Any make-or-break differences between Cisco and Juniper?

Funny, but I am a Network student that obviously loves networking. As part of being a student, I am in the Cisco Networking Academy through school. Going to be taking my CCENT next week and want to have CCNA by the time the fall semester starts. A few weeks back I landed an IT internship, which I absolutely love doing, although it is mostly help desk and imaging systems. Today I was given a tour of the data center and wiring closets. It is a complete Juniper operation! lol I was hoping it would be Cisco... anyway, just curious on what are the core differences between the two? I have zero experience with Juniper, just recognize the name.

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shodown

Cisco and Juniper are pretty close as far as following standards, cisco has its add ons like CEF, EIGRP, and a few BGP attributes. Juniper runs process seperate inside that allows for some fancier features like running debugs that can bring a cisco router down in production, and also juniper has some roll back features that people rant and rave about. I haven't logged onto a Juniper since 2009, but I remember that the BGP/OSPF implementations were pretty close to each other outside of the commands being a little different. I'll go to far as to say I like Junipers more in the WAN than cisco, but I prefer cisco at the branch site.

I've only touched a juniper switch one time, so I can't comment much about it.

pamccabe

Interesting. I might have to take a look after I finish my CCNA. Thanks for the reply.

higherho

Just remember that the JUNOS OS is basically a unix backend too (some pros and cons for that). I've been using Juniper EX4200's and 4500's for the past 7 months now and I'm really enjoying it. Being able to drop into a unix shell is very helpful imo, also updating Juniper systems is much easier than cisco.

For example; SCP (ftw) your update to the junipers /var/tmp and then jump back into cli mode and type in request system software add no-copy /var/tmp/file name then reboot system.

I like how you can roll back updates, etc. I find the JUNOS OS a bit more innovative than Cisco's but I still like cisco hardware better. As for OSPF the major difference is the fact that you cannot just do "network then IP / mask" when adding networks to your OSPF config. Instead on JUNOS you do VLAN interfaces instead and propagating it. Though my professor once told me this; switching is switching and routing is routing. Meaning the only difference between vendors is vendor specific stuff but the general concepts and non vendor specific routing protocols, etc is the same.

NetworkVeteran

pamccabe wrote: »

Today I was given a tour of the data center and wiring closets. It is a complete Juniper operation! lol I was hoping it would be Cisco... anyway, just curious on what are the core differences between the two? I have zero experience with Juniper, just recognize the name.

By and large they run the same protocols--RSTP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, LDP, RSVP-TE, FCoE, etc. If you're studying right, you're focusing on those--especially the non-proprietary protocols--which will put you in good standing with any vendor. The steps to configure or troubleshoot core protocols tends to be relatively similar whether you use Cisco, Juniper, ALU, or Brocade.

NetworkVeteran

higherho wrote: »

I find the JUNOS OS a bit more innovative than Cisco's

Fair enough, although Juniper had the advantage of inventing their OS many years after IOS and thus learning from its challenges. When you compare JunOS to Cisco's more recent IOS-XR, the behavior is fairly similar.

DevilWAH

For the bog standard networking stuff, there is really no difference apart from the CLI interface. I say that the CISCO interface is easier to user and more logical. But this might be because I know it so well and Juniper is just different. If you were starting of from scratch maybe Juniper is just as easy.

I think its only once you get in to advanced features and niche areas that the differences become apparent. Cisco is still a trend setter so many of the standards they played a big part in developing and have a very solid base to implement from. Juniper to me did seem to have a little more "open source" feel to it, and not as finely polished. But as far as I can see all the standard are meet and working.

One working practice that is different is that while with CISCO most commands take place as soon as you hit return at the end of a line, with JonOS you have to commit the changes. I like CISCO's method (again maybe just cause I am use to it), but JonOS method does mean you can carry out a number of steps that would result in losing connectivity part way though, some thing that is a bit more fiddly to do with cisco.

But I would deffently suggest playing with Juniper at some point in your career, you are almost certian to come across a network that uses it, and while with HP if you know CISCO you can easily work with HP. Juniper interface is different and takes a few days to get your head around the new ways to do things.

it_consultant

If they are using Juniper then at some point they did a comparison, undoubtedly Cisco was included, and they chose Juniper. You could simply ask them why they chose Juniper over HP, Alcatel-Lucent, Brocade, Extreme, Enterysis, Avaya, etc. It will be a good opportunity to learn about Capex, Opex, support agreements, etc. Things of that naturego into a decision like that. Be kind of careful when you ask, it is insulting and unprofessional when you say something like "Why WOULDN'T you go with Cisco?".

DevilWAH

Lets put it this way, the most advanced network in the UK (janet), that deals with data coming from CERN, and all the major research institutes that transmit petibites of data a day runs Juniper at its core. janet is designed for high throughput and extreamly low latency, and they pride them selves of being one of the world leading research networks with some of the best engineers around working on it. If juniper is good enough for them, then I suggest there not a company or product to be dismissed lightly.

it_consultant

One of our moderators is a juniper guy. I know of at least 2 ISPs in the Denver are and several Canadian ones who are majority Juniper. If you work for Verizon or ATT you will see huge Alcatel-Lucent installations. Lockheed Martin moved from Cisco to Brocade ethernet fabric and traditional FC with Juniper routers and Juniper firewalls.

There is a big world of networking out there!

higherho

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

Fair enough, although Juniper had the advantage of inventing their OS many years after IOS and thus learning from its challenges. When you compare JunOS to Cisco's more recent IOS-XR, the behavior is fairly similar.

Ah, I never played with IOS-XR. I've only used the following Cisco devices;

ASA 5510
Cisco 3750G
Cisco 3760G

On the juniper side

EX4200's
EX4500's

I like Cisco hardware a lot more and since you stated IOS-XR is similar to JUNOS OS, then I would go back on my previous statement then about JUNOS being more innovative.

Mrock4

higherho wrote: »

For example; SCP (ftw) your update to the junipers /var/tmp and then jump back into cli mode and type in request system software add no-copy /var/tmp/file name then reboot system.

Or you can run Cisco LMS and push updates to all of your devices simultaneously- stage updates, schedule reboots, rollback images, etc...which is pretty awesome.

DevilWAH

higherho wrote: »

For example; SCP (ftw) your update to the junipers /var/tmp and then jump back into cli mode and type in request system software add no-copy /var/tmp/file name then reboot system.
.

How is that easier than cisco?

#copy tftp:/ipaddress/file name flash:
reboot

of course you can stick in a system boot command two if you want.

Both are pretty straight forward, and you can use FTP or Scp on cisco if you want.

Mrock4 wrote: »

Or you can run Cisco LMS and push updates to all of your devices simultaneously- stage updates, schedule reboots, rollback images, etc...which is pretty awesome.

yer but LMS ain't free is it?! I mean I run with cisco prime LMS and its cool but you can't compare I here.

Mrock4

DevilWAH wrote: »

yer but LMS ain't free is it?! I mean I run with cisco prime LMS and its cool but you can't compare I here.

No way, LMS is not free..I am talking about Cisco Prime LMS..same thing. I've worked with it a lot lately and love it.

higherho

@MROCK

Enterprise level tools do sound quite amazing and makes things much easier.

DevilWAH wrote: »

How is that easier than cisco?

#copy tftp:/ipaddress/file name flash:
reboot

of course you can stick in a system boot command two if you want.

Both are pretty straight forward, and you can use FTP or Scp on cisco if you want.

thats true. I guess I just like the unix backend to JUNOS.