Lenovo and Juniper Networks today announced the commencement of a global strategic partnership to leverage synergies in their respective product and technology portfolios to build the next generation of  converged, hyper-converged, and hyper-scale data centre infrastructure solutions for enterprise and web-scale customers. The alliance reflects a shared commitment to deliver simplified, flexible, and high-performance solutions that will provide customers faster time-to-application value with reduced operating costs.

With an extensive portfolio of x86 based servers and switches, Lenovo is at the forefront of the movement toward converged and software defined offerings. Juniper is a market leader in networking innovation with its comprehensive portfolio of routers, switches, network management software, network security products and software-defined networking technology. The partnership is expected to enable customers to leverage Juniper’s strengths in networking and Lenovo’s recognised leadership in x86 server reliability and networking access to derive manageable, scalable, and simple infrastructure for their data centre.

Below are the key planned principles of the partnership:

· Customers will be able to purchase Juniper’s broad portfolio of networking products directly from Lenovo for easier acquisition, as well as consolidated support.

· With the move to disaggregation of hardware and software in the data centre, the two companies intend to bring open, flexible solutions to market, leveraging the ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) model.

· Keeping in mind customer needs for fast provisioning and easy administration, both companies expect to collaborate to offer simplified management and orchestration in the datacentre leveraging Lenovo’s xClarity management software as well as Juniper’s Network Director and Contrail SDN software.

· In addition, the two companies plan to collaborate around go to market on a worldwide basis targeting enterprise customers, service providers, channel partners as well as system integrators.

· Lenovo and Juniper aim to develop joint go-to-market plans and a tailor-made resell model to address unique localization requirements in China.

“Lenovo is on a mission to become the market leader in data centre solutions. We will continue to invest in the development and delivery of disruptive IT solutions to shape next-generation data centres. Our partnership with Juniper Networks provides Lenovo access to an industry leading portfolio of products that include Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions – essential for state-of-the-art data centre offerings” - Gerry Smith, Lenovo executive vice president and chief operating officer, PC and Enterprise Business Group.

“Partnering with Lenovo expands Juniper’s strategy to deliver a full-stack solution for a wide-range of data centres, from the mid-range enterprise to private cloud and to hyper-scale customers. We are excited about collaborating with Lenovo to leverage the full power of our IP-networking portfolio based on JunosOS and Contrail, in delivering the next generation of converged, hyper-converged, and hyper-scale solution to customers in China and globally”

- Rami Rahim, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks.