Juniper Networks ACX710
Universal Metro Router

Overview:

The ACX710 Universal Metro Router delivers operational and deployment flexibility, featuring high 1GbE/10GbE to 100GbE port density and advanced timing and synchronization features in a fixed, hardened, 1 U form factor designed for a variety of Metro Access and Aggregation environments. The ACX710 supports a comprehensive set of service provider, enterprise, and utility use cases, including Ethernet business services, cable distributed access architectures (DAA), residential fiber, and 5G mobile applications.

Juniper is here to help service providers transform their business and operations with our agile, open, on-demand, secure, and assured solutions for the Cloud + 5G + AI era. Foundational to this transformation are network elements designed to seamlessly integrate and interact with the broader architecture. Juniper refers to this as our IP Service Fabric, essential for operators to compete, thrive, and exceed customer’s quality of experience expectations. The ACX710 is designed to weave seamlessly into the access and aggregation role of the IP Service Fabric while supporting incumbent technologies, such as MPLS, while enabling technologies increasingly essential to modern and automated service delivery, such as segment routing.

Powered by the Junos operating system, Juniper’s ACX Series Universal Metro Routers provide operators with a wide array of SDN-enabled and subscriber aware IP transport solutions, integral to Juniper’s 5G-enabled IP Service Fabric architecture engineered to address current and future network operator challenges and opportunities.

The comprehensive feature set and capabilities of the ACX710 reduces the complexity of Metro operations and eliminates the need for unnecessary network layers and overlays, creating the opportunity to reduce both CapEx and OpEx in operator networks. It supports VPN services over IP/MPLS networks, service provider SDN, service exposure using NETCONF/YANG, extensive quality of service (QoS), network slicing technologies, and precise timing and synchronization features, making it ideally suited for low- latency services and applications.

With 320 Gbps of switching capacity, the ACX710 delivers the performance, capacity, and features required to support your universal metro service delivery requirements.

Product Description

Juniper Networks ACX710 Universal Metro Router is a response to the relentless increase in demand on metro architectures, where hardened access and aggregation platforms are required to extend operational flexibility from the service provider edge and across the metro. The ACX710 delivers the form factor, optimized performance, density, and resiliency needed for metro applications, including strict timing and synchronization requirements for mobile backhaul applications.

Powered by the Junos operating system, Juniper Networks ACX Series Universal Metro Routers provide operators with a wide array of SDN-enabled and subscriberaware IP transport solutions, facilitating the 5G-ready metro fabric architecture required to address current and future challenges and opportunities.

The integrated multiservice features and capabilities of the ACX710 reduce the complexity of metro operations, eliminating the need for unnecessary network layers and overlays and creating the opportunity to reduce CapEx and OpEx in operator networks. The ACX710 simplifies network design, while creating a foundation for more efficient operations and service agility, enabling operators to adopt a true universal and converged metro paradigm for the Cloud, 5G, and AI era.

The ACX710 Product Offering

The ACX710 Universal Metro Router is a hardened, fixed, and compact 1 U solution, purpose-built for efficient 4G and 5G service delivery and scale. Its high-performance, high-capacity, and hardened design makes it ideal for ubiquitous deployment in metro applications and telco cloud architectures. The ACX710 provides high 1GbE/10GbE and 100GbE port density, lowering footprint rental and power costs. The router supports VPN services over IP/MPLS networks, service provider SDN, service exposure using NETCONF/YANG, extensive quality of service (QoS), and precise synchronization and timing features, making it ideally suited for low latency service delivery. With 320 Gbps of switching capacity, the stackable ACX710 delivers the performance, capacity, and feature set required for LTE, LTE Advanced, and 5G radio access network (RAN) sites in a hardened and compact form factor. Table 1 provides an overview of the interfaces supported by the ACX710.

