Developing and deploying communications equipment is not getting any easier. Economic and competitive pressures continue to demand that network equipment be deployed with more revenue generating functionality -- faster and at a lower cost. Integrating commercial off the shelf (COTS) building blocks has been viewed as a panacea for meeting these demands. But this approach is only effective if the system is architected from the start with the integration of multiple technologies from multiple vendors in mind. This paper defines a multi-vendor, multi-technology platform architecture that can significantly reduce the time, cost, and effort of deploying integrated network equipment.