BT looks to Juniper to trim the network bloat

BT has opted for Juniper Networks to deliver its Network Cloud infrastructure initiative, paving the way for BT’s Network Cloud roll-out.

The platform itself is designed to offer BT a number of different upgrades to its current position, including improvements to converged fixed and mobile services rollout to consumers and businesses, faster time-to-market for network services and improved voice and video deliverability and scalability.

The initiative will hope to roll BT’s networks including 5G, Wi-Fi and fixed-line into one virtualised service, a common framework which can be shared across all BT offices nationally and globally. Moving into the single framework will also help BT deliver cost efficiency saving, a key component of recent strategies to make the telco into a leaner machine.

Aside from the EE component of the business, BT has been one of the more sluggish players in the telco space, with the spreadsheets bearing the brunt. If BT is to make the most of up-coming connectivity evolutions, IOT and 5G for example, the business needs to be in a fitter position. This initiative is one of the strands of this plan.

“This move to a single cloud-driven network infrastructure will enable BT to offer a wider range of services, faster and more efficiently to customers in the UK and around the world,” said Neil McRae, Chief Architect at BT. “Being able to integrate seamlessly with other partners and solutions and aligning with our roadmap to an automated and programmable network is also important.”

“By leveraging the ‘beach-front property’ it has in central offices around the globe, BT can optimize the business value that 5G’s bandwidth and connectivity brings,” said Bikash Koley, CTO at Juniper Networks. “The move to an integrated telco cloud platform brings always-on reliability, along with enhanced automation capabilities, to help improve business continuity and increase time-to-market while doing so in a cost-effective manner.”

For Juniper, the bean-counters will be happy with the win, with numerous services being undertaken across different aspects of the network. Contrail Networking will be used for dynamic end-to-end networking policy and control for telco cloud workloads, AppFormix will run the cloud operations management suite, while the QFX Series also features.