Juniper Networks Democratizes the Telco Cloud with Contrail Cloud Enhancements

Juniper Networks announced enhancements to Contrail Cloud to help service providers mitigate the challenges in building and operating distributed and scalable clouds.

These updates, including integration of OpenStack Platform and Ceph Storage from leading open source solutions provider Red Hat, built-in AppFormix automation and visibility, pre-validated virtual network functions (VNFs) and new end-to-end support services, give carriers a far simpler path to delivering business, IoT and mobile services in the cloud.

Some of the world’s largest service providers have already proven that leveraging cloud architectures to offer business and mobility services can yield immense benefits, including service agility and speed of innovation, as well as considerably lower risk and costs. However, the road to a distributed, scalable and always-available cloud is paved with operational challenges.

Tedious procurement processes, complexities in building clouds, integration and interop, coordinating support across multiple vendors, and IT skills gaps in managing carrier-grade service level agreements (SLAs) can all complicate the journey. In a poll among Juniper customers, the company found:

• Respondents said “lack of visibility for all parts of cloud networks” is their top challenge in migrating to the cloud (nearly 40 percent ranked it No. 1); operational complexity ranked second; skills gaps among engineers third and rip-and-replace costs came in fourth.
• More than half (55 percent) of respondents indicated they are using two or more vendors in the network, which can add operational complexity.

Contrail Cloud makes deploying the telco cloud far easier through simplifying the underlying Linux distribution with Red Hat, seamlessly gleaning network insight with AppFormix, clearing the traditionally difficult task of validating VNFs by pre-qualifying, and adding end-to-end support services to smooth implementation. Companies – from telcos to mobile operators and cable providers – can use this integrated solution to easily navigate the complexities of cloud deployments and operations with improved performance and scale, and service SLAs.

Aligning with Juniper’s Cloud-Grade Networking tenets, Contrail Cloud simplifies the deployment, usability and operation of the virtualized cloud infrastructure with a proven, trusted, open and integrated software stack without compromising performance, scale and availability.

News highlights:

• AppFormix Integration. Contrail Cloud now features the industry-leading automation and optimization functionality of AppFormix, which Juniper acquired in 2016, for fully integrated service assurance of network functions virtualization (NFV) workloads. Simplifying cloud operations and having monitoring, visibility, diagnostics and troubleshooting capabilities is a must for service providers transitioning to the cloud era but they also need a ubiquitous way to automatically resolve any cloud infrastructure and software issues in order to ensure SLAs. Juniper’s AppFormix introduces an NFV-centric service assurance capability that leverages machine learning to provide continuous response and learning capabilities for uninterrupted operation.

• Expanded collaboration with Red Hat. Juniper has expanded its collaboration with Red Hat to offer a proven foundation for modern and scalable communications industry deployments, including NFV. Juniper has migrated Contrail Cloud to Red Hat OpenStack Platform, a highly scalable, production-ready Infrastructure-as-a-Service solution, and Red Hat Ceph Storage, an open, massively scalable, software-defined storage solution.

• Pre-validated Virtual Network Functions. Contrail Cloud now comes as a pre-validated solution with a pre-vetted hardware and software compatibility list that ensures a smooth and rapid cloud deployment from the beginning. The solution includes support for Juniper’s vSRX Virtual Firewall, Affirmed Networks’ industry-leading Mobile Content Cloud virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) solution, and future third-party virtual network functions. The joint solution with Affirmed, which combines their leadership in NFV for Mobile Networks and Juniper’s leadership in SDN, IP Networking, and Security, will enable mobile service providers to gracefully migrate to a distributed cloud architecture to significantly improve their service agility and drastically lower their TCO.

• Contrail Cloud managed solution offering: Juniper has introduced an end-to-end service offering to build and operate the cloud infrastructure for customers, including 24/7 solution support, and high-touch services to ensure expert application and adoption of Contrail Cloud.

Contrail Cloud offers a complete cloud orchestration software along with a reference architecture, professional services, and partner support to offer an integrated and turn-key solution to make cloud deployment and operations easier than ever. Juniper will be exhibiting at the OpenStack Summit in Sydney, Australia, Nov. 6 through Nov. 8 at booth A17 in the summit marketplace. For more information, visit the Juniper blog.