Cisco and Juniper

new2net

Hello there.. I was wondering what is the main difference when between vendors. I was speaking to someone the other day who told me his company is replacing existing Cisco stuff with Juniper stuff... Of course I asked him why??? After about 5 minutes of not getting a straight answer, it made me wonder why they would do this? Searching around the net, I discovered that Cisco has wayyy more marketshare. Just wondering what the main reasons might be for such move?

There are some articles on the net where people either be to support all Juniper or all Cisco with no clear reasons..

Just curious about your opinions...

This thread actaully made me more curious:
http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/45726-advanced-jobs.html
as it referred to the JNCIA as the Golden Meal Ticket

networker050184

new2net wrote: »

This thread actaully made me more curious:
http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/45726-advanced-jobs.html
as it referred to the JNCIA as the Golden Meal Ticket

I'm pretty sure that was a joke in that thread.

It all comes down to the selling point most of the time. Juniper can offer X services for X price and Cisco can offer X service for X price. The company will make their decision depending on which meets their company's goals. There are other things to consider besides price also like trained staff, support, life cycle etc.

RTmarc

new2net wrote: »

Searching around the net, I discovered that Cisco has wayyy more marketshare.

Just wanted to make the comment that superior market share does not equate to superior products. Cisco and Juniper are like Sam's Club and Costco. They both do the same thing just have different nuances. There are areas Cisco is better at one thing and there are others that Juniper is superior.

Bottom line, you can't go wrong with either.

human151

RTmarc wrote: »

Just wanted to make the comment that superior market share does not equate to superior products. Cisco and Juniper are like Sam's Club and Costco. They both do the same thing just have different nuances. There are areas Cisco is better at one thing and there are others that Juniper is superior.

Bottom line, you can't go wrong with either.

Some things are proprietary to CISCO, which means you cant do them on Juniper. Ive nev er used Juniper but im sure they have some proprietary protocols as well.

Pash

Golden meal ticket. Nope.

Learn Juniper and Cisco equipment thoroughly and that will definitely set you on your way. In all honestly, if you get yourself in a shop where senior or management staff know your skills and you prove your skills to them, this is the type of quality that gets you noticed, not a JNCIA or a CCNA .

I am aware that most places require these certs to even get your foot in the door, but make sure you try to do as much hands on and reading as you can. A colleague of mine got his first job in IT by performing a password reset/recovery on a Cisco router in his interview, that type of situation may be rare but it does happen apparently.

Don't be afraid to pop by the boards and ask questions.

mikej412

new2net wrote: »

I was speaking to someone the other day who told me his company is replacing existing Cisco stuff with Juniper stuff... Of course I asked him why???

If you follow the business news you would have seen that sales at both Juniper and Cisco were down because of the Economy -- if you've got the money you can get some great deals.

Juniper makes it easy and currently FREE to get Juniper Certified for a couple of the JNCIA & JNCIS Certifications. All you need to provide is your time, study effort, and hopefully some hands on practice. Juniper gives you access to FREE PDFs of the old Sybex Juniper Certification Books (check out the low Cisco CCIE # of the authors) and access to other online training.

There are fewer Juniper Certified Individuals out there -- but there are also fewer Juniper jobs listed.

Kaminsky

I have seen more Juniper jobs available here near London where a lot of people are migrating to Juniper from Cisco especially at the core. The salaries/hourly rates are very nice to due to the lack of Juniper operating knowledge out there right now. One I saw was offering £1000 a day for the juniper equivelent of a ccnp with relevent experience. A ccnp in the same area certainly will not command that price tag.

Personally, I like the layout of JUNOS and the way you interact with it. As for putting them side by side to say which is better at what, I wouldn't have a clue but Juniper routing and switching is definately coming on compared to their firewalls which arn't that great according to a CCSP work colleague.

I am not sure if the recent growth in interest in their routers and switches is because of quality, price, the quality of ongoing the company support or the fact that Cisco is just so huge now but large companys are starting to move over for whatever reason.

I certainly am going to be adding Juniper into my Cisco knowledge. The way it is going, it won't be very long before you will need to interact with both on a network.

ChronusMaximus

mikej412 wrote: »

Juniper makes it easy and currently FREE to get Juniper Certified for a couple of the JNCIA & JNCIS Certifications. All you need to provide is your time, study effort, and hopefully some hands on practice. Juniper gives you access to FREE PDFs of the old Sybex Juniper Certification Books (check out the low Cisco CCIE # of the authors) and access to other online training.

I am a fan of free certifications! I looked it up but couldn't find anything about the free certification. Were you talking about the free resources or a free exam voucher like the Dream Spark program?

kalebksp

ChronusMaximus wrote: »

I am a fan of free certifications! I looked it up but couldn't find anything about the free certification. Were you talking about the free resources or a free exam voucher like the Dream Spark program?

