Liberty Global intends to deploy Juniper Networks vMX virtual route reflectors to streamline operations and decrease cost of ownership
Juniper Networks announced Liberty Global, the world’s largest international TV and broadband company, is using its vMX platform to support a network functions virtualization (NFV) initiative. Liberty Global will deploy Juniper Networks vMX carrier-grade virtual routers to make its broadband, telephony and television services more efficient.
“Virtualization solutions streamline our infrastructure, our operations environment and our global business outcomes,” said Andy Grotzke, VP of core network strategy and engineering at Liberty Global, in a statement. “While our first NFV deployment is for virtual route reflection, we are also evaluating the vMX to rapidly add network capacity and new customers. The ability to leverage a broad set of virtual routing capabilities is very important to Liberty Global as it will enable agile service innovation and increased operational efficiency.”
Liberty Global has approximately 20 million customers dotted across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, managing more than 10 million WiFi access points. The company owns Unity Media in Germany, Telenet in Belgium, Virgin Media in the UK and Ireland, and UPC in central and eastern Europe.
NFV has been a major game changer for the telecom industry with reverberations that extend beyond IT departments. The increased adoption of internet connected devices has provided a major boost for the NFV market. According to Technavio’s market research, the NFV market is expected to swell at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) close to 33% by 2020.
Juniper’s vMX is a universal edge router that runs on off-the-shelf x86-based servers. By implementing the solution as a virtual route reflector, Liberty Global plans to take advantage of the cost-effective control plane, spinning up new virtual reflectors in response to customer demand.
Virtual router reflection is intended to deliver high performance and scale. According to Juniper, its virtual reflectors will enable Liberty Global to streamline operations and decrease the total cost of ownership. Liberty Global is an existing Juniper customer that uses Juniper’s MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers and PTX Series Packet Transport Routers at multiple locations in its network.
“Virtualized network services are a key technology in the transformation to agility. Juniper’s high-performance virtualization technologies enable Liberty Global to deploy new services and products quickly and easily,” said Paul Obsitnik, vice president, portfolio marketing at Juniper Networks
