Press Releases
Avaya and Juniper Networks Extend Strategic Alliance with Integrated Branch Networking Solutions
Best-in-Class IP Telephony and Routing Solution To Provide Secure and Intelligent Communications for Enterprise Branch Offices and Remote Locations
SUNNYVALE, Calif., and BASKING RIDGE, N.J., October 30, 2006 - Avaya (NYSE:AV) and Juniper Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) today announced plans to integrate Avaya's industry-leading IP voice gateway and intelligent communications applications with Juniper's new J4350 and J6350 J-series enterprise branch routers. The integrated branch networking offering is part of the companies' joint strategy to provide communications solutions for enterprise branch and remote offices.
Since announcing the alliance last year, the companies have collaborated on a variety of efforts to create VoIP-aware product capabilities. This is the first completely integrated solution from Avaya and Juniper that involved joint product engineering and software development by both companies.
"We are seeing a consistent trend towards the enterprise wanting more functionality combined with fewer 'boxes' in the branch to reduce cost and complexity," said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst and program director, convergence and collaboration, Nemertes Research. "The tightly integrated solution from Avaya and Juniper, which is a natural continuation of the companies' relationship, addresses this trend in delivering communications to branch offices. It's very well positioned to serve the expanding branch office market and support critical features including business continuity."
The new J4350 and J6350 J-series enterprise routers are IP telephony-ready, enabling customers the flexibility to extend and enhance their branch office data networking with voice capabilities at their path, pace and choice. Juniper's new J-series routers can be configured with Avaya's new IG550 - an integrated media gateway with a number of telephony interface modules. The combined offer will provide enterprise remote and branch offices with Gigabit Ethernet routing performance and integrated, feature-rich IP telephony functions.
"Avaya and Juniper are providing enterprise customers with choice, simplicity and security when it comes to putting IP communications on their network," said Carl Baptiste, vice president, product management, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya. "It makes perfect sense for Avaya, the global leader in IP telephony to team with Juniper, whose routers have a worldwide reputation for performance and reliability, to bring to the market a high-performance, secure solution that enterprise customers can use to connect branch and remote offices with local telephony and survivability. The solution is also tailored to help ensure, business continuity and includes centralized management and communications capabilities based on Avaya Communication Manager software."
"Avaya's industry-leading network management and rock-solid reliability coupled with Juniper Networks' leading routing technologies are an ideal VoIP solution for enterprise customers," said Hitesh Sheth, vice president of Security Products, Juniper Networks. "Since first announcing our alliance, we have been delivering capabilities across our portfolio that are designed and tuned for deployment with Avaya and we look forward to additional strategic advancements with Avaya."
New York City-based McGraw Communications, a full-service competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) that serves the small and medium-sized enterprise market, already relies on Avaya Communication Manager applications and Juniper Networks' J-series routers and firewall/VPNs available today to ensure it delivers IP telephony capabilities to its customers nationwide. Today, McGraw is working with New York metropolitan region-based Juma Technology, a telecommunications and IT systems integrator that specializes in converged voice and data network deployments, to pilot a hosted IP telephony network that will initially connect three data centers and five enterprise locations with the new, integrated solution from Avaya and Juniper.
"Our communications network, based on Avaya Communication Manager applications and Juniper routers, enables us to provide secure, high quality VoIP services to our enterprise customers," said Frank Ahearn, McGraw's chief executive officer. "Clearly, a solution that integrates Avaya's industry-leading IP voice gateways and Juniper routers will enable organizations, such as us, to deploy a single, survivable platform for even more functions and cost savings. With the integrated solution in place, we'll be able to offer enterprises the ability to choose a customized level of security, depending on their business needs."
Strategic Products and Services (SPS), a certified Platinum member of Avaya's Business Partner program and a Juniper Networks reseller, plans to trial the integrated solution at its Michigan location. SPS will use the solution to support remote users and call center agents in its Lansing operations office.
"The branch office market opportunity is tremendous and the Avaya and Juniper joint solution is a perfect fit for this space. We look forward to offering a single source to our enterprise customers for a branch office router that combines best-in-class networking and security with best-in-class IP telephony," said Mike Taylor, chief technology officer and vice president, emerging technology, SPS.
Integrated Branch Solution Provides Enterprises Choices for Streamlined Routing, Voice and Security Capabilities
The integrated Avaya and Juniper Networks solution will offer customers the option to streamline router and voice gateway deployments for branch offices supporting up to 100 station users by embedding Avaya IG550 gateway and interface modules inside Juniper's new J4350 and J6350 J-series routers. By including on-board support for two analog stations as well as two analog trunks, the integrated solution provides embedded local survivability functionality for branch offices, offering customers a degree of protection from business critical communication interruptions due to WAN outages.
Avaya's IG550 telephony interface modules include an expanded analog port option, which supports four additional station and four additional trunk ports, a digital trunk interface option supporting a single T1/E1/PRI interface; and a four-port ISDN BRI version for interoffice trunking.
Avaya also offers a full suite of management tools including technician installation tools and Hewlett Packard OpenView (HPOV) integration. The fully tested and supported integrated Avaya and Juniper solution is backed by a comprehensive set of services from Avaya Global Services. Together, Avaya and Juniper designed a solution that leverages best-in-class design to work with customers' existing networks.
New IP Telephony-Ready J-series
The new Juniper J4350 and J6350 J-series routers provide up to two Gigabit Ethernet performance for enterprise remote, branch and regional offices. They are IP telephony-ready and run modular JUNOS operating system software, which offers many advanced services (MPLS, IPv6, QoS, multicast, etc.) and security (stateful firewall and IPSec VPN) at no additional charge. J-series routers are forward-looking platforms with modular flexibility, performance headroom and extensible memory to meet future demands, providing unmatched reliability, investment protection, and value for the enterprise [see today's related announcement titled "Juniper Networks Announces Strategy for the Enterprise Branch"].
Availability
Juniper Networks' new J4350 and J6350 J-series routers are available globally today. The combined Avaya and Juniper enterprise IP telephony solutions are also available globally today through Avaya and certified resellers who are part of both Avaya's BusinessPartner program and Juniper Networks' J-Partners. The fully integrated solution, which includes the new Juniper J4350 and J6350 J-series routers and new Avaya IG550 telephony gateway, is planned for general worldwide availability starting in Q1 2007.
About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.
Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications - and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services - Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: www.avaya.com.
About Juniper Networks, Inc.
Juniper Networks develops purpose-built, high-performance IP platforms that enable customers to support a wide variety of services and applications at scale. Service providers, enterprises, governments and research and education institutions rely on Juniper to deliver a portfolio of proven networking, security and application acceleration solutions that solve highly complex, fast-changing problems in the world's most demanding networks. Additional information can be found at www.juniper.net.
Juniper Networks and the Juniper Networks logo are registered trademarks in the United States and other countries. JUNOS is a trademark of Juniper Networks, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.
Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. with the exception of FORTUNE 500 which is a registered trademark of Time Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