Check out the Juniper FastTrack program. You have to pass a pre-assessment then they'll give you a voucher.

ChronusMaximus

Thanks! Sorry to hijack the thread. Back on topic...

luke_bibby

There are vendors OTHER than cisco???? Crazy!

Kaminsky

Finally found the free JNCIA study guide on Juniper site. Think it might be old but I have looked through it and it covers most of the material in the course I was sent on a couple of months ago.

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/certification/JNCIA_studyguide.pdf

wbosher

We've got a strange set up where I work. As I've mention before, I work for a Telco/ISP. When we set up a new corporate client, we set them up with Cisco gear. All of our clients (I think with the exception of maybe one or two) are using Cisco for their private networks, yet our core network (the Telco/ISP) is Juniper.

I have asked a few people why this is but no-one has been able to give me an answer.

tiersten

new2net wrote: »

After about 5 minutes of not getting a straight answer, it made me wonder why they would do this? Searching around the net, I discovered that Cisco has wayyy more marketshare. Just wondering what the main reasons might be for such move?

Some Cisco product ranges are better than Juniper product ranges. Some Juniper product ranges are better than Cisco product ranges. In other ranges, both might not be great and you need another brand.

At the end of the day, what brand you use is what one is preferred by whoever designs the network and budget. Both are good and should work well.

Its like asking why people buy cars from a manufacturer which doesn't have the largest marketshare.

Mark Knutson

Not seeing inexpensive junipers on ebay to practice on, though...

dynamik

Mark Knutson wrote: »

Not seeing inexpensive junipers on ebay to practice on, though...

I don't know if there are any. Look into Olives.

tiersten

Mark Knutson wrote: »

Not seeing inexpensive junipers on ebay to practice on, though...

Yeah. There doesn't seem to be a large supply of cheap Juniper equipment on eBay for some reason. You'll have to do what dynamik said and make an Olive and deal with the limitations on it. Thats your best option if you want Juniper/JunOS experience.

trackit

I think that if you have already studied for cisco certs then its not that hard to learn juniper and vice versa. I mean, the technology is mostly the same, the protocols are mostly the same. You already have a good knowledge in networking theory. Its just the way you configure it what differs. So i wouldnt worry much about studying for "right" certs ie choosing "should i go for cisco certs or juniper certs"... just do what you find more appealing or for what you have more recourses/hardware etc availible to get hands on.

Mark Knutson

tiersten wrote: »

Yeah. There doesn't seem to be a large supply of cheap Juniper equipment on eBay for some reason. You'll have to do what dynamik said and make an Olive and deal with the limitations on it. Thats your best option if you want Juniper/JunOS experience.

I speculate there are 3 reasons.

First, they are concentrating on the more profitable high end of the switching market, so no inexpensive models floating around.

Second, they haven't been around long enough with enough market share to have a bunch of old hardware floating around.

Third, maybe they don't keep the same dos-like OS interface for over a decade like cisco.

curtisdaley

I have seen many Juniper jobs popping up, with good pay just like some of the cisco job, like what people have said, its what the best of the given application, i've seen many jobs what are purely cisco and other what are purely juniper but i've also seen jobs with a mix, ie cisco routers and juniper firewalls, i hadn't seen juniper jobs for 1000 but for 500-550 but that was JNCIA and not JNCIE!

Forsaken_GA

As others have said, Juniper does some stuff really well. And if you Cisco experience, it's not really that hard to move between the two. Network concepts don't change just because the vendor does, it's just a matter of syntax at that point.

Another vendor to keep an eye out for is Force10. They make some really nice gear, and at a much cheaper price tag than Cisco. Like Juniper, the OS is BSD based, but the interface is very very similar to IOS, a Cisco Certified person would feel quite comfortable working on Force10 equipment, there's just small syntactical differences here and there. Force10 did this on purpose, as they're well aware of the number of Cisco Certified individuals out there, so they're reaping some benefit of Cisco's certification programs without having to implement their own

tiersten

Mark Knutson wrote: »

Third, maybe they don't keep the same dos-like OS interface for over a decade like cisco.

How does Cisco having the same CLI for a long time have anything to do with this? Technically, JunOS has a CLI that has been around for even longer since it uses BSD.

new2net

Thanks for all these replies. I wasn't clear on what the differences were between vendors. I wasn't sure if Juniper had a different way of doing things (such as different routing/routed protocols ect.) but reading through this thread it seems that the fundamentals are the same, with the exception of syntactical differences. I mean, Juniper still uses TCP/IP/Ethernet ect, right?

networker050184

new2net wrote: »

Thanks for all these replies. I wasn't clear on what the differences were between vendors. I wasn't sure if Juniper had a different way of doing things (such as different routing/routed protocols ect.) but reading through this thread it seems that the fundamentals are the same, with the exception of syntactical differences. I mean, Juniper still uses TCP/IP/Ethernet ect, right?

