Junos OS

Just would like get some professional recommendation with this: our 5 ex 2200 switches as of last year are in EOL.

The org I work for did not purchase an active support contract. They got them from a third-party reseller and I have not had any JTAC support since I have worked for them. I am apprehensive about something failing or sudden performance degradation.

Since I have never been in this position before with network core infrastructure being in EOL, I want to know what risks they are taking with these devices by not getting an active support contract. Moreoever, I want to convince them to upgrade to a replacement suite of switches that are built for an expanding SMB-  increasing to over 100 employees (active nodes on switch ports 250 - 500 ct.)

My understanding is that the ex2200 are entry-level switches. So I wan them to get something that is mid-level..

Would the ex2300 be such a device? Or should the ex3400 be better for our use-case? ex4300 maybe?

Much appreciated.

Hello VirtuousMight,

> our 5 ex 2200 switches as of last year are in EOL.

Actually they have software support until 30-June-2022, so you still have 2 years until they are software dead.

> I want to know what risks they are taking with these devices by not getting an active support contract.

This is my view when you should have a J-Care contract for your devices:

*) You need access to new JUNOS releases (new features, bugfixes). This is especially very important if your devices are reachable by the public internet (new JUNOS releases provide security fixes as well, and sometimes there is no workaround available for security issues) (EX2200 do not get new features any more, but still bugfixing until June 2022)

*) You need software support to analyze bugs or other suspecting behavior

*) You don't have any spare parts on stock and want Juniper to replace the devices from their stock

*) You need on-site support by a Juniper engineer in case of any problem

My view where you DON'T need a Juniper J-Care contract:

*) The device is not reachable by the public internet, and you have enough spare devices on stock to replace every faulty device in the future

> My understanding is that the ex2200 are entry-level switches. So I wan them to get something that is mid-level..

> Would the ex2300 be such a device? Or should the ex3400 be better for our use-case? ex4300 maybe?

This is really hard to say without any further information which device capabilities you need in the future. This depends on your answer to the following questions:

*) Which features do you need within the next 5 - 10 years?

*) What is the expected port bandwidth you could need? Only 1G ports copper, or even 10G copper? Fiber?

*) Do you need expandability for the switches (keyword is Virtual Chassis)?

The direct successor for EX2200 is the EX2300, however, the EX2300 is already 4 years old. There is a newer model available, EX2300-MP (which stands for Multigigabit PoE), but I'm not sure if this is orderable or not at the moment.

If you need more power, more flexbility, more features, then maybe the EX3400/EX4300-MP is the right choice for you, but of course, they are more expensive as well.

HTH