Like many companies with a dispersed campus, Juniper provide shuttle services that transport employees from building to building. Hey, losing that hard fought parking space in the early morning is not cool.
This shuttle service also make it possible for me to attend meetings on those days I took the bus to work. I wouldn’t need to beg for rides, just hop onto the shuttle.
So I did. Surprise! A bumper sticker right there. Make my day.
For the most part of my professional career, networking ends with a NIC card. The software stack on top includes a device driver, a chain of software, usually in kernel, that sends packets up and down, and a collection of daemons (programs that belong to no-one and never die) that do their things: ftp, ssh, nfs, etc. I am vaguely aware of one daemon, routed, that figure out which ways to send packets. I really do not care much, since I am more concerned with packets for or from myself. Routing deals with, mostly, packets for others.
When I came to Juniper, networking changed completely. The classic router architecture has three main components: forwarding, routing, and OS.
Forwarding shoves packets from one end to the other as quickly as possible. Juniper’s gears can handle a very impressive amount: probably the fastest in this industry. Huge amount of packets arrive at the interface, each one must be categorized, inspected, and possibly forwarded to the right destination. The machinery operates based on FIB (forwarding information base), a data-structure dynamically updated by the routing intelligence.
Routing is the art of figuring out what the net looks like by what the neighbors said. It generate RIB (routing information base, used to be called routing table) that is the foundation of FIB. When wrongly computed, the net melts down or critically disrupted. If done right, companies can deliver more services without spending more: a key competitive advantage for many enterprises these days.
The OS manages the machinery and all those sophisticated software. It provisions resources for payloads and provides a stable platform for innovations. In my book, it serves the most important function: allowing routing and forwarding to innovate independently.
Ostensibly, the box looks the same as a standard data-center server. There is power-supply, lots of fans blowing air around, a chasis that connects boards, called blades these days, that plug into it. Off the back of the box, many cables run off to a far-away corner. I walk into a networking lab thinking how similar it is to a data-center.
This is probably why an OS guy like me feels so at home in a networking company.
People asked why do I come to Juniper. “Because the way I watch TV now.”
Just a few months ago, I routinely fired up BitTorrent at night to download episodes of my favorite programs (House, Heroes, Grey’s Anatomy). I had no choice. Those programs are not aired in China. When I moved back to the US, I don’t wait anymore. I watch those programs from the official web sites: fox.com, nbc.com, etc. I will hook up my laptop to the new 52″ 1080p HDTV. Many programs play in full-screen mode (Fox is better) and I will soon forget that’s not live TV. I laughed so hard on Tina Fey’s SNL performance on my laptop, displayed on my TV set, Sunday afternoon — no need to stay up Saturday night.
Internet never busted. Many Internet companies went under, but the net kept on growing. Billions of people around the world are waiting to get online. Internet these days are several times larger than the bubble days and sees no sign of slowing down.
And which companies are to ride the wave? The one that produce the biggest, meanest, and fastest routers for the mass. There are other players, but Juniper is at the center of this stage.
Juniper is large enough to make a difference and small enough to experience explosive growth. Juniper’s executives are all on-board for this vision. Everyone focuses on the customers, the market, the revenue, the products: not on internal politics.
When I watched SNL, I noticed the page said more than a million viewings and counting. This is main-street behavior now. It takes lots of networking to deliver millions of viewings.
Can’t think of another company that is readier.
Inspired by Mike Bushong, who authored JUNOS for Dummies and also provided excellent sources for plagiarization.
How do you compete with Cisco? Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel are not doing so well. HuaWei chose to be the low-price leader: a strategy based on its inherent strength. Juniper Networks wins with its JUNOS operating systems.
Since almost all Juniper’s gears are based on the same architecture and work the same way, Juniper lowers the costs for customers. They would enjoy “train once, apply many times” efficiency. For Juniper’s internal operations, a single effort benefits all products. This gives Juniper a time-to-market edge: new product group focuses only on the differentiators and leverage from the same core functionalities.
It is easy to copy Cisco’s formula: create autonomous business units, give them free rein on hardware, software, marketing, and business infra-structure, hold the exec accountable, and sit back to enjoy the success. But this approach tries to beat Cisco in the game defined by Cisco. History shows this path littered with corpses of companies who tried. Juniper defined a different game: JUNOS vs. IOS. It does not try to fight against Cisco’s product portfolio, marketing army, R&D dollars, or acquisition spigot. It chose to fight on Cisco’s soft spot: software. In a battle against a giant, compete where size matter less seems like the right idea.
In this game, it is JUNOS against many smaller Ciscoes, each having an OS and a smaller OS development team. This is quite Sun-Tze: divide the larger enemy into smaller sub-units and attack with all strengths focused at a laser-sharp point. There will be no enemy too big and no battle not winnable.
As long as Juniper stays with this strategy.
Juniper has this interesting Dewey system to address a location. My office is, for example, 2.2.062. Everyone in the Sunnyvale campus knows to find building 2, 2nd floor, and room 062. When I arrived at the Bangalore site, I was confident to locate 4.0.2.8, where I am temporary assigned. Start with building 4? No-o-o-o-o. Bangalore site has a different Dewey system. It is the floor #4, zone 0, and “cabin” 2.8. By the way, the floor that you can walk into from the street is called, not ground, not one, but floor #0. Pretty cool for an old C programmer.
I found two rooms with interesting labels.
They are rooms with 2 bunk beds and several sofas. I turned on the light and woke up a guy (it was around noon time). How delightful! If an engineer has been braving the project over-night, this room gives him/her a chance to recharge. So many times I wish to take a quick nap before driving home. The fight against fatigue behind wheel is so scary. I applaud the courage of the local management to have made these rooms.
I made acquaintances to many, but not all, leaders at Bangalore site. Three years of being the remote guy came flashing back when I chat with them. I found them nodding (as acknowledgement) when I described the experience from China. I told my boss (who now lives in Bangalore) that how much I appreciate that he understands. I guess he also appreciates a staff the same.
The world will be better if we all understand better. Right?