and pervasive security while incorporating universal (10/40/100/400GbE) ports, the MPC-10E protects existing investments with disaggregated software innovation and infinite programmability. Built-in automation enables rapid deployment without disrupting the existing MX960/MX480/MX240 footprint. The MPC-10E line card is powered by Juniper Trio 5 silicon, which enables the benefits highlighted in Table 2.

Junos OS is a reliable, high-performance, modular network operating system that is supported across all of Juniper’s physical and virtual routing, switching, and security platforms. Junos OS improves network operations and increases service availability, performance, and security with features like low-latency multicast, comprehensive quality of service (QoS), unified in-service software upgrade (unified ISSU), and Junos Continuity, which eliminates the risk and complexity of OS upgrades. With secure programming interfaces, versatile scripting support, and integration with popular orchestration frameworks, Junos OS offers flexible options for DevOps style management that can unlock more value from the network.

The programmable Trio chipset is Juniper-developed breakthrough silicon technology that is implemented across the MX Series portfolio. Its innovative design improves business economics by enabling a truly converged platform with maximum performance, service agility, and exceptional power and thermal efficiency.

Trio has a programmable forwarding data structure that allows fast microcode changes in the hardware itself, as well as a programmable lookup engine that allows inline service processing. Furthermore, Trio’s programmable QoS engine supports coarse and fine-grained queuing to efficiently address the diverse requirements of core, edge, and aggregation use cases.

With its proven extensibility and agility, the programmable Trio chipset helps network operators worldwide successfully address their most complex technical and market challenges, and promises to meet the requirements of emerging applications for many years to come.

MX Series platforms can host optionally licensed Junos OS-based network edge services at scale, both inline on MPCs as well as on dedicated service cards. Hosting network edge services on MX Series platforms reduces network cost and complexity by eliminating numerous elements, operating systems, and interconnections.

• MPCs support inline services using the programmable Trio chipset; supported services include flow monitoring, 1:1 Network Address Translation (NAT), port mirroring, generic routing encapsulation (GRE), IP tunneling, logical tunnels, lawful intercept, flow monitoring, and video monitoring.
• The MS-MPC and the MS-MIC provide dedicated processing for compute-intensive services such as carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT), IPsec, stateful firewall, deep packet inspection, flow monitoring, and load balancing.
• The MX-SPC3 provides security services such as carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT), IPsec, stateful firewall, deep packet inspection, IDS, traffic load balancing, Web filtering, and DNS sinkhole.
  
  

MX Series platforms ensure network and service availability with a broad set of multilayered physical, logical, and protocol-level resiliency features, including Juniper’s Virtual Chassis technology, which supports chassis-level redundancy while enabling users to manage two routers as a single element. Additionally, a multichassis link aggregation group (MC-LAG) implementation supports stateful chassis, card, and port redundancy, as well as subscriber and session persistence.

MX Series platforms use deep packet inspection to detect applications, and they consult with user-defined policies to determine traffic treatment on a per-application basis, enabling highly customized and differentiated services at scale. Working in conjunction with Juniper Networks Contrail^® Cloud Platform^TM, MX Series routers can also steer into complex service chains and stream granular data to analytics engines and back-office systems to permit real-time charging and end-user engagement at the application and content level.

Junos Continuity and unified ISSU features remove the downtime risks associated with implementing new hardware or upgrading operating systems.

• Junos Continuity eliminates OS upgrades and system reboots when adding new hardware to MX Series platforms; a plug-in package provides the drivers and support files needed to bring the hardware online.
• Unified ISSU reduces the risks associated with OS upgrades by enabling upgrades between two different Junos OS releases (major or minor) with no control plane disruption and minimal traffic disruption on the forwarding plane.

The Junos Telemetry Interface feature streams component-level data to monitoring, analytics, performance management, and visualization tools as well as to Path Computation Elements such as Juniper Networks NorthStar Controller. Analytics derived from this streaming telemetry can identify current and trending congestion, resource utilization, traffic volume, and buffer occupancy, which can be used to make informed decisions on network design and investments.

