Juniper Networks EX4600 Ethernet Switch with Virtual Chassis Module
24 1/10 Gigabit SFP+ Ports & 4 40-Gigabit QSFP+ breakout compatible Ports

Overview:

The EX4600 line of Ethernet switches delivers data center class scale, high availability, and high performance to campus distribution deployments. The EX4600 offers fixed 10 Gpbs and modular 10 Gpbs and 40 Gbps ports, giving it the flexibility to also be implemented in data center top-of-rack and service provider aggregation deployments.

Featuring up to 72 wire-speed 10GbE small form-factor pluggable and pluggable plus transceiver (SFP/SFP+) ports, and up to 12 wire-speed 40GbE quad SFP+ transceiver (QSFP+) ports in a compact one rack unit (1 U) platform, the Juniper Networks EX4600 Ethernet Switch delivers 1.44 Tbps of Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity to networked devices such as secure routers, servers, and other switches. The EX4600 base switch provides 24 fixed 10GbE SFP/SFP+ ports and 4 fixed 40GbE QSFP+ ports. In the base model, 12 of the 24 fixed SFP/SFP+ ports can operate as 1GbE ports, providing the flexibility to support mixed 1GbE and 10GbE environments. A total of four models are available: two featuring AC power supplies and front-to-back or back-to-front airflow; and two featuring DC power supplies and front-to-back or back-to-front airflow. Each model includes dual power supplies.

All versions feature two expansion slots that can accommodate optional expansion modules, providing tremendous configuration and deployment flexibility for enterprise distribution networks. Two expansion modules are available:

• 8x10GBASE SFP/SFP+ fiber expansion module¹
• 4x40GbE QSFP+ expansion module²

Architecture and Key Components

Virtual Chassis Technology
The EX4600 supports Juniper Networks’ unique Virtual Chassis technology, which enables up to 10 interconnected switches to operate as a single, logical device with a single IP address. Virtual Chassis technology enables enterprises to separate physical topology from logical groupings of endpoints, ensuring efficient resource utilization. The EX4600 can participate in the same Virtual Chassis configuration with the Juniper Networks EX4300 Ethernet Switch, delivering highly flexible and scalable configuration options for enterprise distribution deployments.

EX4600 switches in a Virtual Chassis configuration can be connected using up to 16 of the 10GbE or 40GbE ports in link aggregation groups (LAGs) across 10GbE/40GbE ports, providing an aggregate backplane capacity of up to 1.04 Tbps.

In the data center, EX4600 Virtual Chassis deployments can extend across multiple top-of-rack or end-of-row switches, providing tremendous configuration flexibility for 10GbE server connectivity by only requiring redundant links between Virtual Chassis groups rather than each physical switch to ensure high availability. In addition, mixed Virtual Chassis configurations featuring EX4300 and EX4600 switches provide an ideal solution for data centers with a mix of 1GbE and 10GbE servers, or for environments transitioning from 1GbE to 10GbE server connectivity.

Management Options

Four different system management options are available for the EX4600 Ethernet Switch:

• The standard Junos OS CLI offers the same granular management capabilities and scripting parameters found in any router powered by the Junos operating system.
• The EX4600 also includes the integrated Juniper Networks Junos Web Software, an embedded web-based device manager that allows users to configure, monitor, troubleshoot, and perform system maintenance on individual switches via a browser-based graphical interface.
• EX4600 performance, configuration, and fault data can also be exported to leading third-party management systems such as HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, and Computer Associates Unicenter software, providing a complete, consolidated view of network operations.
• The EX4600 is also supported by Juniper Networks Junos Space Network Director, a smart, comprehensive, and automated network management tool that enables network administrators to visualize, analyze, and control their entire enterprise network—data center and campus, physical and virtual, wired and wireless—through a single pane of glass.

Junos Space is an open, programmable application platform for hosting a comprehensive suite of network operational application tools that provide a smart, simple, and open approach for automating the deployment and operation of a Juniper infrastructure. Junos Space provides multiple management and infrastructure applications for managing Juniper resources and assets, including inventory management, device and interface configuration, automated software management and deployment, and event-driven fault management. These Junos Space applications offer predefined automation schemes and bestpractice templates to enable rapid and accurate deployments.