Yep. All vendors routers/switches are there to carry the same traffic.

dynamik

Each might have proprietary protocols or functionality though.

For example, I hear that Juniper slowly brainwashes you. A process that is complete when you obtain your IE and you are compelled to relocate to Canada to work for them. Just something to keep in mind...

Aldur

First of all, as a disclaimer, as many of you know I am heavily medicated atm and so I am warning everybody that my grammar will be impaired

new2net wrote: »

This thread actaully made me more curious:
http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/45726-advanced-jobs.html
as it referred to the JNCIA as the Golden Meal Ticket

That comment that I made was laced so heavy with sarcasm you could have glazed a dozen doughnuts with it. Thanks for pointing that out Networker. That comment was made in relation to no entry level cert being the "Golden Meal Ticket".

RTmarc wrote: »

Just wanted to make the comment that superior market share does not equate to superior products.

Good comment RTmarc. Saying Cisco equipment is better because it has more market share is like saying Microsoft is the best because they have the most market share....

human151 wrote: »

Some things are proprietary to CISCO, which means you cant do them on Juniper. Ive nev er used Juniper but im sure they have some proprietary protocols as well.

Well, Juniper really doesn't have any proprietary protocols such as IGRP or EIGRP. Juniper is huge on being stadards based for interop reasons. If you implement a priority protocol such as EIGRP then you're really forcing your customers to be locked into one vendor solution and anybody who works in a large network that I know of doesn't want that.

mikej412 wrote: »

There are fewer Juniper Certified Individuals out there -- but there are also fewer Juniper jobs listed.

Heh, not to open an old can of worms here but this is a very good point Mike. There are alot of Cisco related jobs out there and alot of Cisco certified people. Not nearly as many Juniper jobs but far less certified Juniper people. All I know is that when I picked up my JNCIE-M/T I had people knocking down my door wanting me to work for them. At this point I only had about 1 1/2 years exp in networking so I was taken back at the need. If I had my CCIE instead of my JNCIE I highly doubt that I would have had the job offers that I did have.

wbosher wrote: »

We've got a strange set up where I work. As I've mention before, I work for a Telco/ISP. When we set up a new corporate client, we set them up with Cisco gear. All of our clients (I think with the exception of maybe one or two) are using Cisco for their private networks, yet our core network (the Telco/ISP) is Juniper.

I have asked a few people why this is but no-one has been able to give me an answer.

This is more then likely a difference between managed services and core services. The corporate clients are probably more enterprise level and people who work the enterprise tend to have very little Juniper experience. Hence your company might have used this as a reason to use Cisco equipment. Then again they could have just got a great deal from Cisco to use their equipment for that service.

With the core your Telco/ISP chose to go Juniper. There were probably less external factors that influenced this decision but it's really hard to say.

It really boils down to internal management decisions here.

Mark Knutson wrote: »

Not seeing inexpensive junipers on ebay to practice on, though...

As far as routers go the cheapest you'll find is the J2300 which will go for around 400$ USD a pop. The Juniper switches are so new, came out earlier this year, that there hasn't been time for businesses to give them a life cycle and then put them on ebay.

Juniper is more focused on high end enterprise and core equipment so there is a lack of the small cheap stuff that you can find on ebay that would be nice for practicing this stuff.

As someone else mentioned "olives" are a cheap alternative to buying equipment off of ebay. There's even a virtualized form of olive that many people have used.

For more info go here.

Olive - JuniperClue

and here

Sid Smokes

trackit wrote: »

I think that if you have already studied for cisco certs then its not that hard to learn juniper and vice versa. I mean, the technology is mostly the same, the protocols are mostly the same. You already have a good knowledge in networking theory. Its just the way you configure it what differs. So i wouldnt worry much about studying for "right" certs ie choosing "should i go for cisco certs or juniper certs"... just do what you find more appealing or for what you have more recourses/hardware etc availible to get hands on.

This is so very true. Back before I started studying Juniper stuff I was preparing to take my CCNA. Right before I had planned on taking the cert I was hired on at JTAC. I have to say the things I learned in my CCNA studies were so helpful in my Juniper studies. The technologies were the same, I just had to learn a new snytax. The transition was pretty smooth. I personally plan on doing some good Cisco studying after I pick up my next JNCIE. I figure I should be able to breeze through alot of it and then I'll be able to pretty much go anywhere in the world

new2net wrote: »

Thanks for all these replies. I wasn't clear on what the differences were between vendors. I wasn't sure if Juniper had a different way of doing things (such as different routing/routed protocols ect.) but reading through this thread it seems that the fundamentals are the same, with the exception of syntactical differences. I mean, Juniper still uses TCP/IP/Ethernet ect, right?

