Customers looking to replace Juniper DX load balancers/application accelerators after they are discontinued later this year will have to look to other qualified vendors, Juniper says.

The company announced end-of-life for the boxes earlier this year but didn’t issue formal notice about what customers should do if they want additional DXs in the future.

Now the head of Juniper’s enterprise gear says that the company is qualifying other vendors’ load balancers as replacements. “That means we tested it and we know it works,” says Mark Bauhaus, executive vice president of the company’s service-layer technologies division that handles the DX.

Bauhaus says Radware and F5 gear has been qualified, as well as others he did not name. Other vendors, including Zeus Technology and Crescendo Networks, tried to lure DX customers away with special deals.

Juniper says it decided to get out of the load-balancer business because DX wasn’t the top seller in the market and that it would be tough to move up. “One of these things is just like the other,” Bauhaus says.

The last days to buy a DX are June 30, July 1, July 7 and Sept. 15, depending on the model. Juniper says it will support the devices for five years after the date they are discontinued.

Bauhaus says other Juniper gear already has the capability to load balance built in, such as its secure access and WAN acceleration gear, and this will be added to other products.