Juniper Networks Plans to Incorporate Internet of Things Into the Data Center

On Wednesday, March 11, Juniper Networks announced its plans for the rest of 2015 during its Innovation Showcase, including provisions for boosting network performance, automation, scalability, and security throughout its data centers.

According to ZDNet.com, the enterprise networking company’s most ambitious plan for 2015 might be its intent to integrate the so-called “Internet of Things” into its data centers.

By definition, the Internet of Things is the rapidly-growing network of everyday physical objects that are embedded with electronics or software that allows them to send or receive data. Juniper’s estimates state that by 2020 — just five years from now — there will be 50 billion connected devices belonging to approximately 7.6 billion people. That’s a mind-boggling number of objects that will become gadgets, and will require a new kind of server.

To accommodate this deluge of data brought about by the Internet of Things, Juniper said it plans to outfit its servers with a new series of switches, additional firewall services, improved analytics and automation capabilities, and a converged architecture design. The new Juniper data center, the QFX10000, boasts switches with 100G Ethernet connectivity, as well.

Additionally, the company’s recently-debuted Junos Fusion approach for its data center infrastructure management proves to give the Internet of Things the data hub it needs to run successfully. Junos Fusion is a set of standards that emphasizes centralized management and provides a virtual buffer for its switches.

“This is about fundamentally changing the basics of networking for both our enterprise customers and our service provider customers,” Jonathan Davidson, general manager of Juniper’s development and innovation unit, said.