Today at Juniper Networks’ Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange, the company’s CEO Rami Rahim was bullish on cloud and called Contrail, Juniper’s software-defined networking (SDN) controller, “the secret weapon for helping telcos transition from the old world to the new world.”

The shift to the cloud represents a big opportunity for Juniper, Rahim said, adding: “Service providers around the globe are transforming their network locations to data-center-like entities with routing, switching, and security — but with automation that cloud providers have enjoyed for years.”

Recently, Verizon said it was building a telco cloud, and AT&T, which has publically announced it uses Juniper’s Contrail, said its AT&T Integrated Cloud (AIC) will include 105 data centers by year’s end.

“SDN is not just about technology, but our customers need support from us in helping to integrate that technology into their networks,” said Rahim. “We are building a professional services engine inside the company that does just that.”

Services is not a new business area for Juniper. An analyst note penned today by Mitch Steves from RBC Capital Markets notes:

As customers move to SDN, Contrail, and NFV, the company anticipates seeing services represent 27 percent of total Juniper revenues (FY16). Given the improved customer focus on services, Juniper believes that services revenue (3-7 percent growth) should outpace routing (2-4 percent) and security (3-5 percent) product growth.

Rahim also mentioned the company’s April acquisition of BTI Systems and how it will work in conjunction with Juniper’s NorthStar Controller to “round out” the company's portfolio for packet-optical networking.

The company said in March it will integrate IP and optical technologies to target Tier 2s that, in turn, want to target data center interconnection in the metro network.

“We’ll take our packet DNA and bring it into the optical domain," said Jonathan Davidson, Juniper’s general manager of development and innovation, at today's investor meeting.

He said that at the optical layer, “customers are locked in” as soon as they select an optical vendor.

Juniper is working with the newly formed telecom infrastructure group within the Open Compute Project to drive more openness at the optical layer.