The last few years, I’ve been looking at networking switching with new eyes. New power hungry and data intensive Wi-Fi APs are pushing the needs for new and better network switching.
I’ve watched other vendors fill their product lines with switches pushing 10gig ethernet and POE++. Ubiquiti has even started pushing their POE+++ marketing numbers which is just a non standardized designation of the higher limits of POE++.. But personally, I have been awaiting a native Juniper Mist switch that I can buy to provide all those needs.
For my day job, many of my schools are heavily investing in the Juniper switching lineup. We have plenty of EX4300 switches installed in IDF switch closets powering the old Wi-Fi 6 APs that do not support 6GHz. We have yet to move to 6GHz because of Erate windows. That is changing in the coming year as we look at network refreshes.
Enter the Juniper EX4000 switching family.
Juniper EX4000
Today, Juniper announced the release of their EX4000 family of switches. This solves many of the problems of the EX4300 line when it comes to new 6GHz capable Wi-Fi APs. Mainly, POE++ and 2.5Gbps ports.
This blog has mainly focused on the Wireless side of networking, but everything Wireless needs to plug into something. That’s where the EX440 becomes a great switch for the IDP closets out in a K12 school.
When it comes to Wi-Fi 6e and Wi-Fi 7, we are starting to approach the limits of a 1 Gig ethernet port and we are definitely pushing the limits of POE+ power. The Juniper EX4000 has switches that can cover those needs.
The 1 Gig port is debated by many in the industry of it’s true needs as the Wireless side will bottleneck more than the wired side. For those times where you may just have one client connected to a radio, having the backhaul in place solves your problems.
The bigger issue comes down to the power being supplied to the Wi-Fi AP. When not enough power is supplied, APs will start disabling services such as radio chains. Each vendor does it differently, but why not supply the necessary power instead of getting unexpected results?
The spec sheet for the smallest Juniper EX4000-12MP can power the needs of a few Wi-Fi 7 APs.
· 4 x 2.5 MGig access ports
· 8 x 1GbE PoE++ (60W) access ports
· 2 x 1/10G SFP+ uplink ports
· 2 x 10G SFP+ VC ports
· Total PoE budget of 240W
That’s what the industry needs right now. We are pushing more and more data over Wi-Fi. In K12 schools, we are approaching 80-90% of staff and students connecting via Wi-Fi. Long gone are the computer labs of our childhood. Devices are accessible at the time of learning inside the classroom instead of in a lab down the hall. Why not build out the Wireless infrastructure with the Wired backhaul to support those needs in the classroom?
