Juniper Announces New Policy Management Portfolio for NGN Applications

| March 20, 2007 | Carrier Infrastructure | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Glen Hunt

Current Perspective: Very Positive
Vendor Importance: Very High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

On March 19th Juniper introduced a portfolio of session and resource control (SRC) solutions to provide subscriber management and policy control capabilities, enabling service providers to ensure user experiences for multi-play and mobile services in next-generation networks. The SRC portfolio features new applications that build upon the broad feature set of the SDX-300 and the new C-series family of controllers, which support end-to-end policy management on a dedicated platform.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Very positive on the announcement of Juniper’s policy management portfolio, since it provides the functionality service providers will need to support the rollout of next-generation services such as IPTV. The solutions are consistent with emerging NGN architectures such as those defined by ETSI/TISPAN, the ITU, 3GPP IMS, and CableLabs. The portfolio includes session and resource control (SRC) solutions that tie together key components of an end-to-end solution, including SRC applications that leverage the SDX-300 Service Deployment System, a new C-series family of controllers to support policy management functions, and a new interface module to support applications directly on the M and T-series nodes, such as firewalls, NAT, and other functions.

• Vendor Importance: Very high to Juniper, since the announcement shows a continued commitment to provide a flexible and capable infrastructure that can support NGN applications. As more dynamic user-centric applications emerge, service providers will need the ability to not only transport NGN content, but also dynamically control and allocate network resources and establish traffic profiles consistent with the applications’ needs. The SRC portfolio also shows that Juniper is leveraging its investment in its Open IP Service Creation Program (OSCP) and SDX-300, and it provides support for multiple next-generation service architectures.

• Market Impact: High on the edge switch router market, since the new capabilities take the next step toward integrating policy and control with standards-based applications and network resources. The SRC includes standard interfaces such as the Diameter gateway to interface with emerging IMS applications as well as a SOAP interface to integrate with Juniper and third-party applications. In addition, the C-series controllers provide a scalable solution for service providers. Steel-Belted Radius provides integrated AAA functionality, and the new MS-PIC supports an array of embedded services to improve overall operational efficiency. Juniper has received an endorsement from Nordic service provider Telenor.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Alcatel-Lucent should highlight the advantages of its Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA), designed to integrate key components to deliver scalable, highly-available NGN services. Alcatel-Lucent should show the integration between its IP product portfolio, 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM), 5750 Subscriber Services Controller (SSC), and its list of connected OSS/BSS partners in delivering quality end-to-end next-generation services. Alcatel-Lucent can stress that its solutions also extend to the optical and access domains.

• Cisco should point out its major initiatives related to delivering an intelligent network infrastructure to meet NGN objectives. Cisco should show the depth of its Service Exchange Framework to deploy personalized services while improving the OpEx and control within a common infrastructure. Cisco should insure that its service provider customers are aware of the key components of its architecture, such as the Intelligent Services Gateway, the Broadband Policy Manager, and the Service Control Engine.

• Redback, now part of Ericsson, can highlight the capabilities of its IP portfolio consisting of the SmartEdge Multiservice Edge Router (MSER) to support services such as IP/TV, video on demand, and interactive online gaming. Service provisioning and billing are simplified through the NetOp Policy Manager and NetOp Element Management System. NetOp PM greatly expands the capabilities of existing operational environments to offer a large variety of time-based, time-of-day-based, and volume-based services.

• Nokia Siemens Networks, which will begin official operations as a joint venture on April 1, 2007, should highlight the capabilities of the combined company to offer full end-to-end solutions that can leverage the advances made by Juniper for IP transport, as well as those of its extensive services organization and the individual product offerings derived from Siemens Communications and Nokia Networks.

• Other router and software vendors should adopt the emerging standard interfaces evolving from the various standards organizations and industry forums. With IMS becoming a reality, all vendors will need to participate in end-to-end solutions over the course of the next two years. Service providers will be seeking vendors that are committed to multi-vendor interoperability as well as best-of-breed devices.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• Service providers should press their vendors for proof points related to how rapidly their systems can be instrumented for deployment in their specific networks to support applications such as IPTV, VoIP, and advanced business services.

• Service providers should carefully track how their competition is leveraging technologies from the major vendors to augment their existing back office systems and real-time operational systems and practices. With integrated end-to-end policy and control in place, dynamic service allocation and monitoring should improve operational efficiency and create a higher-quality user experience.

• Service providers should evaluate the best-of-breed solutions for IPTV, VoIP, and other advanced services to determine the best fit for their planned and future offerings. Providers should give serious consideration to equipment vendors that have strong relationships and support OSS/BSS integration, since a comprehensive set of planning, provisioning, and real-time operational systems will be necessary to meet customer expectations.

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