Interview: Juniper focuses on securing government networks

Juniper Federal Systems was created as an entity within Juniper Networks to address the specific needs of the federal government. InfoWorld Senior Analyst Wayne Rash spoke with Dubhe Beinhorn, senior vice president at Juniper Federal Systems, about the lessons learned from working with the federal government that can also be applied to other enterprises.

InfoWorld: Why was it necessary to create a separate entity within Juniper Networks to deal with the government?

Beinhorn: There are a number of unique characteristics and requirements about selling to the government. You cannot come into this town and sell to the federal government if you don't understand the politics, the process, the partnerships, everything that's required to be successful in the market. So Juniper decided that we were serious about this space and we went out and dedicated resources that are made up of experts in federal business.

InfoWorld: Juniper is involved in protecting the federal government from outside attackers outside. How do you do this?

Beinhorn: There are a number of attributes resident in Juniper machines that help government users, and any user for that matter, protect from an invasive attack. The encryption capabilities that are within the box that run at almost line rate allow a level of security. But more importantly, the filtering capabilities resident in each machine allows our users to filter at a capacity that is unparalleled in the industry.

InfoWorld: Are the IP routers you supply to the government the same routers that you supply to private industry?

Beinhorn: Yes. They are the M-series of routers as well as the T-series of routers. These are high-performance IP routers, typically found in the core of most service provider networks worldwide. These are high-end, high-performance routers that are being deployed, initially into the core of a lot of these networks, but more recently to the edge of these networks.

InfoWorld: What lessons are you learning from the federal government that can be applied to other enterprises?

Beinhorn: I think the answer to that is one word: Security. Anyone who is building network equipment these days has security as probably their top priority. I think that crosses all networks, be it commercial or federal.

InfoWorld: What are the other issues enterprises should look for when they're looking at network infrastructure?

Beinhorn: There are number of issues. Software and how it's applied across the machine is very important. One of the unique capabilities that Juniper brings to its customers is that one software train runs across all of our machines. This enables upgrades and transitions to new features very, very smoothly, without having to perhaps look across all of the network components to figure out what is upgradeable and what isn't.

The architecture of the machine is also very important; scalability is certainly in the Top Five requirements that you'd see from any customer today, and that is the ability to start at a certain level and a certain bandwidth and a certain speed and move to greater levels. The architecture of our product allows that to be done very easily.

InfoWorld: Juniper plays a role in some very interesting and unusual applications. What kind of things could enterprises look for?