Lenovo, Juniper outline strategic partnership, eye hyperconverged systems
Lenovo and Juniper Networks have forged a strategic partnership to collaborate on next-generation hyperconverged and other data center systems.
The two companies said that they will collaborate on joint systems and integrate Lenovo's servers and Juniper's networking hardware and software.
With Cisco ramping its hyperconverged systems, the Lenovo partnership makes sense for Juniper. Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell are also big players in converged, hyperscale and hyperconverged systems. For Lenovo, the Juniper partnership is another way to build on its x86 servers and switches portfolio and expanding.
On Lenovo's recent earnings conference call, executives touted the company's enterprise traction and said it is in "full attack mode." Lenovo has been building up its partnership base. In January, Lenovo announced a partnership with SAP to go along with an alliance with Nutanix.
More: Lenovo gears up for long march to be a serious enterprise challenger | Lenovo partners with DataCore to deliver data-focused SDS solution
Lenovo in February said that its enterprise revenue was up 30 percent from a year ago due to hyperscale system demand. Lenovo CFO Wong Wai Ming said:
For enterprise, with our strength in China and emerging markets, we will continue to attack solid growth. On one hand, in the traditional IT market, with better technologies, great product portfolio and the right cost structure, leveraging both System X an Lenovo's efficiency. On the other hand, we are also moving to faster-growing opportunities through strategic partnerships established with the leaders in the areas to drive growth.
Here's a look at the key points of the Lenovo-Juniper partnership:
- Lenovo will resell Juniper's networking products and offer support.
- The two companies will aim to become more software defined via Juniper's Open Network Install Environment.
- Juniper and Lenovo will collaborate on management, orchestration and provisioning software and integrate current applications.
- Both companies will combine to target customers globally and address localization requirements in China.
When you add up the moving parts with Juniper and Nutanix it's likely that Lenovo will be able to combine compute, network and storage in one hyperconverged system.