The devices have the ability to connect with Ethernet gear in a data centre or carrier POP. The new cards offer various port counts and switching bandwidth support aimed either low- or high-volume Ethernet traffic needs.

The blades include a four- and eight-port Gigabit Ethernet cards, and single-port 10G Ethernet module. Juniper says its four-port card is oversubscribed at 4:1, which means that while four 1000Mpbs ports - a potential for 4Gbps - are available, the card only supports 1000Mbps of total bandwidth. Two eight-port cards are also being offered, one with 4Gbps of total bandwidth, and another which Juniper says is "line-rate," with 8Gbps of total bandwidth for all eight ports. The single-port 10G Ethernet blade supports a full 10Gbps.

While oversubscribing bandwidth on some ports, Juniper says it's Ethernet Services Engine technology, embedded in the cards, allows the blades to provide QoS for traffic flows and to manage bandwidth efficiently for customer traffic over Ethernet-based virtual private LAN service (VPLS) links.

The new products mark Juniper's attempts to get in on new deployments of carrier Ethernet-based services and migration from SONET to Ethernet.