The Juniper Networks EX4600 Ethernet Switch is a compact and scalable 10GbE platform designed for enterprise campus distribution deployments and low-density data center Top-of-Rack environments.

The EX4600 combines high-density 1GbE, 10GbE, and 40GbE connectivity with advanced Layer 2 and Layer 3 capabilities in a compact 1RU form factor.

The platform is also cloud-ready and Zero-Touch Provisioning enabled, allowing organizations to onboard, configure, monitor, and manage the switch through Juniper Mist Wired Assurance.

Features and Benefits

Juniper Mist Wired Assurance

The EX4600 integrates with Juniper Mist Wired Assurance, allowing administrators to claim, configure, and troubleshoot switches through the cloud.

The platform provides rich streaming telemetry data for visibility into:

• Switch health
• Network anomalies
• Connected-device experiences

AI-powered automation and Service-Level Expectations help simplify IT operations, reduce Mean Time to Repair, and improve experiences across wired and wireless environments.

Virtual Chassis

The EX4600 supports Juniper Virtual Chassis technology.

Up to:

• 10 interconnected EX4600 switches

can operate as a single logical device.

This architecture helps:

• Simplify network management
• Reduce operational complexity
• Centralize administration
• Scale enterprise distribution environments

MACsec Support

EX4600 switches support:

• IEEE 802.1AE MACsec

MACsec provides link-layer:

• Data confidentiality
• Data integrity
• Data-origin authentication

The platform provides up to:

• 400 Gbps of near-line encryption

Secure Campus Fabric

EX4600 switches can participate in an IP fabric using:

• EVPN-VXLAN overlay

The IP fabric can extend across multiple enterprise buildings, while VXLAN allows Layer 2 connectivity to be extended across the network.

EX4600 Product Architecture

The EX4600 provides up to:

• 72 wire-speed 10GbE SFP/SFP+ ports
• 12 wire-speed 40GbE QSFP+ ports

in a compact:

• 1RU platform

The platform delivers up to:

• 1.44 Tbps of bidirectional Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity

It can connect devices including:

• Secure routers
• Servers
• Other network switches

Base Switch Configuration

The base EX4600 switch provides:

• 24 fixed 1GbE SFP/10GbE SFP+ ports
• 4 fixed 40GbE QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots

This configuration supports mixed:

• 1GbE
• 10GbE
• 40GbE

network environments.

EX4600 Models

The EX4600 family includes four primary switch configurations.

EX4600-40F-AFO

The EX4600-40F-AFO provides:

• 24 SFP+/SFP ports
• 4 QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots
• Redundant fans
• 2 AC power supplies
• 2 power cords
• 4-post rack-mount kit
• Front-to-back airflow

EX4600-40F-AFI

The EX4600-40F-AFI provides:

• 24 SFP+/SFP ports
• 4 QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots
• Redundant fans
• 2 AC power supplies
• 2 power cords
• 4-post rack-mount kit
• Back-to-front airflow

EX4600-40F-DC-AFO

The EX4600-40F-DC-AFO provides:

• 24 SFP+/SFP ports
• 4 QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots
• Redundant fans
• 2 DC power supplies
• 2 power cords
• 4-post rack-mount kit
• Front-to-back airflow

EX4600-40F-DC-AFI

The EX4600-40F-DC-AFI provides:

• 24 SFP+/SFP ports
• 4 QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots
• Redundant fans
• 2 DC power supplies
• 2 power cords
• 4-post rack-mount kit
• Back-to-front airflow

Expansion Modules

The EX4600 includes two expansion slots that support optional modules for additional deployment flexibility.

QFX-EM-4Q

The QFX-EM-4Q is a:

• 4-port QSFP+ expansion module

for the EX4600.

EX4600-EM-8F

The EX4600-EM-8F provides:

• 8 SFP+/SFP ports

for additional 1GbE and 10GbE connectivity.

