MX-series
From Juniper Clue
The MX-Series are a family of Carrier Ethernet Switch Routers (CESRs), originally launched in early 2007 with the MX960, and followed later with smaller MX480 and MX240 systems.
Second-gen MX-series (MX 3D) arrived late 2009 and included new chipset ("Trio") with rich IP/MPLS processing and subscriber management capabilities, 120G/slot linecards and a new compact chassis (MX80).
All of MX-Series chassis share common DPC and SCB components for interfaces and forwarding. MX-series sheet metal and some cards are also reused in SRX series high-end security applicances.
MX-series Products
First Generation
The MX960 became Juniper's first ethernet-centric "services switch" product, and marked the introduction of the DPC interface card. Interface cards are built around Juniper's proprietary full-duplex 10gbps NPU I-Chip, which integrates the functionality of the Internet Processor II and several other chips on one die (including Tunnel PIC functionality). Individual 10GE interfaces can be configured to provide tunnel services (the physical interface is not available for use). On the 40xGigE DPC, a 1gbps "11th PIC" on each of the four I-Chips can be used for this purpose without impacting the 10 physical interfaces controlled by the chip. Initially, I-chip was developed for edge functionality similar to Juniper M-series, so Juniper added EZChip NP-2 NPU for Ethernet-specific L2 functionality and (optional) rich queuing to MX linecards. This tandem of two highly integrated chips ensured speed and feature growth potential, with density sufficient to provide full-duplex 40G forwarding on one DPC card with four I-chip/EZ complexes. This design quickly gained market from service providers, who were pleased with rich IP/MPLS feature set and clear Ethernet focus of the device.
Second Generation (MX3D)
The second generation of MX hardware was introduced by Juniper in 4Q2009 and is built around a brand-new "Trio" chipset. There are no 3rd party NPUs in the design. The new 30Gbps (full-duplex) NPU is the company's first chip oriented towards the "common edge" and integrating rich L2/L3 and broadband subscriber management functionality. The new network cards (MPC) employ a constellation of four "Trio" chips for full-duplex throughput of 120 Gbps per slot (with support for up to 16x10GE ports with 4:3 oversubscription ratio), though under some conditions users may be able to achieve better oversubscription.
Competition
At launch, MX-series mainly competed with Cisco 7600 and Alcatel 7750. The second generation of MX-series (MX3D) is now positioned against A7750 equipped with IOM3 hardware (50Gbps full-duplex per slot), and the Cisco ASR9000-series platform.
