Juniper Networks Inc. has pulled the curtains back on a commodity switch for hyperscale data centers that marks a historic shift in the old guard’s approach toward the software-defined wave sweeping through the enterprise today. The move is not entirely unexpected, however.

Incumbent vendors have steadily been warming up to the new commodity-based approach to networking. A group of Juniper’s top rivals launched an initiative called OpenDaylight in April in a bid to create a common standard for software-defined networking (SDN). The project has attracted dozens of additional backers and recently marked its second stable release, only eight months after the initial launch.

Juniper, meanwhile, has been working on a rival project called OpenContrail based on the homegrown controller of the same name. But the framework garnered so little attention in the first nine months after rolling out in September, 2013 that the company found itself having to add support for its competitors’ effort in June.

The newly unveiled OCX1100 takes the fight to the hardware layer, aiming straight at the proprietary network appliances that arch-rivals Cisco Systems Inc. and Brocade Communications Systems Inc. rely upon for most of their revenues. The problem is that Juniper also sells branded routers and switches, which means that the new product will cannibalize its own revenue streams.

But such a steps is necessary amid the rapid commoditization of the corporate network, which is already driving major customers such as Verizon Communications Inc. to replace their proprietary setups with cheaper white-box architectures. The introduction of the OCX1100 preempts the industry shift toward commodity hardware in a move Juniper hopes will give it a head start over its rivals, which don’t yet offer white-box products.

Another way in which the OCX1000 sets itself apart from the pack is support for third party network operating systems other than Juniper’s Junos, including Cisco’s IOS. While presented under the banner of freedom of choice, that feature also gives Juniper a potential foot in the door of its arch-rival’s customers.

Juniper has submitted the design to the OCX1000 to Facebook Inc.’s Open Compute Project for hyperscale infrastructure and hopes to start shipping the first models in the first quarter of next year, by which time the blueprint is expected to be accepted. Besides multi-platform support, the switch also packs native support for popular scripting languages like Python as well as configuration automation tools like Chef and Puppet. The manufacturing partner is Alpha Networks Inc., a leading switch and router maker based in Taiwan.

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