MX Series platforms support highly scalable and reliable hardware-based timing that meets the strictest LTE requirements, including Synchronous Ethernet for frequency, and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) for frequency and phase synchronization. Synchronous Ethernet and PTP can be combined in a “hybrid” mode to achieve the highest level of frequency (10 ppb) and phase (< 1.5 uS) accuracy required for LTE-Advanced, eliminating the need for external clocks.

Junos Fusion Provider Edge enables MX Series platforms to act as aggregation devices for the Juniper Networks EX4300 Ethernet Switch and QFX5100 line of data center switching platforms acting as satellite devices while appearing to management as a single, port-dense device managed by a single IP address. Junos Fusion Provider Edge significantly expands the number of network interfaces on the MX Series router while keeping operations simple.

Juniper’s Automated Support and Prevention consists of an ecosystem of tools, applications, and systems that simplify and streamline operations, delivering operational efficiency, reducing downtime, and increasing your network’s ROI running Junos OS. Automated Support and Prevention brings operational efficiency by automating several time-consuming tasks such as incident management, inventory management, proactive bug notification, and on-demand End-of-Life/End-of-Support/End-of-Engineering (EOL/EOS/EOE) reports. The Junos Space^® Service Now and Service Insight service automation tools are standard entitlements of all Juniper Care contracts.

Included in Junos OS software, the Junos Automation Toolkit is a suite of tools supported on all Juniper Networks switches, routers, and security devices. These tools, which leverage the native XML capabilities of Junos OS, include commit scripts, op scripts, event policies and event scripts, and macros that help automate operational and configuration tasks. Additionally, the platform-independent Juniper Extension Toolkit provides a modern programming tool kit that includes support for:

• OpenConfig/YANG
• gRPC, Thrift, NETCONF
• JSON/XML
• API support for all modern programming languages
• Rich on-box scripting support using Python
• REST APIs

Together, Junos OS automation and programmability features simplify complex configurations and reduce the potential for configuration errors. They also save time by automating operational and configuration tasks, speed troubleshooting, and maximize network uptime by warning operators of potential problems and automatically responding to system events.

The MX960, MX480, and MX240 can be used for advanced threat prevention when deployed as edge routers, further extending security coverage to applications and infrastructure.

Using Juniper’s SecIntel capabilities, these MX Series routers offer another layer of network security by identifying and blocking command and control traffic discovered by Juniper Threat Labs and other industry-leading threat feeds, as well as by utilizing custom blacklists and whitelists at a network hardware level. This feature makes your MX Series router an information security enforcement point without having to invest in additional hardware.

One Subscriber Access (SA) license is required per chassis, and provides:

• Per-subscriber RADIUS accounting (time- and volume-based)
• RADIUS-based authentication and authorization
• Subscriber configuration via client profiles at subscriber login
• RADIUS and/or SDX-based address (pool) management
• Static and dynamic IP management
• Dynamic auto-sensed VLANs

Subscriber Services Management licenses are optional additions to Subscriber Access licenses that offer:

• Per-service RADIUS accounting (time- and volume-based)
• Service profile activation/deactivation at subscriber login via RADIUS grants/access accepts (services activation/deactivation VSAs); or change existing sessions via RADIUS COA/RID or Session and Resource Control (SRC)
• Parameterization of service profiles
• ANCP QoS adjustment based on sync rate via Access Node Control Protocol (ANCP)

Additional Subscriber Services Management licenses are available to support Inline L2TP LNS Tunneling, Subscriber-Based Lawful Intercept, Virtual Chassis, and interface with policy management systems, as indicated in the table below.

These tiered licenses support from 4000 to 256,000 sessions and are bound to one chassis.

These tiered licenses support from 4000 to 256,000 sessions and are bound to one chassis.

• USA: Junos OS
• Worldwide: Junos-WW

At Juniper Networks, we are dedicated to dramatically simplifying network operations and driving superior experiences for end users. Our solutions deliver industry-leading insight, automation, security and AI to drive real business results. We believe that powering connections will bring us closer together while empowering us all to solve the world’s greatest challenges of well-being, sustainability and equality. 

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