Nokia, Juniper Networks Collaborate to Expand Telco Cloud Offering

New Core-on-Cloud Solution Combines Best-of-Breed Technologies With Integrated Services and Support to Help Operators Accelerate Service Creation Through a Fully Automated Telco Cloud

Nokia and Juniper Networks have announced an expansion of their long-standing partnership to advance telco cloud for mobile broadband. The latest collaboration brings together Nokia's leading Liquid Core solution, including network function virtualization (NFV) and telco cloud management and orchestration, and the Juniper Networks MetaFabric data center architecture, including Contrail -- Juniper's network virtualization and cloud network automation solution based on software-defined networking (SDN).

As mobile operators face pressure to bring new services to market at rapid rates, extending proven cloud network virtualization and automation capabilities to their carrier-grade networking domain will ensure true competitive advantage. Nokia and Juniper's bundled solution, delivered through carrier-grade services, will provide operators with an open ecosystem telco cloud solution, based on OpenStack, offering automated application deployment, software defined application connectivity and network management. The solution will also enable application and networking elastic scalability with a clear migration path for operators to leverage their existing assets built according to today's core architectures.

"In the same way that cloud computing transformed the IT industry, telco cloud dynamics are radically changing how mobile operators plan to deploy, operate and manage their networks through virtualization and software defined networking," said Peter Jarich, vice president, Current Analysis. "Nokia and Juniper's expanded partnership fits well into this evolution, strengthening the telco cloud ecosystem in the process."

The telco cloud solution from Nokia and Juniper Networks, available later this year, will include the following: Nokia will provide its Liquid Core application suites with the existing multi-platform software, which reutilizes all the investments previously done in localized/customized software functionalities. Liquid Core is implemented as virtualized network functions (e.g., virtualized Mobile Management Entity (MME), virtualized IMS, virtualized Home Subscriber Server (HSS)). Liquid Core also includes Nokia's cloud-ready NetAct network management solution and Cloud Application Manager, which brings the required orchestration functions to build end-to-end services like voice over LTE (VoLTE) or evolved packet core (EPC) in the cloud.

The Juniper Networks MetaFabric architecture and Contrail SDN/NFV controller will enable operators to create a High-IQ mobile edge that is secure, automated and scalable to support the rapid creation of new services based on actionable intelligence. MetaFabric together with Contrail will enable an open and cost effective cloud infrastructure solution that readily integrates with Juniper's portfolio of high-performance networking platforms.

"Nokia is a pioneer in telco cloud mobile networking solutions, establishing an unmatched track record in telco cloud innovation," said Rajeev Suri, president and CEO of Nokia. "By collaborating with Juniper, we are taking the next step together, enabling operators to take full advantage of the cloud with a clear path towards the robustness and scale of interconnected datacenters."

"Rapid adoption of LTE and the 4G mobile core opens up a wealth of opportunities for new service creation for our customers," said Shaygan Kheradpir, CEO of Juniper Networks. "We believe operators need a High-IQ mobile edge that connects their infrastructure to the telco cloud and leverages network and service virtualization throughout. Nokia and Juniper are focused on providing open networking solutions that matter most to mobile operators to enable carriers to become Cloud Builders in order to speed service delivery and optimize their cloud networks."