Clock component issue could extend to HPE and Juniper
Cisco affected by the issue, which causes certain products to deteriorate over time
A faulty clock-signal compondent, which causes products to deteriorate over time, could affect Juniper and HPE products too, as well as Cisco's.
Networking giant Cisco reported the same issue had affected its own product lines, causing the vendor to set aside $125m in its second financial quarter to deal with "the expected remediation costs for anticipated failures in future periods".
HPE claims that "a limited number" of its products use the same manufacturer devices deployed by Cisco and Juniper. The firm identifies Intel's C2000 chip as the cause of the fault.
In a statement sent to CRN sister site Channelnomics Europe, an HPE spokesperson said: "To the best of our knowledge, our customers are not experiencing failures due to the Intel C2000 chip, which is deployed on a limited number of our products. We remain committed to assuring the highest quality experience from our solutions and are proactively working with Intel to mitigate any future risk and impact on our customers."
Meanwhile, in a screenshot posted on Reddit's Networking subReddit site, a Juniper product support notification reported a similar issue. According to the post, 13 products are affected by the fault.
"Juniper Networks was recently made aware of the existence of an errata on a clock signal component manufactured by a third-party supplier. This errata may result in the component degrading over time," the notification read.
"Although we believe the Juniper products with this component are performing normally as of 13 February 2017, the Juniper products could, after the product has been in operation for at least 18 months, begin to exhibit symptoms such as the inability to boot, or cease to operate. Recovery in the field is not possible.
"Juniper product with this supplier's component were first placed into service on January 2016. Jupiter is working with the component supplier to implement a remediation. In addition, Juniper's spare parts depots will be purged and updated with remediated products."
In a statement sent to Channelnomics Europe, Juniper said: "Juniper Networks is aware of an issue related to a component manufactured by a supplier which impacts a limited set of our product line. We are currently working directly with any impacted customers on a swift solution."
On its Q4 earnings call on 26 January, transcribed here by Seeking Alpha, Bob Swan, CFO of Intel said:
"We were observing a product quality issue in the fourth quarter with slightly higher expected failure rates under certain use and time constraints, and we established a reserve to deal with that. We think we have it relatively well-bounded with a minor design fix that we're working with our clients to resolve."
Furthermore, in January Intel added an update to documentation regarding its Atom C2000 chip product. The update read: "Added erratum: may experience [an] inability to boot or may cease operation."
Channelnomics Europe contacted Intel for comment and was awaiting a response at the time of publication