Network services and equipment provider Nokia has teamed up with IT networking vendor Juniper Networks to extend the development of SDN and NFV technologies for mobile operators.

The Finnish firm will bring together its Liquid Core NFV solution with Juniper’s MetaFabric datacentre architecture, which includes its NFV and cloud network automation solution Contrail, based on SDN, to create a “core on cloud” solution. The solution will be targeted at operators facing pressure to bring new services to market, the firms added.

The solution will be available later this year and will see Nokia provide its Liquid Core application suites implemented as virtualized network functions, such as virtualized Mobile Management Entity, virtualized IMS and virtualized Home Subscriber Server.  Juniper said that its MetaFabric architecture and Contrail SDN/NFV controller will also enable operators to create a mobile edge that is secure, automated and scalable. This will support operators in creating new services based on actionable intelligence, it added.

In addition, the partnership sees Nokia provide end to end services to operators implementing their own telco couds and migrate existing services to the cloud. Some of the services offered will tap into Juniper’s expertise, the firms added.

“By collaborating with Juniper, we are taking the next step together, enabling operators to take full advantage of the cloud with a clear path towards the robustness and scale of interconnected datacentres,” said Rajeev Suri, president and CEO of Nokia.

Network infrastructure vendors have stepped up their focus on cloud technologies in recent months. Last month, Ericsson reorganised its networks division, splitting it into two new business units; Radio and Cloud & IP. The Cloud & IP unit will drive Ericsson’s work on virtualization, an area in which the firm has ground to make up on its competitors such as Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei.

And in March, Alcatel-Lucent signed a €750m one-year deal with China Mobile to supply the technology for the operator to move to an all-IP network and enable the deployment of NFV technology on its network and cloud based services.

Prior to that, at Mobile World Congress in February, Huawei unveiled Cloud Edge, an umbrella brand for its NFV suite, which includes virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC), virtualized Multi-Service Engine (vMSE) and Cloud Management and Orchestration (MANO). Alcatel-Lucent also used the show to announce its own suite of NFV solutions, including EPC, IMS and a virtualized RAN.