Architecture and Key Components:

Powered by Junos OS, the ACX710 complements the Juniper Networks MX Series 5G Universal Routing Platforms through a flexible and scalable service provider and enterprise branch routing portfolio optimized for rapidly growing mobile, video, and cloud computing applications. The ACX Series extends Juniper’s proven IP/MPLS leadership in the core and edge to the access and aggregation layers. Maintaining relative simplicity in the metro network, the ACX Series supports a rich suite of L2, L3, and IP/MPLS functionality, enabling large-scale seamless MPLS networks with simplified service provisioning and operations.

• Universal Access/Aggregation: The ACX710 supports both Ethernet bridging and MPLS. Growing demands for bandwidth are accompanied by network growth in terms of numbers of nodes. In some cases, users demand the ability to scale their networks to tens of thousands of nodes. A seamless MPLS architecture enables scale and service flexibility by decoupling physical topology from transport and service layers. This allows service providers to leverage their existing MPLS investments in the core and edge to extend operational benefits to the access and aggregation layers. It also ensures greater network service flexibility and higher scaling parameters for the metro area network (MAN), where metro Ethernet services can span multiple network segments and be seamlessly terminated at any point.
  
  
• Junos OS: A reliable, high-performance, modular network operating system, Junos OS is supported across all of Juniper’s physical and virtual routing, switching, and security platforms. Junos OS improves network operations and increases service availability, performance, and security with features like low-latency multicast, comprehensive quality of service (QoS), in-service software updates, and Junos Continuity, which eliminates the risk and complexity of OS upgrades. Junos OS comes with embedded scripting tools and APIs, enabling the automation of many routine tasks and practical integration with any operator’s backend management tools. With secure programming interfaces, versatile scripting support, and integration with popular orchestration frameworks, Junos OS offers flexible options for DevOps-style management that can unlock value from the network.
  
  
• Automation: With Juniper, your networking solution extends well beyond the platform with customizable tools to monitor, analyze, and automate network operations and performance. The element management system (EMS) provides operators with GUI-based configuration, management, and compliance features designed to simplify operations while providing visibility into device inventory and performance. Automation, however, requires actionable network insight. HealthBot combines the power of telemetry, programmability, advanced algorithms, and machine learning to correlate multiple data sources for highly automated diagnostics—critical to intent-based networking. HealthBot insights can trigger dashboards, user-defined workflows, or playbooks. When traffic needs to be redirected, HealthBot can engage with a Path Computation Element (PCE) controller to calculate new SLA-compliant paths through the network. Juniper Networks NorthStar Controller is the industry’s leading WAN controller and PCE that closes the loop on your network automation, pushing new state information down into the network to optimize performance and quality of experience (QoE). Juniper’s comprehensive portfolio of automation tools has been engineered to deliver the end-to-end network slicing required in today’s agile and dynamic service delivery architectures.

Features and Benefits:

The ACX710 delivers optimal levels of programmability, reliability, scalability, and security to both service provider and enterprise networks. The ACX Series portfolio improves customer satisfaction while lowering the total cost of operating, maintaining, and updating the network infrastructure.

• Stringent Mobile Backhaul Requirements: The ACX710 provides high 10GbE density with 100GbE support and 320 Gbps switching capacity in a compact and hardened 1 U form factor, lowering OpEx (including footprint rental costs).
• Precision Timing and Synchronization: Revenue generating services like VoLTE and LTE broadcast require precise synchronization. ACX710 synchronization is validated for LTE deployments.
• Automation and Programmability: The ACX710 provides application-aware traffic engineering with open and standardized interfaces, including the ability to tailor services for optimal agility.
• Investment and Operational Value: Engineered for value, the ACX710 is designed around merchant silicon, making it a compelling investment. Operational benefits include a Junos OS foundation, service flexibility, a hardened and compact form factor, and filterless design, eliminating the need for costly, recurring truck rolls to inspect air filters.

Specifications:

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Documentation:

Download the Juniper Networks ACX710 Universal Metro Router Data Sheet (PDF).