Nokia Siemens & Juniper team to integrate optical and IP technologies

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 10:26

Business IT - Technology

Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper Networks have announced yet another tie up - a plan to combine their, respective, optical and IP networking technologies, including the development of 10G, 40G and 100G IP over DWDM products with management integration and GMPLS control plane interworking.

The move follows their announcement earlier this month of a joint venture company to address the carrier ethernet transport market.
 
Specifically NSN's long-haul DWDM optics wil be incorporated into line interface cards for Juniper's T-Series core routers, reducing the need for separate transponders. These will operate seamlessly with NSN's hiT7300 WDM platform and be managed by NSN's Transport Network Management System (TNMS).

This will give Juniper a response to similar functionality on the T-Series main rival, the Cisco CRS-1, which was introduced in late 2005. According to Cisco's web site, today it "Supports an integrated IP over DWDM transponder with flexible 10Gbps and 40 Gbps options that extends up to 2000 km without regeneration."
 
NSN and Juniper say that, as a result "Operators will be able to enjoy faster service provisioning times as only one DWDM interface will need to be installed and configured, not to mention improved reliability through early link failure detection, enhanced troubleshooting and overall simplicity."

Uwe Fischer, head of the DWDM business line at Nokia Siemens Networks, explained the thinking behind this latest collaboration. "Juniper brings world-class IP routing expertise while Nokia Siemens Networks brings world-class wavelength division multiplexing transport technology including operational management systems for both technologies. To have both worlds under one network management roof means the highest possible quality in terms of simplicity and efficiency...As carriers consolidate their IP and DWDM environments to ensure cost efficient growth, our solution will form the bedrock of the vision that breaks the barriers between optical and electrical layers."
 
Opher Kahane, senior vice president and general manager or Juniper's high-end systems business unit, said the increasing demands being placed on network would create a growing market for their joint offering. "As trends such as video, virtualisation and cloud computing continue to drive the need for core networking capacity, operators will be looking for ways to scale their networks efficiently and cost-effectively. The combination of IP and optical transport technologies increase the efficiency of the network."

However some US reports suggest that carriers have some reservation about this level of integration in their core networks.