Juniper's enterprise VPN and other security gear that the company has been amassing over the past several years are now being promoted to service providers through a relationship with Lucent.

The arrangement calls for marketing and selling products in tandem as well as for Lucent's Worldwide Services division to use Juniper gear to support security services.

While Juniper's VPN equipment is made for businesses to buy and run themselves, they are also suited to support managed services for those customers that don't have the time, money, resources or inclination to do it themselves. Some businesses just prefer to have a flat monthly bill for their VPN rather than the less-definite bottom line of building their own. A managed service can avoid the shock of replacement costs when owned equipment fails.

Under the agreement with Juniper, Lucent will push both Juniper IPSec and SSL VPN gear, as well as Juniper's intrusion prevention and firewalls, into carrier managed service offerings.

This relationship expands one that already existed between the two companies under which Lucent sold Juniper's MPLS carrier-class equipment to service providers. That equipment supports MPLS-based VPNs. Lucent also sold session border controllers that facilitate voice-over-IP deployments. Juniper acquired that technology when it bought Kagoor Networks.

This deal doesn't offer a direct benefit to businesses. In order for them to benefit from it, a service provider must buy into the deal first and offer a service based on the Juniper equipment.

It's something for Juniper fans to look for and also for current Juniper customers who may be looking to outsource their VPNs to take note of.

Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.