Juniper EX Series Ethernet Switches Reviews

Throughout my experience, I've deployed Juniper EX switches in various environments, from small enterprise networks to large-scale data centers. In every instance, they have consistently delivered exceptional performance, uptime, and scalability.

One of the standout features of Juniper EX switches is their ease of management. The Junos operating system is intuitive and easy to use, even for complex configurations. The CLI is consistent and logical, making it simple to navigate and troubleshoot.

In terms of reliability, I've found Juniper EX switches to be rock-solid. They've withstood countless firmware updates, configuration changes, and even the occasional power outage without skipping a beat.

Security is another area where Juniper EX switches shine. With advanced features like firewall filters and MACsec encryption, I've been able to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of my networks.

I use Juniper EX series switches for various purposes, including in larger enterprises and software companies. They are proposed for connectivity in VoIP environments using multiple VLAN ID configurations. 

Additionally, I recommend Juniper for CCTV, IP telephony, and data communication.

Juniper EX series switches offer great technology, particularly their Virtual Chassis technology, which is an excellent feature for stacking switches and functions like a single virtual switch. The EX series provides a separation of control, management, and data planes, reducing the attack surface area, ensuring a lesser extent of vulnerability. The PoE budget is commendable, and they manage connectivity effectively.

The version we're using depends on the model. We use QFX a lot, including versions 5100, 5110, and 5120. For the 4300 and 4400 campus switches, we're running version 21.4.

The solution is deployed on-premises. Juniper doesn't support cloud. 

Juniper just bought an orchestration management platform called Abstract.
Abstract is all greenfield, meaning that it's designed to be built from the ground up. You can't incorporate it with the existing infrastructure.

We have over a million users. I work for AWS, so we do a lot of deployment in Juniper.

If you know Juniper syntax, it's simple to deploy, simple to set up, very cheap, and cost effective for an average network.

A lot of our deployments are hybrid cloud that we do for clients. We are personally using an on-premises installation.  

Our clients' use cases for Juniper Ethernet Switches are pretty broad as far as the industries covered. There are clients that are urgent care facilities, physician's offices, legal offices, restaurants — it really runs across the boards as far as industries. The USDA has a number of Juniper switches that we put in for them.  

When you are doing switching for anybody — it could be Motorola or Sprint or a restaurant that is relatively small and has 45 employees — it does not matter. They all have the same PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance needs. If they are in the medical industry in urgent care — like Duke Medical System or just a freestanding office — they all still have the same HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance. When we are configuring switches, we are not only looking at port density in terms of the number of devices that are hooking to it. We are also looking at the VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) configurations and a number of other things. Whether you are dealing with multilink, VLANs, being able to specifically control certain ports, control certain applications, or whatever, you are using almost every feature to some degree on every switch because the utility is valuable.  

One of the nicest things about Juniper switches is they work well with other vendor products. When you have to go into a situation where other vendor switches are present, you can make it work.  

We primarily use the solution for the core environment and not in the access environment.

It's got a very strong CLI and many good features, like ACLs and all those kinds of things. We can manage with CLI and we have pretty good experience with our security.

It's pretty good as compared to other vendors.

The solution is simple to implement. 

It's easy to use. 

We use the EX series for switching. We use both POE and the standard option. We mainly use 48 port ones because we have quite a large area to cover for networking. We use three or four VLANs on each. The models we use are the EX 2300 and 3300.

We use the Juniper SRX 3040s in a cluster configuration and we have five offices around the globe. And our main office is in Bristol and has two 3034s in the cluster configuration. We've also got a VPN between all the sites. Our other sites use SRX 3020s, which will allow a gigabit to pass through on the firewall.

Our company has about 150 people spread across five continents with multiple offices across the globe. There are four of us at the moment in my team that deal with the actual devices. 

Their web GUI interface needs to be a lot better, especially when compared to HP. The command line is good, but you have to know how to get around it. The GUI is clunky and very slow.  

HP switches, in comparison, are easier to use because you can either have it as an options menu or you can actually just do command line, which is brilliant. When using Juniper and trying to do configurations on the actual switch, some of my team don't know how to do the command line. 

This solution is quite expensive compared to HP. Their support is also costly. A 1900 HP broker of Switch comes with a lifetime warranty compared to an EX 2300 which only has a five-year warranty on it.

We use it across our whole environment. We use it for everything from our core to our edge. It is basically deployed everywhere. A good percentage of our Juniper switches are in a stacked array. For example, we do four 48-port switches for a wiring closet in a building. They're all stacked together, and they call it ActivChassis. Most companies, such as HP, ADTRAN, also do the same kind of thing. So, we do a virtual chassis formation in our wiring closet. For smaller buildings that only need one switch, we do a single switch at the distant end.

We have a lot from the 2300 Series. We have one 3300 and quite a few from the 3400 Series. We also have one 4550, and we have also been buying the 4350 series ones.

The thing that sets Juniper apart from most switches is that when you're in the command line and you make a configuration change, you just write the command and then say "commit confirmed minutes". For example, I'm configuring a switch here in my office, which is five miles away, and I say, "commit confirmed 5". If I can't get back to the interface within five minutes to be able to make sure the switch came up, it rolls back to the previous configuration. This way I do not get locked out, or the switch doesn't get messed up because of the incorrect configuration. That's an automatic feature, which is pretty slick. I haven't seen that feature with other vendors that I've worked with. That's probably my most favorite feature.

A nice thing about Juniper is that they also have a GUI interface, and it is a little bit better than most other vendors. Their GUI interface does more than a lot of other vendors.

Another nice thing about Juniper is that their training is available for free on their website. I wanted to get certified with Juniper, and I did it for free. On the entry-level exam, they pay for 75% of the exam if you take it through their website.

In terms of performance, Juniper switches have a more user-friendly interface and more features than Cisco products. However, in terms of commands, Cisco is simple to use, and the command line is easier to use.

The only issue that we have with Juniper Ethernet Switches is the firmware because it is not stable.

When the power goes out, it's possible that it has become corrupted, and we couldn't continue because the switches stopped working. As a result, Juniper products were affected. Also, the power circuits may become corrupted after five years. It is, however, stable in Cisco switches.

We think it's popular. We prefer to use Cisco CLI commands rather than Juniper CLI commands.