EX4600 Hardware Specifications

Switching Capacity

The EX4600 provides:

• 720 Gbps unidirectional switching capacity
• 1.44 Tbps bidirectional switching capacity

Layer 2 and Layer 3 Throughput

Maximum throughput using 64-byte packets:

• 1,071 Mpps at wire speed

Weight

With power supplies and fans installed:

• 21.7 lb
• 9.84 kg

Dimensions

The EX4600 measures:

• 1.72 x 17.36 x 20.48 inches
• 4.37 x 44.09 x 52.02 cm

Switching Modes

The platform supports:

• Cut-through switching
• Store-and-forward switching

Airflow

Available airflow options include:

• Front-to-back
• Back-to-front

These configurations support hot-aisle and cold-aisle deployment requirements.

Reliability

Predicted Mean Time Between Failures:

• 150,000 hours

Predicted FIT rate:

• 4,987

Interface Options

1GbE

The EX4600 supports:

• 24 native 1GbE SFP ports
• Up to 40 with 10GbE expansion modules

10GbE

The platform provides:

• 24 native 10GbE SFP+ ports
• Up to 40 with expansion modules
• Up to 72 using breakout connectivity from fixed 40GbE ports

40GbE

The EX4600 provides:

• 4 native 40GbE QSFP+ ports
• Up to 12 with expansion modules

Each fixed QSFP+ interface can operate as:

• 1 x 40GbE port
• 4 x 10GbE interfaces

Management Interfaces

The EX4600 includes:

• USB port
• Console port
• 1 x RJ-45 management port
• 1 x SFP management port

Supported Transceivers and Cables

The platform supports connectivity options including:

SFP+

• 10GbE optical modules
• 1m, 3m, and 5m direct-attach copper cables
• 1m, 3m, 5m, 7m, and 10m active direct-attach copper cables

SFP

• Gigabit Ethernet optical modules
• Gigabit Ethernet copper modules

QSFP+ Breakout

QSFP+ to SFP+ breakout connectivity supports:

• 1m direct-attach copper
• 3m direct-attach copper

Rack Installation

The EX4600 supports versatile four-post mounting for:

• 19-inch server racks
• Datacom racks

Cooling

Cooling capabilities include:

• Front-to-back airflow
• Back-to-front airflow
• Redundant variable-speed fans

Variable-speed fans help reduce unnecessary power consumption.

Power Supplies

The EX4600 supports:

• Dual redundant 1+1 power supplies
• Hot-pluggable power supplies

Supported input options include:

• 110–240V single-phase AC
• -36V to -72V DC

The platform also uses:

• Redundant N+1 hot-pluggable fan modules

Power Supply Options

Available power modules include:

JPSU-650W-AC-AFO

• 650W AC power supply
• Front-to-back airflow

JPSU-650W-AC-AFI

• 650W AC power supply
• Back-to-front airflow

JPSU-650W-DC-AFO

• 650W DC power supply
• Front-to-back airflow

JPSU-650W-DC-AFI

• 650W DC power supply
• Back-to-front airflow

Fan Modules

QFX5100-FAN-AFI

• Back-to-front airflow fan module

QFX5100-FAN-AFO

• Front-to-back airflow fan module

QFX5100-EM-BLNK

• Blank expansion module for the EX4600

Performance Scale

MAC Addresses

The EX4600 supports up to:

• 288,000 MAC addresses

VLANs

The platform supports:

• 4,091 VLAN IDs

Link Aggregation

Maximum ports per LAG:

• 32

FCoE Scale

The platform supports up to:

• 4,095 FCoE VLANs / FC virtual fabrics

Firewall Filters

• 4,000

IPv4 Routes

The EX4600 supports:

• 128,000 IPv4 unicast prefixes
• 208,000 IPv4 host routes
• 104,000 IPv4 multicast routes

IPv6 Routes

The platform supports:

• 64,000 IPv6 unicast prefixes
• 52,000 IPv6 multicast routes

ARP Entries

• 48,000

Jumbo Frames

Maximum jumbo frame size:

• 9,216 bytes

Access Control Lists

The EX4600 supports:

• Port-based ACLs
• VLAN-based ACLs
• Router-based ACLs

Ingress and egress ACLs are supported.

