Juniper, Nokia Partner on Telco Mobile Operator Cloud

Juniper Networks and Nokia are expanding on an existing relationship to help telecommunications companies bring their mobile operations into the cloud.

This latest collaboration pairs Nokia's Liquid Core product with Juniper's software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) cloud network automation product Contrail and its MetaFabric data center architecture. The goal is to enable mobile operators to more easily offer cloud-based services to their range of customers.

"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, in a prepared statement. "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."

Telecommunications companies have increasing been shifting their services to the cloud, providing options for an already existing customer base. And both Juniper and Nokia have histories of providing cloud architecture and services to telcos.

"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 data centers," said Rajeev Suri, president and CEO of Nokia, in a prepared statement.

The new telco offering is expected to be generally available later this year.

According to the two vendors, mobile operators are under pressure to rapidly launch new services, and to extend cloud network virtualization and automation capabilities to their networks. For mobile operators, there's a potential competitive advantage by getting into the cloud services space. There's already an existing customer base that is interested in adopting cloud more and more, and there's a certain elegance to having one throat to choke for business services.