Juniper Networks, the player in network innovation, today unveiled new software and services enabling mobile service providers to realise immediate benefits while laying the foundation to build software-defined networks (SDN). Juniper says that service providers can virtualise mobile networks to achieve faster services provisioning and On-Demand capacity management from a common platform.

“Mobile networks are perfectly suited to benefit from Juniper Network’s SDN approach. Exponential mobile data usage coupled with an increasingly wide array of multi-media smartphones and tablets put enormous demands on high-performance networking,” said Bob Muglia, executive vice president, Software Solutions Division, Juniper Networks

 

By deploying Juniper Networks’ new services provisioning application, mobile infrastructure application and virtualized services engine, customers can achieve elastic capacity, increased service velocity, while lowering overall operating expenses (OPEX). Based on use cases and data from ACG Research, customers may realize up to 65 per cent reduction in OPEX and up to 54 per cent reduction in total cost of ownership. The software and services announced today come on the heels of Juniper’s introduction of the most comprehensive SDN vision in the industry and follows Juniper’s roadmap to transition enterprises and service providers from traditional network infrastructures to SDNs. Specifically, with today’s announcement, customers can address two of the four steps to SDN:

 

Step 1: Centralise network management, analytics and configuration functionality to provide a single master that configures all networking devices:

Juniper Network’s Junos® Space Services Activation Director application enables service providers to provision thousands of seamless services, including multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and Carrier Ethernet for mobile backhaul. Service Activation Direction lowers OPEX cost through simplified deployment and management, and greater business insight gained from service provider networks. The Services Activation Director, along with otherJunos Space applications, is scheduled to be available for purchase in the first half of 2013, which allows the software to transfer to any network element with which it operates.

 

Step 2: Extract networking and security services from the underlying hardware by creating service virtual machines (VMs):

Juniper’s Mobile Control Gateway (virtual MCG) is now running as a virtualized function on the JunosV App Engine, providing signaling and control (SGSN/MME) functions to LTE, 3G and 2G radio access networks. As a virtualized network function, mobile operators can rapidly scale up and down capacity to meet variable demand requirements. Comparing a standalone physical appliances approach to a virtualized approach, mobile operators have the ability to accelerate deployment time by as much as 46 per cent and reduce deployment cost by as much as 61 percent, according to ACG Research. Part of Juniper Networks Mobile Packet Core solution, the virtual MCG is co-developed with Hitachi, the first third-party to virtualize a network service on the JunosV App Engine.

Step 3: Shipping Junos V App Engine centralizes all applications on a common platform

Now shipping, Juniper Networks JunosV App Engine centralizes the development, provisioning and management of both Juniper Networks and third-party applications on a common platform. This platform also enables customers to grow the compute, memory and processing resource needed for cloud-based applications and services attached specifically to the MX Series 3D Universal Edge Router.

According to ACG Research, with mobile traffic growth exploding, operators need a virtualized Mobile Packet Core for scaling capacity up and down to both increase service velocity and control costs.

“Our research has validated that Juniper’s virtual Mobile Control Gateway has a 54 per cent lower total cost of ownership over five years and the time to deploy the initial implementation is 46 per cent faster than a standalone appliance-based solution. In addition, the virtual MCG provides incremental capacity additions in 87 per cent less time, enabling operators to address the volatility of mobile control plane traffic driven by smartphones and its apps,” said Dr Ray Mota, managing partner, ACG Research.