UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND CHOOSES JUNIPER NETWORKS QFABRIC FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING DATA CENTERS

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND CHOOSES JUNIPER NETWORKS QFABRIC FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING DATA CENTERS

Data Center Makeover Delivers Simple Management, Improved Efficiencies and Seamless Scale across the University’s Campus Network

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, June 14, 2012 – Juniper Networks, the industry leader in network innovation, has announced that its revolutionary QFabric™ system will be deployed by the University of Auckland (UoA) at its two key data center sites to provide low-latency performance, scalability and operational simplicity. The University is also upgrading its campus network with Juniper Networks® EX Series Ethernet Switches, which will boost performance and increase both scalability and resiliency while reducing operational overhead.

The University of Auckland is New Zealand's largest university. With more than 32,000 full time-equivalent students and nearly 5,000 staff spread across its main city campus and four specialist campuses, it is the only one in the country among the top 200 of The Times Higher Education World Rankings of Universities. It is New Zealand’s pre-eminent research-led institution, employing a third of the country’s top-ranked researchers, and is now home to a new supercomputer deployed under the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) initiative.

News Highlights

• The UoA has a high-performance and heavily virtualized data center environment with approximately 2,100 virtual machines that, together with the new NeSI supercomputer, demands dense 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) top-of-rack connectivity today, with a pathway to 100 GbE in a few years.
• Juniper Networks QFabric was selected for the low-latency performance, scalability and operational simplicity it will bring to a new data center being built at UoA’s Tamaki Innovation Campus, which is particularly focused on high-performance computing as well as improving the University’s business continuity capabilities.
• Having chosen the QFabric system for the new Tamaki data center network, the university decided that it also wanted to extend the same QFabric benefits to a second data center site.
• Juniper Networks EX8216 and EX4500 Ethernet Switches, installed in the UoA’s existing data center last year, will be redeployed within the campus.
• Existing and new EX4500 switches will provide a 10GbE network aggregation layer at all campuses, connecting over fiber-optic cables and leveraging Juniper Networks Virtual Chassis technology to form a resilient, single-but-distributed logical switch.
• The EX8216 switches will form a new high-performance, high-capacity and highly available campus network core.
• With Juniper Networks Junos® running as a single operating system across all these switching platforms, and the extensive use of Virtual Chassis technology, UoA will be able to streamline network operations and reduce its operational costs.
• Juniper Networks Professional Services are working with UoA on a multi-phase implementation of the new switching infrastructure with the first QFabric System due to be in place at the Tamaki data center by mid-July. The second QFabric system, together with the new campus core and aggregation infrastructure, is scheduled to be online by the end of the year.

Supporting Quotes

University of Auckland
“The University is often in the position of being a trailblazer in adopting new technology and this is certainly the case with the Juniper Networks QFabric system. Last year we started following Juniper Networks’ 3-2-1 data center network simplification strategy by deploying a new two-layer network that’s actually been working really well. Having evaluated the QFabric system, we found its operational and low-latency performance advantages, which are particularly important to high-performance computing, to be so compelling we decided to adopt it as our standard infrastructure across both data centers. In addition, the common functionality throughout Juniper Networks EX Series switches enabled us to redeploy the solutions and give the campus network a much needed upgrade.”
- James Harper, associate director, Operations, University of Auckland

Juniper Networks
“From the deployment of the first of our switches at its Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the Grafton Campus in 2010, the University of Auckland is rapidly becoming a global showcase for Juniper Networks’ high-performance switching technology. This deployment illustrates the multi-dimensional value of QFabric by providing exceptionally high performance combined with reduced infrastructure and operating costs. We look forward to working with the University to ensure that its new data center network fabrics deliver world-class performance and operational economies.”
- Mark Iles, managing director, Australia and New Zealand, Juniper Networks

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About Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks is in the business of network innovation. From devices to data centers, from consumers to cloud providers, Juniper Networks delivers the software, silicon and systems that transform the experience and economics of networking. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net)or connect with Juniper on Twitter and Facebook.