MWC: Juniper Launches Mobile Networking Platform

Juniper Networks is making its push into the mobile networking space with a host of new offerings being rolled out at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The new products, announced on 14 Feb, build on Juniper’s “Project Falcon,” which company officials first talked about in October as a way of addressing mobile device traffic across networks.

The new software, which address such areas as the delivery of video on mobile devices, security and traffic management, are designed to give mobile service providers more tools to handle the growing and changing user demands. Juniper’s platform will rely on its MX 3D Series universal edge routers and SRX Series services gateways, all based on the company’s Junos network operating system.

The new also comes less than a week after Juniper announced the formation of a new business group, the Junos Ready Software unit, which will oversee several initiatives, including Project Falcon.

Juniper is looking to give mobile service providers a more tightly integrated platform offering, according to Kim Perdikou, executive vice president in the Office of the CEO for Juniper.

“Mobility is not a box, it’s a way of life,” Perdikou said in a statement. “Mobile operators need their networking vendors to stop building new one-off boxes, Band-Aids and bolt-ons to handle mobile data traffic. They need networking vendors with real innovation that can offer immediate TCO relief, unmatched scale for the future, built-in security and open platforms to monetize new services.”

Juniper is pushing its new mobile platform at a time when rivals such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard continue to build on their networking offerings. Cisco last month completed its $2.9 billion (£1.85bn) acquisition of Starent Networks, and on 9 Feb. unveiled the first fruits of that deal. Cisco rolled out the ASR 5000 Series mobile platform, which essentially is a rebranding of Starent’s ST40.

For its part, HP on 12 Feb. got the go-ahead from European regulators to buy networking equipment maker 3Com for $3.7 billion. HP officials expect to close the deal in the second quarter 2010.

According to company officials, part of the MWC announcements include Junos Ready Software, which is a growing portfolio of Juniper and third-party developed applications that are optimised to run on the Junos OS, addressing such areas as mobile video delivery, advertising, service monitoring and security.

In addition, Juniper announced Junos Pulse for Smartphones, a client software offering that will officials say will bring greater security to mobile services across smartphones, notebooks and netbooks to a large range of corporate applications. Based on SSL VPN technology, Junos Pulse will be available in the second quarter of 2010.

The company is pushing more security in the form of Juniper Mobile Secure, software that integrates security across mobile devices, applications and networks. The offering is based on Juniper’s SRX Series services gateways and the Junos Pulse software.

Juniper Traffic Direct, the first offering based on Project Falcon, combines intelligent subscriber and application policies with the scaling offering in MX 3D Series to offload bulk traffic directly to the Web, according to Juniper officials. The goal of the product, which also is due in the second quarter, is to improve the mobile experience for users and enable service providers to reduce network congestion and lower their total cost of ownership.

Juniper Media Flow is aimed at improving the ability of mobile and fixed networks to more quickly and efficiently deliver video and rich media content. Due in the second quarter, the offering will include a Juniper VXA Series content delivery engine and software from Ankeena Networks, enabling service providers to deliver video and content delivery up to 10 Gbps per engine.

Juniper Mobile Core Evolution is designed to provide an open and secure mobile packet core to help providers run 3G and 4G services on the same network. Customers will be able to evaluate the product in the fourth quarter.