(Source: Business Wire)Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR) today announced an agreement to offer networking solutions under Dell's PowerConnect brand that enable customers to deploy a common network management platform and network operating system to help reduce operating expenses. In addition, the companies plan to work together on open, standards-based solutions for virtualized data centers and deliver technology solutions using Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), also known as Data Center Bridging (DCB) and iSCSI to improve network economics.

As the notion of traditional, physical data center boundaries extend to virtual environments, customers must adapt to a variety of technological challenges including virtualization, security, bandwidth utilization and network management. By signing this original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement, Dell and Juniper intend to deliver a secure network infrastructure - from a customer's traditional data center out to its branch offices, remote workers, customers and business partners - that can dynamically adjust to meet these challenges and provide orchestrated management of users, workloads and data -- avoiding single-vendor lock-in.

Dell also plans to market, service and support Juniper's high-performance networking solutions to its large enterprise, small and medium business customers and public organizations. The products Dell will deliver under its PowerConnect brand include the Juniper Networks MX Series services routers, EX Series Ethernet switches and SRX Series services gateways, all running JUNOS® Software. Dell expects to make these products available to customers via its direct and PartnerDirect channels.

"Networking is an important piece in providing customers with choices for how they optimize their data center operations to improve efficiency," said Brad Anderson, senior vice president, Enterprise Product Group, Dell. "This agreement will help address many of our customer's biggest challenges including a dramatic rise in security concerns, an increasingly dispersed workforce and challenges brought on with the advent of the virtualized data center."

"Juniper and Dell are a formidable team, and together we can deliver significant value for enterprise customers around the world. This OEM agreement is another great step in our sustained and successful push into the enterprise market," said Gerri Elliott, executive vice president, Strategic Alliances, Juniper Networks. "We have the only infrastructure that includes integrated security, routing and switching running on a single operating system.