Item: Juniper SRX
Rating: 8
Author: Bear Golightly

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use the Juniper SRX platform to connect two buildings with metro ethernet between two buildings, including link failover, provide high reliability between sites. Our carriers drop LACP frames and most other layer-2 uplink aggregation protocols, so we used specific features on the Juniper SRX platform to implement connectivity testing on each end, with automatic route injection on failover.

Pros and Cons

The Juniper SRX platform is easy to set up (out of the box).
The support team responds to tickets quickly and with good solutions.

My only real criticism of the product is that it's hard to figure out how to upgrade the firmware from the CLI via TFTP via the docs, but it works great once you get it sorted.

Return on Investment

A loss of a single metro ethernet carrier link between buildings is no longer a problem - a warehouse filled with idle pickers is expensive!
Using single-purpose Juniper SRX devices on each end provides reliable connectivity independent of SDWAN or any other integrated devices, which helps avoid annoying finger-pointing

Support Rating

I have contacted support twice, once for licensing and again for help figuring out how to achieve what I want. The licensing issue was solved immediately, and the technician provided links to documentation on the specific feature I needed to implement, and I had it resolved within an hour.

Key Insights

Do you think Juniper SRX delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Juniper SRX's feature set?

Yes

Did Juniper SRX live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Juniper SRX go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Juniper SRX again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 365, Tableau Desktop, Octopus Deploy

Likelihood to Recommend

I don't know much about the rest of the line, but if you require a primary branch-grade router with sub-gig throughput and some enterprisey software features, or you need an actual branch router for an office branch, the Juniper SRX is a solid choice. The out-of-box web GUI setup is pretty easy if you choose to set it up as a "real" router, but you can ignore the GUI entirely and configure layer 2/3 ports all you want with a robust CLI.

Juniper SRX: When you don't have time to play around!

Overall Satisfaction with Juniper SRX