Juniper has an increasingly strategic partnership with NEC, which spans many aspects of 5G end-to-end networks and particularly looks to leverage operators’ moves towards open networking. While Open RAN has been the high profile aspect of this alliance, there are also activities in transport networks and other domains. Most recently, NEC and its OSS subsidiary Netcracker announced a multiyear partnership with Juniper to deliver professional services to support 5G transport. The multivendor solution also includes open optical connectivity from ADVA, and will form part of NEC’s xHaul Transformation Services portfolio. The aim is to provide a single system that can address challenges such as multi-layer orchestration across IP and optical domains to support network slicing. The software and services offering…