Juniper and Ruckus team up, target enterprises

Juniper Networks and Ruckus Wireless have entered into a technology alliance to deliver open, wired and wireless networking solutions to enterprise, government and education customer segments.

The companies will work to deliver a unified wired and wireless solution, as well as collaborate on global go-to-market opportunities.

Gartner predicts that end-user spending on enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment will grow from $5.3 billion in 2015 to $7.8 billion worldwide in 2019.

Ruckus and Juniper Networks believe this increase is being driven largely by an influx of new WiFi-enabled devices and cloud applications being brought into the workplace by employees.

This puts new levels of performance and bandwidth pressure on the campus network infrastructure, from WiFi access points to the network core, creating the need for a flexible, secure and integrated wired and wireless network solution.

The goal of this technology alliance is to deliver network flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership for the vendor's joint customers.

"Enterprises around the world are being challenged to accommodate the use of more and more mobile devices and applications, while still maintaining a secure, high-performance operating environment.

"Juniper Networks provides the wired infrastructure critical for serving as the backbone for the Smart WiFi networks we deliver.

"This 'no-compromise' partnership offers the value and ROI that businesses are looking for, with the performance, flexibility and scalability they demand." - Dan Rabinovitsj, chief operating officer, Ruckus Wireless

Building on Juniper's Open Converged Framework, the planned alliance is based on open, standards-based hardware and software products from both Juniper Networks and Ruckus.

Combining Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches with Ruckus ZoneFlex access points and SmartZone (SZ) Wi-Fi management platform, will deliver carrier-class networking solutions to various enterprise environments and enable network expansion.

The Ruckus Wireless 3+1 SmartZone clustering and Juniper's Virtual Chassis technology reduces the number of logical wired and wireless devices for management and automation with maximum availability.

Juniper Networks Junos Space Network Director provides visibility and management of the switching infrastructure.

Comprehensive security will be achieved with 802.1x network access control on both Ruckus Smart WiFi and Juniper Networks EX Series Switches.

Ruckus will deliver secure BYOD provisioning and onboarding, while the Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways delivers next-generation firewall capabilities.