Juniper enhances core network for IPTV traffic

Juniper Networks this week rolled out enhancements to its service management system and router software designed to enable service providers to more efficiently and reliably transport video services throughout the IP network core.

The new features include Liquid LSPs, which lets third-party video serving platforms communicate with the SDX-300 and Juniper routers to map the best possible path between subscribers and content sources to increase network efficiency and video quality. The Liquid LSP feature also supports a Fast Failover capability for split-second failover, helping ensure the quality and reliability of video services during network congestion and equipment failures.

By enabling the dynamic activation and modification of LSPs between video serving locations, Liquid LSPs help providers serve videos from multiple locations, Juniper says.

Juniper also has implemented a number of enhancements to further extend the point-to-multipoint (P2MP) capabilities of its JUNOS operating system. P2MP is an MPLS-based multicasting technique intended to provide scalable delivery of broadcast TV traffic across the backbone.

The new features include the extension of constrained shortest path first functionality to P2MP LSPs, which Juniper says enables the network to determine the most efficient path for a given video stream. This enables a few super head-ends to service many remote video sites over long distances while assuring delivery quality of the broadcast TV channels, the company says.

Juniper also is enhancing its Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)-based Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS). This uses the BGP routing protocol as a signaling protocol for inter-metro VPLS deployments to reduce provisioning requirements and increase operational efficiency.

The enhancement to BGP-based VPLS enables service providers to simplify the scaling of metro video distribution networks, Juniper says.