Juniper Networks and IBM extended their existing partnership with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deal which will see IBM rebadge Juniper's EX switches and MX routers.
IBM will sell the products as part of its data center networking portfolio Jim Comfort, IBM VP of Enterprise Initiatives, said: "This new OEM agreement with Juniper will help support IBM's data center networking initiatives through unparalleled network scalability, carrier-class reliability and operational simplicity, accelerating the deployment of our customers' virtualized applications and services, and extending the value of their networks."
Trevor Dearing, - enterprise marketing director, Juniper EMEA, said: "Our focus is to concentrate on the things we do best. As Cisco is developing it needs to maintain growth and develop its business.
The big question with this [the Unified Computing System] is how it affects their relationships with companies who were there partners and who are now becoming their competition."
As for Juniper's penetration into the data center market Dearing said that considering the company only entered the market 12 months ago and given the current economic climate the company has done well in a short time and delivered a number of good wins such as that at the New York Stock Exchange.
Juniper continues on its Stratus project, which promises a single network architecture for end to end management of all assets.