Tuesday, 31 October 2006

Avaya, Juniper Shake Hands on IP Voice Gateway, Branch Routers Deal

Avaya and Juniper are planning to integrate Avaya's IP voice gateway and communication 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, the companies stated.

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, as per the report released by the 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 new J4350 and J6350 J-series enterprise routers are IP telephony-ready, that aim to enable 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, IP telephony functions, the companies said.

Juniper Networks' new J4350 and J6350 J-series routers are available globally. The combined Avaya and Juniper enterprise IP telephony solutions are also available globally 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.