¹ All eight ports on the 10GbE expansion module can also operate at 1GbE.
² Any 40GbE QSFP+ port can be split into 10GbE using breakout cables, providing a maximum of 72 wire-speed 10GbE ports.

Features & Benefits:

High performance

Each EX4600 supports up to 1.44 Tbps of bandwidth or 1.07 Bpps at the minimum Ethernet frame size, with 24 line-rate 10GbE fixed ports, 4 40GbE fixed ports, and 2 expansion slots that can each support either a 4x40GbE module or an 8x10GbE module.

Unified in-service software upgrade (unified ISSU)

With its Intel core processor, the EX4600 switch allows Junos OS to run within a virtual machine (VM) on Linux. Junos OS runs in two separate VMs in active and standby pairs; during software upgrade cycles, the switches seamlessly move to the newer software version while maintaining intact data plane traffic. This true topology-independent ISSU (TISSU), an industry-first software upgrade feature for a fixedconfiguration top-of-rack switch, is supported across all L2 and L3 protocols and doesn’t need the support of any other switches to perform an image upgrade.

High availability

EX4600 switches offer dual internal load-sharing AC power supplies and redundant variablespeed fans as standard features, protecting the switch from a single power supply or fan failure. DC power options are also available.

Automation

The EX4600 switches support a number of features for network automation and plug-and-play operations. Features include zero touch provisioning (ZTP), operations and event scripts, automatic rollback, and Python scripting. The switch also offers support for integration with VMware NSX Layer 2 Gateway Services, Puppet, and OpenStack.

Energy efficient

Consuming less than five watts per 10GbE interface, the EX4600 offers a low power solution for 10GbE top-of-rack, end-of-row, and distribution deployments. The EX4600 switches also improve cooling efficiency with redundant variable-speed fans that automatically adjust their speed based on existing conditions to reduce power consumption.

Small footprint

The EX4600 supports up to 72 wire-speed 10GbE ports in a single 1 U platform.

Flexible forwarding table

The EX4600’s flexible forwarding table allows the hardware table to be carved into configurable partitions of L2 media access control (MAC), L3 host, and longest prefix match (LPM) tables. In a pure Layer 2 environment, the EX4600 supports up to 288,000 MAC addresses. In Layer 3 mode, the table can support up to 128,000 host entries; in LPM mode, it can support up to 128,000 prefixes. Junos OS provides configurable options through a CLI so that each EX4600 can be optimized for different deployment scenarios.

Intelligent buffer management

EX4600 switches have a total of 12 MB shared buffers. While 25 percent of the total buffer space is dedicated, the rest is shared among all ports and is user configurable. The intelligent buffer mechanism in the EX4600 effectively absorbs traffic bursts while providing deterministic performance, significantly increasing performance over static allocation.

Insight technology for analytics

The EX4600 provides dynamic buffer utilization monitoring and reporting with an interval of 10 milliseconds to provide microburst and latency insight. It calculates both queue depth and latency, and logs messages when configured thresholds are crossed. Interface traffic statistics can be monitored at two-second granularity. The data can be viewed via CLI, system log, or streamed to external servers for more analysis. Supported reporting formats include Java Script Object Notification (JSON), comma-separated values (CSV), and tabseparated values (TSV). These files can be consumed by orchestration systems, SDN controllers, or network management applications (such as Juniper Networks Junos Space Network Director) to make better network design decisions and identify network hotspots.

MPLS

EX4600 switches support a broad set of MPLS features, including L2VPN, L3VPN, IPv6 provider edge router (6PE), RSVP traffic engineering, and LDP to allow standards-based network segmentation and virtualization. The EX4600 can be deployed as a low-latency MPLS labelswitching router (LSR) or MPLS provider edge (PE) router in smaller scale environments. The EX4600 is the industry’s only compact, low-latency, high-density, low-power switch to offer an MPLS feature set.

