Unfortunately for service providers, increased traffic growth has not translated into increased profitability. This discrepancy is due to several factors, including fierce competition that has commoditized basic network connectivity and transport services, as well as continuous capital and operational investment in the network, to name just two.

Seeking to improve their margins, service providers have responded to these challenges in several ways, perhaps most notably by transitioning to packet-based infrastructure and by consolidating service-specific networks to IP/MPLS. To make further gains, service providers are now looking to shift their edge infrastructure investments towards equipment that can concurrently provide high capacity and performance as well as service flexibility and service velocity, without imposing operational penalties or compromising reliability.

Juniper Networks provides high-performance network infrastructure for service providers and enterprises that require the highest levels of network reliability and performance, and helps create a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications. Key to achieving this end is a comprehensive edge routing portfolio that leverages ground-breaking routing platform design, and a true carrier class network operating system.

This paper discusses Juniper's Intelligent Services Edge, a portfolio of service enabling features that are primarily applicable to Juniper's M- and MX-series edge router portfolios. The Intelligent Services Edge leverages Juniper's unmatched architectural integrity to support high performance and scale, provide service flexibility and velocity, and increase operational efficiency. Taken together, these features enable service providers to effectively monetize their networks and increase their competitive differentiation.