Hardware ACL capacity includes:

• 1,536 ingress ACL entries
• 1,024 egress ACL entries

Additional ACL capabilities include:

• Denied packet counters
• Permitted packet counters
• ACL editing
• Layer 2 through Layer 4 ACLs
• IPv6 ACLs
• Loopback-interface filters
• Management-interface filters

Spanning Tree

The platform supports:

• 64 MSTP instances
• 253 VSTP instances

Traffic Mirroring

The EX4600 supports:

• 4 mirroring destination ports per switch
• 4 mirroring sessions
• 4 mirroring destination VLANs per switch

Layer 2 Features

Layer 2 capabilities include:

• IEEE 802.1D STP
• Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol
• Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol
• BPDU protection
• Loop protection
• Root protection
• Concurrent RSTP and VSTP
• IEEE 802.1Q VLAN trunking
• Routed VLAN Interfaces
• Port-based VLANs
• MAC address filtering
• GRE tunneling
• QinQ
• VLAN translation
• Static MAC assignment
• Per-VLAN MAC learning limits
• MAC learning deactivation
• Link Aggregation Control Protocol
• Link Layer Discovery Protocol
• MAC notification
• MAC address aging
• Sticky MAC

Link Aggregation

The EX4600 supports:

• MC-LAG
• Layer 2 MC-LAG
• Layer 3 MC-LAG
• VRRP
• STP
• Redundant Trunk Groups

LAG load sharing can use information including:

• Source IP
• Destination IP
• TCP/UDP source port
• TCP/UDP destination port
• Source MAC
• Destination MAC
• Ethertype
• VLAN ID
• Source port

FCoE traffic can also use:

• Source ID
• Destination ID
• Originator Exchange ID

Layer 3 IPv4 Features

The EX4600 supports:

• Static routing
• Routing policies
• RIP
• OSPF
• IS-IS
• BGP
• MBGP
• VRRP
• BFD
• Virtual routers
• DHCP relay
• Proxy ARP

Multicast

Supported multicast technologies include:

• IGMP v1/v2/v3
• IGMP snooping v1/v2/v3
• IGMP filtering
• PIM-SM
• MSDP

Security and Filtering

Security capabilities include:

• Secure interface login
• Password protection
• RADIUS
• TACACS+
• Ingress and egress filters
• Port filters
• VLAN filters
• Routed filters
• Management-port filters
• SSH v1/v2
• Static ARP
• Storm control
• Port-error deactivation
• Automatic recovery
• Control-plane DoS protection
• Dynamic ARP Inspection
• Sticky MAC
• DHCP snooping
• Filter-based forwarding

Filter actions include:

• Logging
• System logging
• Reject
• Interface mirroring
• Counters
• Forwarding-class assignment
• Permit
• Drop
• Policing
• Marking

Layer 3 IPv6 Features

IPv6 capabilities include:

• Static routing
• RIPng
• OSPFv3
• IS-IS v6
• BGP v6
• VRRPv3
• IPv6 Class of Service
• IPv6 over MPLS using 6PE
• IPv6 ping
• IPv6 traceroute
• Neighbor Discovery
• Path MTU discovery
• SNMP
• NTP
• DNS
• RADIUS
• TACACS+
• AAA
• IPv6 virtual routers

Quality of Service

The EX4600 supports Layer 2 and Layer 3 QoS for:

• Classification
• Rewrite
• Queuing

Rate limiting includes:

• Ingress policing
• Egress policing
• Per-queue egress shaping
• Per-port egress shaping

Each port supports:

• 12 hardware queues

including:

• 8 unicast queues
• 4 multicast queues

Supported queuing technologies include:

• Strict Priority
• Smoothed Deficit Weighted Round-Robin
• Weighted Random Early Detection
• Weighted Tail Drop

Additional capabilities include:

• IEEE 802.1p remarking
• Layer 2 classification
• WRED congestion avoidance
• Priority-Based Flow Control

Data Center Bridging and FCoE

The platform supports:

• IEEE 802.1Qbb Priority-Based Flow Control
• Data Center Bridging Exchange Protocol
• FCoE TLVs
• iSCSI TLVs
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet
• FIP snooping
• Virtual Fibre Channel Gateway
• FCoE session path learning
• FCoE session health monitoring
• Graceful restart for FIP snooping
• FC-BB-6 VN2VN snooping

Virtual Chassis Capabilities

Both:

• 10GbE
• 40GbE

interfaces can operate as Virtual Chassis ports.

