SoftBank Selects Juniper Networks for Next-Generation Commercial Core Network

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced that SoftBank Corp. (“SoftBank”), the Japan-based telecommunications subsidiary of global technology player SoftBank Group Corp. has deployed Juniper’s MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers together with the Juniper Extension Toolkit (JET) automation framework in order to upgrade and future-proof its commercial core network.

SoftBank has experienced exponential traffic growth in Japan over the past few years, driven by their continued market success, as well as the increased adoption of mobile devices, cloud services and high-definition video content. To address this ongoing traffic growth, SoftBank required an infrastructure that could provide industry-leading performance and capacity for today and tomorrow, coupled with the reliability for always-on service delivery.

At the same time, SoftBank was seeking to modernize its operations environment, and wanted an agile and automated network solution that would reduce complexity and increase speed of service delivery. 

After an extensive review process, SoftBank identified Juniper Networks MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers alongside the JET automation framework as the clear choice for their next-generation network. With this new, state-of-the-art commercial core network, SoftBank has dramatically increased network capacity while at the same time implementing automation across its operations with the opening of new network connections while significantly improving long-term service agility.

News Highlights

• For its new commercial core network, SoftBank has selected the high-capacity MX2020 and the versatile MX104 3D Universal Edge Routers, while also implementing JET technology.
• With performance and stability being key criteria, SoftBank valued the MX2020’s ability to increase capacity from their current systems by 76-fold, as well as Juniper’s ability to enable the development of advanced technologies.
• In addition to greatly improving network capacity, the MX2020 addresses SoftBank’s stringent reliability requirements, with support for a comprehensive set of multi-layer resiliency features that quadruples the level of redundancy offered by their previous routers, allowing SoftBank to confidently meet customer expectations and deliver additional stability to its services.
• JET provides an automation toolkit that enables customers to automate configuration and provisioning tasks, enabling SoftBank to accelerate service delivery by up to 30 times when contrasted with their previous, manual approach to provisioning and configuration. Using open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), JET brings greater automation capabilities to the Junos operating system that powers and future-proofs SoftBank Corp’s commercial core network.
• Working closely with Juniper Networks, SoftBank deployed the new MX Series routers and the JET framework without disruption to their current services.

“As data traffic continues to increase by-the-day, we needed to significantly upgrade our commercial core network’s capacity, performance and automation capabilities in order to continue providing the world-class levels of service which our customers expect of SoftBank. After an extensive review, we found the perfect combination of products from Juniper Networks for our requirements, says Tomohiro Sekiwa, vice president, Core Network & Device Technology Business Unit, SoftBank Corp.