MACsec

The EX4600 is capable of MACsec features on all 10GbE ports to support 400 Gbps of near line-rate hardware-based traffic encryption on all fiber ports, including the base unit and optional 10GbE expansion modules. MACsec in software will be enabled in a future release.

Junos Operating System

The EX4600 runs the same Juniper Networks Junos operating system that is used by other EX Series Ethernet Switches, as well as all Juniper routers and Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways. By utilizing a common operating system, Juniper delivers a consistent implementation and operation of control plane features across all products. To maintain that consistency, Junos OS adheres to a highly disciplined development process that uses a single source code, follows a single quarterly release train, and employs a highly available modular architecture that prevents isolated failures from bringing down an entire system.

These attributes are fundamental to the core value of the software, enabling all Junos OS-powered products to be updated simultaneously with the same software release. All features are fully regression tested, making each new release a true superset of the previous version. Customers can deploy the software with complete confidence that all existing capabilities will be maintained and operate in the same way.

Junos OS utilizes a single source code, adheres to a consistent and predictable release train, and employs a single modular architecture.

Additional Features

• System status LEDs
• Versatile two- and four-post rack mounting options
• Front-to-back and back-to-front airflow options
• AC and DC power supply options
• Spare chassis SKU without power supply or fans for sparing purposes
• Support for jumbo frames (9,000)
• Quality of service (IEEE 802.1p marking)
• Multicast (Internet Group Management Protocol v1/v2/v3 snooping)
• Layer 2 features including support for 4,096 VLAN IDs, Spanning Tree (802.1s and 802.1w), bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) guard, 802.3as Link Distribution
• Management features including Telnet and SSH v1/v2, SNMP v1-v3, RADIUS, TACACS+, and RMON

Enterprise Advantages:

The EX4600 delivers a highly available, simple, and scalable 10GbE solution in a compact and power-efficient platform, making it a perfect fit for enterprise networks.

Simple

Virtual Chassis technology on the EX4600 dramatically simplifies the enterprise distribution layer, eliminating the need for Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), complex routing, or VLAN configurations. In addition, when deployed in a Virtual Chassis configuration, the EX4600 reduces the number of devices to manage and can even eliminate network switching layers. A single Virtual Chassis configuration can span multiple nodes, reducing the need for larger, more expensive nodes on superior tiers. Juniper Networks Junos operating system, which is common across the entire EX Series Ethernet Switches product family, accelerates the learning curve by enabling the entire architecture to be managed with a common set of instructions from a single pane of glass.

Scalable

A single EX4600 can support up to 72 10GbE ports (using 10GbE breakout cables on 40GbE fixed ports) at line rate, providing a highly scalable solution for the most demanding environments. In addition, Virtual Chassis technology makes it easy to scale the network while reducing management complexity. By adding switches to a Virtual Chassis configuration, it is possible to grow the number of switch ports without increasing the number of devices to manage. As switches are added to a Virtual Chassis configuration, backplane bandwidth demands can be scaled to maintain adequate oversubscription ratios. Using just two 40GbE interfaces, Virtual Chassis bandwidth can start at 160 Gbps and grow to 960 Gbps, forming a LAG on all 12 40GbE interfaces.

Highly Available

When EX4600 switches are deployed in a Virtual Chassis configuration, Junos OS initiates a process to assign a master (active) and backup (hot standby) switch to manage the configuration. If the master switch fails, an integrated L2 and L3 graceful Routing Engine switchover (GRES) feature automatically switches to the backup to maintain continuous and uninterrupted system operations. The EX4600 switch also includes a number of other high availability features, including redundant power and cooling, graceful protocol restart, equal-cost multipath (ECMP), LAG links distributed across multiple slots, and quality of service (QoS) to prioritize time-sensitive data, nonstop bridging (NSB), nonstop active routing (NSR), and unified in-service software upgrades (unified ISSU). Unified ISSU is currently supported only in standalone configurations; support in Virtual Chassis configurations will be enabled in a future release.

Adaptable and Modular

As business grows, the network needs to evolve. With its compact 1 U form factor and complete switch features, the EX4600 can be easily redeployed in different environments and physical layouts. EX4600 switch capacity can be expanded without increasing the number of managed devices by simply adding more switches to a Virtual Chassis configuration.

