7/12/2005 -- Cisco Systems Inc. archrival Juniper Networks has made a lot of hay out of its being tapped to provide the routing underpinnings for the AARNet Pty Ltd (APL) backbone, the third generation of Australia's Academic and Research Network.

On paper, anyway, Juniper’s victory makes for a compelling vindication of its technology vision: The AARNet is designed to provide Internet services to Australia's universities, research institutions and others, serving more than 1 million end users and delivering 1 petabyte of traffic -- with traffic expected to grow by more than 50 percent annually.

In other words, just the kind of environment for which Cisco’s best-in-class Carrier Routing System-1 (CRS-1) was designed.

It’s a PR-ic victory of sorts for Juniper, however, according to Glen Hunt, a senior analyst for carrier infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis.

Fact is, says Hunt, the AARNet deal also has certain costs associated with it.

“The significance of the win centers around the M-series being able to meet rapidly increasing yearly bandwidth needs, as well as the ability to provide support for both IPv4 and IPv6 support with interworking on a high availability platform,” he points out. At the same time, Hunt stresses, Juniper probably doesn’t expect AARNet to be a cash cow. “Juniper should not look at the AARNet as a large source of revenue, but as a proving ground for many of its capabilities such as IPv4–IPv6 interworking. AARNet may stress the capabilities beyond currently tested levels, exposing issues in Junos or other areas of the system.”

For one thing, says Hunt, AARNet -- like many not-for-profits -- will almost certainly be budget constrained, so deployments may progress more slowly than planned. Juniper will also need to provide significant technical support for the project -- perhaps more than APL is willing or able to pay for, he notes.

“Juniper and other vendors have equipment in many similar types of research networks. The efforts expended may not always grow revenues or profits and may actually result in loss of opportunity if the support burdens become significant,” he points out.

Nevertheless, the win is another excellent opportunity for Juniper to strut its stuff in a market that’s currently dominated by Cisco. “Juniper’s success in the service provider market is second only to Cisco, and this win shows that Juniper has maintained a competitive posture,” he concludes, adding that Cisco should trumpet the capabilities of its next-gen CRS-1 in the 10-Gigabit Ethernet space. -Stephen Swoyer