Juniper expands content delivery with Ankeena buy

Juniper hopes to improve the handling of video traffic

Juniper Networks has signed an agreement to acquire new-media infrastructure company Ankeena Networks in a $100m (£65m) deal which could expand Juniper's content delivery offerings for service providers.

The networking firm said that it will integrate Ankeena's technology into its portfolio of 'New Network' products to help meet growing demand for high-quality and media-rich video content, while enabling cost savings.

The move underlines Juniper's desire to provide an improved and cost-efficient portfolio of products for operators to meet the demands of fixed and mobile video traffic, according to Manoj Leelanivas, executive vice president and general manager at Juniper.

"The combination of Ankeena's new-media infrastructure will take our existing partnership to the next level to meet the bandwidth and cost-of-delivery challenges facing service providers as IP video continues to accelerate," he said.

Juniper will achieve this by making use of Ankeena's Media Flow Director, which enables service providers to provide a better viewing experience regardless of device or network conditions, the firm said.

The technology allows the network to detect available bandwidth and vary the delivery bit-rate to provide TV-quality videos that do not buffer or freeze, according to Juniper.

The company will also use Ankeena's multi-tier caching technology that it claims requires a tenth of the number of servers to deliver the media.

Rajan Raghavan, chief executive of Ankeena, added that the move will help the company drive the convergence of entertainment media and the internet.

"The combination of Juniper's networking products and Ankeena's highly scalable media delivery engine will accelerate the pace of innovation for the online delivery of all content types," he said.