Virtual Chassis capabilities include:

• Routing Engine election
• Pre-provisioning
• Plug-and-play deployment
• Auto-LAG formation
• FCoE transit
• QoS on Virtual Chassis ports
• Local designated forwarding
• Graceful Routing Engine Switchover
• Nonstop Routing
• Nonstop Bridging
• Distributed aggregate-interface monitoring
• Control-plane protection

The page also lists mixed Virtual Chassis support between:

• EX4300
• EX4600

for data center environments.

High Availability

High-availability capabilities include:

• In-Service Software Upgrade in standalone and MC-LAG configurations
• Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
• Uplink Failure Detection
• Graceful Routing Engine Switchover
• Nonstop Bridging
• Nonstop Routing
• Nonstop Software Upgrade

MPLS

The EX4600 supports:

• VRF-Lite
• Two-label stack
• Static LSPs
• RSVP-signaled LSPs
• LDP-signaled LSPs
• LDP over RSVP
• MPLS Class of Service
• MPLS ACLs and policers
• MPLS Label Switch Router functionality
• Push, swap, and pop operations
• IPv6 tunneling with 6PE
• MPLS OAM
• LSP ping
• IPv4 Layer 3 VPN
• Ethernet over MPLS
• Layer 2 VPN
• Layer 3 VPN
• Link protection
• MPLS Fast Reroute
• Node-link protection

Management and Analytics

Supported management platforms include:

• Juniper Mist Wired Assurance for Campus
• Junos Space Network Director
• Junos Space Management

Device Management and Operations

The EX4600 supports:

• Juniper J-Web
• Role-based CLI management
• Console CLI
• Telnet
• SSH
• Extended ping
• Traceroute
• Configuration rescue
• Configuration rollback
• Image rollback
• SNMP v1/v2/v3
• Junos XML management protocol
• sFlow v5
• DHCP server
• DHCP relay
• DHCP local server
• High-frequency statistics collection
• Beacon LEDs
• Zero-Touch Provisioning
• OpenStack Neutron Plug-in
• Puppet
• Chef
• Junos event scripts
• Commit scripts
• Operations scripts
• Python, TCL, and Perl scripts

Traffic Mirroring Options

Traffic mirroring includes:

• Port-based mirroring
• LAG-port mirroring
• VLAN-based mirroring
• Filter-based mirroring
• Local mirroring
• Remote Layer 2 mirroring
• SPAN
• RSPAN

The platform also supports:

• Insight Technology for microburst monitoring and statistics reporting

Standards Support

The EX4600 supports networking standards including:

• IEEE 802.1D
• IEEE 802.1w
• IEEE 802.1Q
• IEEE 802.1p
• IEEE 802.1ad
• IEEE 802.3ad
• IEEE 802.1AB
• IEEE 802.3x
• IEEE 802.1Qbb
• IEEE 802.1Qaz

It also supports a broad range of standard RFCs for technologies including:

• IP
• TCP
• UDP
• ICMP
• ARP
• DHCP
• RIP
• OSPF
• BGP
• VRRP
• PIM
• IGMP
• RADIUS
• TACACS+
• SNMP
• BFD

EX4600 Platform Specifications

Form Factor

• 1RU

Port Density

The EX4600 provides:

• 24 x 1/10GbE ports
• 4 x 40GbE QSFP+ ports
• 2 expansion slots

MACsec

The platform provides:

• 400 Gbps of near-line encryption

Switching Capacity

• 720 Gbps unidirectional
• 1.44 Tbps bidirectional

Fabric

The EX4600 supports:

• Virtual Chassis
• MC-LAG

Scalable 10GbE Distribution Switching

The Juniper EX4600 Ethernet Switch provides a flexible switching platform for enterprise campus distribution and low-density data center Top-of-Rack environments.

With up to 72 wire-speed 10GbE ports, up to 12 x 40GbE interfaces, 1.44 Tbps bidirectional switching capacity, 10-member Virtual Chassis, MC-LAG, EVPN-VXLAN, MACsec, MPLS, advanced Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, FCoE, and Juniper Mist cloud management, the EX4600 provides a scalable foundation for demanding enterprise networks.