Orange Poland picks Juniper Networks for IP core network upgrade

Orange Poland is going with Juniper Networks for a major upgrade to its IP core network ahead of its rollout of 5G.

The deal also includes the planned use of Juniper's Contrail HealthBot next year in order to give Orange Poland big data analytics and machine learning capabilities across a distributed architecture.

Once Contrail HealthBot is in place, Orange Poland will be able to use its telemetry and management features to improve service delivery across its network. It also provides real-time and historic monitoring, performance visibility and dynamic optimization features to improve cloud orchestration, security, accounting, and planning.

Orange Poland's core network is based on Juniper's MX series of routers, and also includes the deployment of its NorthStar Controller. With the NorthStar Controller, which is Juniper’s WAN controller for software-defined traffic optimization, Orange Poland will be able to deliver a flexible traffic-engineering solution that enables improved visibility into and control over IP and MPLS flows in its network.

The automation of Orange Poland’s WAN also improves the management of label-switched paths (LSP), redirecting LSPs for maintaining the network resilience in case of failures and maintenance windows.

The deployment will also increase network utilization while enabling a customized and programmable networking experience in order to create traffic-engineering paths across the network, according to the two companies.

“With more than 20 million subscribers across mobile, FTTH, DSL and fixed telephony, Orange Poland is constantly evaluating ways to improve the performance and reliability of our network," said Orange Poland's Witold Konopka, director of WAN transport, in a statement. "By implementing Juniper’s intelligent network automation tools in our core network, we can deliver savings in network operations, mitigate network incidents and better deploy network resources, which is a vital consideration for our move to 5G.”

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Orange Poland is a significant customer win for Juniper Networks as it struggles to reach year-over-year profitability. In June, BT announced it was working with Juniper Networks and other vendors to build out its converged cloud network.

The converged network, which BT calls Network Cloud, rolls BT's fixed, video, mobile and Wi-Fi services and applications onto one platform. As the name implies, Network Cloud also allows BT to combine its network functions, and then deploy them on a cloud infrastructure that can be shared across BT's U.K. and global footprint.

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