Juniper Networks NFV Solution Gives Saudi Telecom Company's Cloud Increased Agility
By Telecom operators are dealing with more competition than ever from non-traditional service providers who are cutting into their revenue. One of the greatest challenges large operators face is their lack of agility when it comes to adopting new technologies and making them available to consumers with speed and efficiency, which is where OTTs have been thriving. Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecommunications company in the Arab world, is looking to decrease that gap by deploying Juniper Networks' Contrail Networking solution for its cloud services.
The Saudi operator has been the leading pioneer of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in the region. The adoption of NFV by the company was made to increase its business agility and revenue, while giving its individual and business customers access to new generation services that will allow them to compete globally.
"Using virtualization technologies to build a programmable NFV platform that creates agility and automation can provide the competitive edge for service providers operating in an increasingly competitive market," said Adrian Pickering, vice president, Middle East and Africa at Juniper Networks.
In order to make this possible, Juniper will provide STC with a secure, highly flexible and fully scalable platform that is capable of meeting the growing demand of the company and its millions of customers.
Contrail Networking is an SDN solution powered by open technology to deliver cloud networking and service orchestration with predictable security, availability, performance, automation, and elasticity for the creation of highly scalable virtual networks. For STC, it means harnessing the power of the cloud to introduce new products and services to market faster. It can now create virtual networks that can be integrated seamlessly with its physical networks that can be easily managed and orchestrated.
The open architecture is going to allow the company to avoid costly vendor-lock-in, while delivering the interoperability it needs with a wide range hypervisors, orchestration systems, and physical networks.
Contrail Networking also automates the creation of virtual networks that interconnect private, hybrid, and public clouds, which will give STC access to new technologies so it can deploy a range of innovative new services, including cloud-based offerings and virtualized managed services.
"The network, underpinned by advanced NFV and automation capabilities, can deliver substantial value to our customers by providing the agility, speed and simplicity that today's businesses require," said Dr. Tarig M. Enaya, senior vice president for enterprise at Saudi Telecom Company
The STC group had revenue of $12.2 billion in 2014, and it is increasing its presence beyond the Middle East and Africa (MEA) to compete with global brands. To achieve these objectives, the company needs to continue integrating the latest technologies. With Juniper's Contrail Networking, it will have the tools it needs to deploy cloud and virtualized solutions that is currently dominating the digital marketplace.
Edited by Peter Bernstein
