Nokia, Juniper Networks collaborate to advance telco cloud

Finnish firm Nokia and tech giant Juniper Networks today said the firms will partner to offer cloud solutions to help telecom operators expand mobile broadband services.
Under the latest collaboration, Nokia will bring its Liquid Core solution, including network function virtualisation (NFV) and telco cloud management and orchestration, while Juniper Networks will add its data center architecture capabilities.
"As mobile operators face pressure to bring new services to market at rapid rates, extending proven cloud network virtualisation and automation capabilities to their carrier-grade networking domain will ensure true competitive advantage," the companies said in a statement.
Nokia and Juniper's bundled solution, delivered through carrier-grade services, will provide operators with an open ecosystem telco cloud solution, offering automated application deployment, software defined application connectivity and network management, it added.

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.
"Nokia is a pioneer in telco cloud mobile networking solutions, establishing an unmatched track record in telco cloud innovation. 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," Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri said.

In addition to technology components, Nokia will also provide its end-to-end services to help operators implement their own telco clouds and migrate existing telco services to cloud-based networks.

This broad portfolio of services, some of which will tap into Juniper's expertise, will enable operators to reduce time to value and address the complete lifecycle from assessment, design, implementation and operational support.
"Rapid adoption of LTE and the 4G mobile core opens up a wealth of opportunities for new service creation for our customers. We believe operators need a High-IQ mobile edge that connects their infrastructure to the telco cloud and leverages network and service virtualisation throughout," Juniper Networks CEO Shaygan Kheradpir said.
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 optimise their cloud networks, he added.