Nokia Siemens Networks, EMC join forces to help service providers reduce costs and improve IP network quality

Core to the deal, the companies are working together on a joint solution to significantly improve the ability of service providers to shorten network down-time, boost service availability, lower churn and dramatically reduce operational costs simply by improving the management of their IP networks.

Service providers worldwide face the difficult challenge of how to cope with rapidly increasing network traffic without a corresponding increase in revenue. Many aim to differentiate themselves by using IP and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) networks to offer new services while lowering costs. However, these networks present their own challenges, such as how to achieve network visibility across all technology domains while ensuring real-time service assurance.

The co-developed solution will provide an answer to these challenges by offering end-to-end visibility and fault management for both MPLS VPN and IP routing protocol configurations in multi-technology and multi-vendor environments. The solution is based on the mobile network management of Nokia Siemens Networks' NetAct, which will be enhanced with IP domain visibility provided by the EMC Smarts automated IT management solution.

Juhani Hintikka, Head of Operations and Business Software Business Unit, Nokia Siemens Networks, said:

"IP networks are increasingly important as key drivers of network convergence. The variety of access technologies and devices used in the future will put increasing demands on the end-to-end network performance, and on IP service assurance operational costs."

"Our strategic objective is to support the continuing trend towards IP networks. Our work with EMC will increase the overall visibility and control the service providers have over their networks. The win for service providers can be significant in terms of cost reduction and network quality - and for the customer it delivers an improved individual communications experience," Hintikka added.

"This is an important agreement for the service provider market as a whole," said EMC's Colin Murray, Vice President Sales EMEA, Resource Management Software. "By enabling Nokia Siemens Networks to sell our IT management portfolio and bringing a jointly designed network management solution to market, service providers will be able to improve the overall availability and reliability of their IT resources, thus lowering costs and powering operational excellence and continuous improvement."

In addition to joint solution development, Nokia Siemens Networks will continue to resell, and provide system integration capabilities for EMC's line of automated IT management solutions - including EMC Smarts, EMC Application Discovery Manager, EMC VoyenceControl and EMC Infra.

Aimed at helping service providers achieve higher degrees of automation for their network operations, EMC's IT Management solutions conduct comprehensive discovery, compliance, analysis, automation and visualization across the IP and IT infrastructure. Leveraging these solutions, Nokia Siemens Networks' customers can improve service delivery while increasing service reliability - enabling them to realize greater operational efficiencies and other cost savings, while extending the value of their current network investments.

The joint solution is being demonstrated at TM Forum Management World, Nokia Siemens Networks demo lounge, Associate Meeting Room 1.