Developer Juniper Networks Working state Current | OS family Unix-like | |
Source model Closed source and partly open source Initial release July 7, 1998; 18 years ago (1998-07-07) Latest release 15.1R2 / November 20, 2015; 15 months ago (2015-11-20) | ||
Junos OS (more formally Juniper Network Operating System) is the FreeBSD-based operating system used in Juniper Networks hardware routers. It is an operating system that is used in Juniper's routing, switching and security devices. Juniper offers a Software Development Kit (SDK) to partners and customers to allow additional customization. The biggest competitor of Junos is Cisco Systems' IOS.
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Junos OS was formerly branded as Juniper Junos, and is commonly referred to as simply Junos, though this is a general brand name of Juniper Networks, including other product lines such as Junos Fusion.
Versioning
Junos provides a single code base across most of Juniper's platforms. Juniper has issued a new release of Junos every 90 days since 1998.
Features
Junos supports a variety of routing protocols. With the introduction of the SRX and J-series (past version 9.3) platforms, it also supports "flow mode", which includes stateful firewalling, NAT, and IPSec. Its a flexible routing policy language that is used for controlling route advertisements and path selection.
Junos generally adheres to industry standards for routing and MPLS.
The operating system supports high availability mechanisms that are not standard to Unix, such as Graceful Restart.
Architecture
Junos operating system is primarily based on FreeBSD. Because FreeBSD offers a Unix-like environment, customers can access a Unix shell and execute normal Unix commands. Junos runs on most or all Juniper hardware systems. After Juniper acquired NetScreen, it integrated ScreenOS security functions into its own Junos network operating system.
Junos Command Line Interface (CLI)
The Junos CLI is a text-based command interface for configuring, troubleshooting, and monitoring the Juniper device and network traffic associated with it. It supports two types of command modes.
The functions of Operational Mode include control of the CLI environment, monitoring of hardware status, and display of information about network data that passes though or into the hardware. The Configuration mode is used for configuring the Juniper router, switch, or security device, by adding, deleting, or modifying statements in the configuration hierarchy.
Junos SDK
Through the Juniper Developer Network (JDN) Juniper Networks provides the Junos SDK to its customers and 3rd-party developers who want to develop applications for Junos-powered devices such as Juniper Networks routers, switches, and service gateway systems. It provides a set of tools and application programming interfaces (APIs), including interfaces to Junos routing, firewall filter, UI and traffic services functions. Juniper Networks also employs the Junos SDK internally to develop parts of Junos and many Junos applications such as OpenFlow for Junos, and other traffic services.
Market share
Juniper as of June 13, 2008 had 5 percent of the $4.2 billion enterprise-router market, 18 percent of the $4.7 billion service-provider edge-router market and 30 percent of the $2.7 billion service-provider core-router market, according to the Dell'Oro Group.