Juniper Networks, the industry leader in network innovation, has announced additions to its routing portfolio that expand the company’s Carrier Ethernet offerings. The new Juniper Networks® ACX500 and ACX5000 routers, as well as enhancements to the Junos® Space Network Management Platform software, will enable service providers to handle added capacity and accelerate service orchestration and provisioning more cost-effectively than ever before.
With these new products, Juniper is continuing to build out its mobile IP portfolio to deliver a holistic approach that will enable more efficient mobile service creation. When combined with Juniper’s existing offerings, such as the Service Control Gateway and MX Series routing platforms, Juniper delivers IP/MPLS solutions that can flexibly enable new services at an optimized cost. Additionally, Juniper’s Carrier Ethernet solution seamlessly blends hardware and software to address service providers’ growing need to support mobile backhaul and metro Ethernet coverage on one common heterogeneous network infrastructure.
Mobile service providers are facing exponential demands for bandwidth and service coverage, which they are increasingly addressing with small cells. However, with rising traffic demands coming from numerous small cells, the need to aggregate and streamline their management requires a more robust backhaul network that can maintain service quality at scale.
ACX500
Purpose-built to mitigate capacity challenges associated with ever-sophisticated LTE networks, the ACX500 also features the industry’s first integrated GPS receiver to enhance the accuracy of cell signal hand-off, thereby diminishing dropped calls, improving location-based services, such as E911 emergency calls, and bolstering the quality of video streaming for on-the-go consumers. The ACX500 has extensible and customizable service options, is fan-less, hardened and designed for indoor or outdoor use.
ACX5000
As the industry’s only Carrier Ethernet router that can embed virtualized functions directly within the network fabric, Juniper’s new ACX5000 aggregates various networks, including small cells, macro cells and residential and commercial broadband networks. As access transforms from 1GE to 10GE speeds, this platform provides ideal investment protection by allowing seamless and cost-effective software-based port upgrades. With market-leading 10G and 40G densities, ACX5000 can deliver a cost-effective, high-performance aggregation platform that gives service providers a more efficient and manageable Metro Ethernet solution, greatly reducing operational expenses. The ACX5000 supports Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM)-compliant network function virtualization for rapid creation of advanced services, such as network analytics, security services and subscriber-specific virtualized network functions.
Simplified Provisioning and Management
Since service provisioning in the Carrier Ethernet network can often be a time-consuming and resource-intensive task, Juniper is also introducing support for these new devices in its Junos Space Connectivity Services Director and Junos Space Cross Provisioning Platform software. This enables automated provisioning of Carrier Ethernet services across multi-vendor networks for IP and Ethernet services.
News Highlights
- The ACX500 router, which will be available in Q2 2015, will deliver best-in-class small cell routing with integrated security and high precision timing capabilities with less than 0.5 microsecond phase accuracy to support LTE and LTE-Advanced deployments, which are important capabilities required by mobile service providers.
- Available in Q1 2015, the ACX5000 will be the highest density terabit scale Carrier Ethernet router in the market with 10GE metro Ethernet distribution and aggregation with 40GE interfaces.
- As an added enhancement to the Junos Space Network Management Platform, the Connectivity Services Director and Cross Provisioning Platform ensure unified network management of Ethernet services on multi-vendor carrier networks, shortening time to deployment and reducing total cost of operation.
- To help simplify the delivery of managed services, Juniper Networks Contrail™ has the ability to orchestrate billable subscriber service creation. In addition, the NorthStar Controller can manage and optimize seamless MPLS on the Carrier Ethernet network.
- When used in conjunction with Juniper Networks MX Series routers, ACX Series routers can distribute integrated capabilities to the edge, such as MX LTE Security Gateway and Service Control Gateway functionality, which enable customers to implement service chains at scale.
Mike Marcellin, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at Juniper Networks, said “Juniper Networks is continuing to deliver a holistic approach to effectively executing small cell backhaul and Carrier Ethernet deployments by integrating physical infrastructure with virtual services. These new solutions enhance the mobile subscriber experience and improve profit margins for service providers by cost-effectively meeting operational challenges with the zero-touch rapid deployment and delivering seamless access for new, high-bandwidth services.”
