This whitepaper dives in Juniper's recent Contrail SDN announcements highlighting key elements of the technology, partnerships and impact as a disruptor in the space.

1. Juniper Announces Availability of Its
Contrail SDN Solution; Showcases
Customers and Ecosystem Partnerships,
Most Notably IBM
September 19, 2013 - IDC Link
By: Nav Chander; Brad Casemore; Rohit Mehra; Vernon Turner
On September 16, 2013, Juniper announced the general availability of its Contrail SDN (software-defined
networking) network virtualization solution, including its SDN controller. Juniper also presented a few
significant SDN customer trials with specific use cases while highlighting new partnerships and other
developments around its SDN and software strategy, the hallmark of which is a partnership with IBM
SmartCloud for network orchestration and cloud management.
Contrail is Juniper's network overlay platform for software-defined networking for enterprises, cloud
providers, and communication service providers (CSPs). As a network overlay, Contrail competes directly
with VMware's recently announced NSX and Alcatel-Lucent's Nuage Networks platform, besides a number
of smaller startups.
The Contrail platform includes several components. The first is a software controller that is designed to
run on a virtual machine and can be run in an active/active cluster. The controller exposes a set of RESTful
APIs for northbound interaction with cloud orchestration tools and other applications. According to Juniper,
the orchestrator can be used to request the provisioning of a virtual machine and assign it to a network.
At launch, the Contrail controller works with OpenStack and CloudStack as well as with IBM's SmartCloud
Orchestrator.
The second component is the vRouter, which runs on Xen or KVM hypervisors. (Note that vRouter cannot
run on VMware's ESX.) The controller communicates with vRouters via XMPP and instructs the vRouters
in how to forward packets. The vRouters build tunnels between virtual machines. These tunnels run over
the physical network. Juniper supports multiple tunneling protocols, including VXLAN, MPLS over GRE,
and MPLS over UDP.
With its Contrail launch, Juniper is targeting two segments:
Enterprises and cloud providers that plan to employ virtualized private and hybrid cloud
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services that seek workload mobility flexibility between private and public cloud services
Communication service providers that are planning to implement NFV-based use cases that
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utilize service chaining and service orchestration to improve service velocity
The Contrail launch also showcases three key customers that are active in their trials of this SDN
technology, namely SunGard, ISP Prime, and Jaguar Networks. These customers' feedback on their plans
and early developments of implementing network and service virtualization with Juniper's Contrail
indicates that the solution does indeed provide some key benefits in terms of easier provisioning and
improved agility, and the elastic scalability that many IT environments desire. While Juniper has not shared
details of any Tier 1 CSP engagements, IDC believes that AT&T, Orange Business Services, and Telstra,
three long-time Juniper customers, are all believed to be in trials with Juniper for NFV applications.
Juniper also announced OpenContrail, an open source version of the Contrail controller, will be
immediately available as open source software, at opencontrail.org under an Apache 2.0 license. The
company says OpenContrail has everything necessary to create an overlay network. The open source
package includes the controller, vRouter, orchestration APIs, and management console. While
announcing availability of an open source version of Contrail — to draw partners and developers and to
counter competitive options — Juniper does expect most customers to opt for the paid version of Contrail.
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2. Ecosystem Partnerships
Among the host of SDN technology and cloud orchestration partnerships announced by Juniper, the most
notable is its partnership with IBM SmartCloud for network orchestration and cloud service management.
IBM and Juniper both see the value that Contrail can bring to a cloud provider or enterprise for cloud
orchestration, and Juniper is prepared to aggressively leverage that and position the company as an early
mover in adopting and promoting the market transition toward SDN.
Regarding the IBM relationship, it's important to note that this is with IBM's cloud and software group,
distinct from IBM's Blade and networking group, which has its own software overlay platform, Software
Defined Network for Virtual Environments (SDN VE), based on its DOVE (Distributed Overlay Virtual
Ethernet) architecture. Another aspect of the launch and partnership that does raise some questions is
around the extent of Juniper's involvement with OpenDaylight, especially when IBM is a key promoter of
that alliance and joint development project.
Juniper's SDN Strategy: Will It Be a Disruptor?
Is Juniper's software-centric SDN and network routing platform strategy going to help reposition Juniper
as a leading vendor of choice for both enterprises and CSPs leveraging the open source SDN controller?
