Over the course of the years few things remain certain in the rapidly developing world of IT. Of those that do the under appreciation of the efforts of IT staff easily tops the list but over the last 10 years a case can also be made that the underlying network fabrics utilised by one and have become, like IT staff themselves, so taken for granted as to be almost invisible. This may be about to change

Network connectivity is the very lifeblood of modern IT systems usage. Whilst everyone works on their documents they all need, and more importantly want and expect, to be "connected", to both company business applications, including the near ubiquitous e-mail, and the Internet at large. The actual network plumbing is rarely considered, even by IT support staff. The core routers and wide area linkages that bind business locations together are, today, almost invisible, except on those increasingly rare occasions when communications links fail. The last couple of years have seen some communications platforms garner a modicum of visibility, most notably those solutions addressing Wide Area Networking optimisation and acceleration but, overall, networks are taken for granted.

This is especially the case when we look at the jugular vein of each and every IT system, namely the core LAN infrastructure. Since CAT 5 Ethernet cabling coupled with switches in floor closets became the de facto LAN architecture over a decade ago only organisations faced with extreme performance challenges have spent much time looking at LAN switching. Today, very few suppliers, with Cisco and HP ProCurve the most recognisable, dominate the Ethernet switching market but things may be about to change as high performance networking specialist Juniper Networks is set to enter the fray.

Over the last few years Cisco and HP ProCurve have come to dominate much of the LAN switching market both now have large established customer bases. Juniper will need to work cleverly to gain footholds but it is clear that its solutions have the qualities and characteristics to appeal to many organisations, most notably those that are aware that they face performance challenges in the delivery of network services to key users. For such organisations the high performance and very high availability characteristics of the new Juniper EX Series switches could appeal. The range offers fixed-configuration, virtual-chassis, and Terabit-chassis models, although I suspect that the company will need to expend some effort to explain just where the virtual chassis models fit. One area that Juniper is ready to promote is that all of these offerings run using its established Junos operating platform thereby allowing users familiar with this operating system and management tools to administer the switches using familiar tools.

The entry of Juniper into the switching market should make LAN switching far more visible in the coming months and offer organisations an opportunity to look afresh at what they are doing here and to consider afresh their needs. I will watch this space even more closely as Cisco, HP ProCurve and Juniper square up to each other. Will you look again at Switching or do you plan to carry on as you are? This is a fascinating, though unsung, area that nearly everyone is using but of which nearly all are unaware. Perhaps switching, and networking in general, more than any other aspect of IT truly captures how things should be.