Microsoft Taps Nokia For Data Center Switching

April 21, 2022

Nokia’s solutions will deliver the additional networking scale and capacity Microsoft requires for its data center environments to support the bandwidth growth to its Microsoft Azure platform

Nokia will provide its data center switching solutions for Microsoft’s data center facilities to support the bandwidth growth to Microsoft Azure as part of a multi-faceted deal. The deal expands the long-standing relationship between the companies, who have been working together to bring massively scaled, agile and highly resilient networking to the data center environment.

With the significant growth of cloud services and cloud computing and the move to 400GE, Nokia has been selected to supply its 7250 IXR chassis-based interconnect routers to support high-density 400GE applications in Microsoft’s ‘tier-2’ network architecture. Nokia will also be supplying fixed-form-factor platforms into other Microsoft network applications. This new agreement builds upon the companies’ collaboration as part of the open source SONiC initiative to develop chassis-based platforms focused on the requirements of high-capacity data centers.

Nokia’s next-generation data center switching portfolio platforms deliver the scale, openness, aggregation and interconnectivity required for modern data center networks. The 7250 IXR offers a broad range of high-performance chassis-based and fixed-form-factor options for data center top of rack (TOR), leaf, spine and super-spine applications. The platforms support port speeds up to 400GE, with a path to 800GE, along with comprehensive IP and Ethernet feature sets.

Vach Kompella, Vice President, IP Networks Division, Nokia, said: “Today’s data centers have their own unique operational challenges, and Nokia has been working closely for some time now with Microsoft to understand its evolving data center needs and requirements. Our expertise in building high-performance, chassis-based systems was a key factor in our selection.”

David Maltz, Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Azure Networking, said: “Nokia’s platforms were a natural choice to deliver the massive-scale interconnectivity that Microsoft requires. Nokia brings density, performance and flexibility to Microsoft’s data center networks and cloud environments and is partnering with Microsoft to deliver chassis switches running the open source networking operating system SONiC.”