Certainly Juniper's pricing for the commercial version of Contrail at $1,700 per socket for a perpetual
license and a one-year subscription (available at $1,000 per socket) follows a conventional software
licensing business approach that is common in the server environment today, which is certainly different
from other networking hardware vendors.
The Contrail SDN architecture, SDN ecosystem, open source strategy, and IBM relationship clearly
demonstrate that Juniper is staking its future on open programmable network architecture. Juniper does
raise the bar on scaling SDN networks and challenges the conventional VLAN scaling and MAC address
issues of other existing networking solutions and emerging SDN solutions. Contrail promises to provide
scale-out capabilities while providing resiliency to the software stack.
Analytics and service chaining are key functional and core capabilities that will round out the value prop
of the Juniper-Contrail solution, also providing interoperability with platforms such as OpenStack,
CloudStack, and SmartCloud for network orchestration. Juniper also completed an analytics engine that
provides a real-time view of what's going on in the network as part of the Contrail SDN controller.
Juniper Networks still faces a number of challenges in the enterprise. It knows that to fully support
application workloads, it must provide products and technologies that not only serve its traditional
constituency of network professionals but also serve other constituencies within the IT department that
want to see faster network provisioning and greater network agility through automation. The question is
not whether Juniper understands customer requirements but whether its approach, which also
encompasses ongoing ASIC development (for programmable network infrastructure) and a network
overlay that emphasizes BGP and XMPP, will resonate as well in the datacenter and in the enterprise as
it might among service providers.
Contrail's general availability enables CSPs to plan and deploy NFV-based use cases with a technology
solution that is based on MPLS layer 3. Most CSPs are more likely to embrace a migration of their MPLS
network infrastructure and architecture. CSPs are more comfortable with IP/MPLS layer 3 networking
solutions and have the technical expertise within their organizations. CSPs, however, also desire the open
programmable network routing functionality that can help them achieve service velocity that can compete
with AWS, Google, Rackspace, and Microsoft for cloud services. Juniper, however, still is likely to face off
against ALU/Nuage Networks for much of this migration since both companies have a similar technology
and SDN solution strategy based on layer 3 overlays and that will be open, programmable, and
multivendor.
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3. Juniper claims that it has more than 40 active customer Contrail trials; however, some of those include
other vendors (such as IBM and Red Hat). Several leading NFV application use cases utilizing the Contrail
SDN controller include a virtual CPE service strategy, new virtualized services such as a virtual firewall,
and compute as a service, which Colt, AT&T, OBS, and others are interested in. One notable recent
change in Juniper's SDN overall strategy is to no longer compete in virtualization of the Evolved Packet
Core (EPC) market segment and instead focus on core CSP enterprise, broadband, and cloud service
network opportunities.
Juniper still needs to deepen its relationships with service providers through professional services–
oriented early adopter programs for SDN, in addition to the existing frameworks for OSS/BSS integration.
Supporting NFV trials will require some additional resources and will also create opportunities for Juniper
to help CSPs integrate other networking hardware and software, if done right. Given that Juniper lacks
the portfolio breadth of competitors such as Cisco (particularly on the cloud applications front), expansion
of joint development arrangements with service providers such as Colt, AT&T, and joint go-to-market
partnerships with technology-agnostic systems integrators such as IBM and Tech Mahindra will be critical
to forging more strategic solution creation relationships with service providers.
Future Outlook
Juniper has clearly articulated a broad company strategy where it is moving from a hardware engineering
focus to a balance of hardware and software architectures, a proof point of which is how it has taken the
lead with packaging, pricing, and licensing its software controller offering. In addition, the open source
direction not only is for the Contrail SDN controller but is a strategic direction for Juniper. Juniper does
need to work more closely with Open Stack and CloudStack and leverage its orchestration relationship
with IBM (and others) to develop a stronger integrated strategic network virtualization solution portfolio
that appeals to more than CSPs. It is certainly crucial for Juniper to retain and grow market share in the
CSP segment, and Juniper will have to continue to be aggressive in deploying service trials by articulating
specific benefits of NFV and SDN use cases with real proof points.
For some traditional IT vendors, this is both a challenge and a necessity if the vendor is to make the shift
to the next-generation business models where "services" are a key differentiator. To be able to do that,
the infrastructure elements (network, storage, and servers) have to be delivered as services and therefore
advances in broad virtualization capabilities will become a table stake. Juniper, through its software
strategy, appears to be one of the leaders in the network industry to make this transition.
Subscriptions Covered:
Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, Wireline Network Infrastructure, Datacenter Networks
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