Yes, the technologies are the same, just a syntax difference. I'd also like to mention that I've been told from many colleges, including a Cisco developer, that JunOS is much more stable since it is built of the FreeBSD kernel. I've heard this reiterated many times over in any multi-vendor environment that I've been in.

dynamik wrote: »

Each might have proprietary protocols or functionality though.

No proprietary protocols on Juniper routers, some proprietary functions. These are more add ons though. One thing that comes to mind is the automatic Fast Re-Route mechanism in which MPLS RSVP tunnels will automatically re-route around link failures with no additional configuration. However, examples like this are few and far inbetween. And it by no means excludes protocol interop between vendors.

dynamik wrote: »

For example, I hear that Juniper slowly brainwashes you. A process that is complete when you obtain your IE and you are compelled to relocate to Canada to work for them. Just something to keep in mind...

If I would have only knew sooner, If I only knew.... :P

To the OP there are some great reasons to migrate over to Juniper from Cisco but with me working for Juniper I'm sure most people would just call me a fanboy and flame my words

Suffice it to say that most people I know who work with Cisco routers really enjoy working with Juniper routers, and sometime even prefer it more

Kaminsky

tiersten wrote: »

How does Cisco having the same CLI for a long time have anything to do with this? Technically, JunOS has a CLI that has been around for even longer since it uses BSD.

I heard that the guys that wrote IOS left Cisco and formed Juniper and wrote JUNOS. Anyone know if this is true ?

Could be one of those fables like the guy who wrote Novell NDS was poached by Microsoft to write Active Directory. Now that I do believe as I was a Novell Admin at the time and they AD seemed a blatent rip off of NDS.

Kaminsky

dynamik wrote: »

... For example, I hear that Juniper slowly brainwashes you. A process that is complete when you obtain your IE and you are compelled to relocate to Canada to work for them. Just something to keep in mind...

I got married a year and a half ago. Another week with that seriously bright (ccie and almost same Juniper equivelent) Venuzualan Juniper trainer when I got sent to Herndon, Washington dc, and I would have been seriously thinking about coming out of retirement.

There is something about a georgous, very network savvy Latin female, animatedly talking about congested interfaces with all the worst possible hand gestures. Woah ! /shudder /cold shower.

Could have sold me anything... including Juniper, HP switches, whatever.. after that. Blimy, those sorts of tactics just aren't fair on a man away from his mrs for a whole week.

Kaminsky

Another interesting point about the certs I personally think.

I hear lots of folks that have had ccna a long time ago and the current cisco certs have so much more information/ability requirements from those early days.

Juniper, with their free offers to take the low level certs and offering the free book are desperately trying to get people to cert up and it could be wondered if the current exams are requiring the same amount of information as they may be asking for in ten years when thousands of people have them.

Juniper is really coming on fast and companys are first life cycling their access level routers and switches. 2009 is a great time to get in on the ground floor with Juniper certs and get a head start on later competition. Keep in mind though that quite a lot of the industry is currently Cisco though. Folks like Aldur even with admitedly 1.5 years experience are never going to poor again. That's got to speak volumes.

Forsaken_GA

Aldur wrote: »

Then again they could have just got a great deal from Cisco to use their equipment for that service.

That'd be a first. Cisco *loves* their profit margins.

Dealing with Cisco as a vendor is a huge pain in the ass. We had a few folks giving us bids for some new gear we wanted to buy. The Cisco sales rep flat out lied about a few things, and AT&T was willing to give us a better deal on brand new factory sealed Cisco equipment than Cisco themselves were!

Aldur

Kaminsky wrote: »

I heard that the guys that wrote IOS left Cisco and formed Juniper and wrote JUNOS. Anyone know if this is true ?

Could be one of those fables like the guy who wrote Novell NDS was poached by Microsoft to write Active Directory. Now that I do believe as I was a Novell Admin at the time and they AD seemed a blatent rip off of NDS.

I know that the guys who started Juniper worked for Cisco in the higher ranks and they left Cisco to form Juniper. They took the knowledge they had and they built JunOS around the idea making a better, more stable and user friendly OS then IOS.

JunOS is different enough from IOS that it is in no way a copy of IOS, like some other OS's out there, but I would think it's safe to say that the founders of Juniper took many valuable lessons from working at Cisco when they formed Juniper.