Network Deployments:

Enterprise Deployments

The EX4600 offers an economical, power-efficient, and compact solution for aggregating 10GbE expansions from access devices in building and enterprise deployments. The switch’s dual-speed interfaces also support environments transitioning from 1GbE to 10GbE. The EX4600 can be deployed in the distribution layer with multichassis link aggregation (MC-LAG) (see Figure 1) to deliver higher resiliency with a distributed control plane, NSB, NSR, and unified ISSU. Multichassis LAG enables two EX4600 switches to act as separate devices with their own control planes, while eliminating STP by allowing link aggregation on the connected devices. In addition, unified ISSU allows each of the EX4600 switches to be upgraded individually without service interruption.

If manageability is a concern, the EX4600 can be deployed in a Virtual Chassis configuration to create a single management and control plane, NSB, NSR, and nonstop software upgrade (NSSU) (see Figure 2). If the total number of access switches in a building is eight or fewer, the EX4600 can form a mixed Virtual Chassis configuration with EX4300 switches in the wiring closet, enabling all switches in the building to be managed as a single device (see Figure 3).

The EX4600 easily meets enterprise core switch requirements, delivering wire-speed performance on every port, full device redundancy, support for L3 dynamic routing protocols such as RIP and OSPF, L2 and L3 MPLS VPNs, and a comprehensive security and QoS feature set.

Figure 1: EX4600 as an enterprise distribution switch with MC-LAG

Figure 2: EX4600 as an enterprise distribution switch in a Virtual Chassis configuration

Figure 3: Mixed Virtual Chassis configuration with EX4600 and EX4300 switches.

Data Center Deployments

The EX4600 Ethernet Switch is designed for low-density data center applications where high performance, high availability, and energy efficiency are key requirements (see Figure 4). Operating at wire speed, EX4600 switches deliver up to 1.07 Bpps throughput and a data rate of 1.44 Tbps (full duplex) for both L2 and L3 protocols. EX4600 switches can be interconnected in a Virtual Chassis configuration that also includes EX4300 switches, creating a single logical device that offers a variety of port and density options for mixed server environments.

Figure 4: EX4600 provides 10GbE server access in the data center.

Flexible deployment options enable the EX4600 to support back-to-front and front-to-back cooling, which ensures consistency with server designs for hot and cold aisle deployments. Front and rear facing configuration options ensure closer proximity to server ports, optimizing performance and keeping cable lengths short and manageable.

For small data centers, the EX4600, when deployed in a Virtual Chassis configuration, is ideally suited as an aggregation/core switch, aggregating 10GbE expansions from EX4300 Virtual Chassis configurations in the access layer (see Figure 5).

Customers introducing 10GbE into their server racks can use the EX4600 to add 10GbE-attached servers, iSCSI, and networkattached storage (NAS) with minimal impact to their current switching infrastructure.

10GbE Data Center Bridging and I/O Convergence Deployments
The EX4600 is a full IEEE DCB-based and T11 FC-BB-5-based Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) transit switch, delivering a high-performance solution for converged server edge access environments. As an FCoE transit switch, the EX4600 provides a pure IEEE DCB converged access layer between FCoE-enabled servers and an FCoE-enabled Fibre Channel (FC) storage area network (SAN) (see Figure 6).

The EX4600 also supports FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) snooping, which provides perimeter protection to ensure that the presence of an Ethernet layer does not impact existing SAN security policies. The FCoE transit switch functionality, along with priority-based flow control (PFC) and Data Center Bridging Capability Exchange protocol (DCBX), are included as part of the default software; no additional licenses are required.

Figure 5: The EX4600 is ideal for small data center core deployments.

Figure 6: The EX4600 can be deployed as a data center FCoE transit switch in a top-of-rack Virtual Chassis configuration.

Technical Specifications:

Additional Feature Specifications:

Views:

Top Front View

Front View

Rear View

Left Angle View

Right Angle View

Documentation:

Download the Juniper Networks EX4600 Ethernet Switches Datasheet(PDF).