Lumen Technologies has tapped into Itential's orchestration and automation capabilities to improve its internal network operations. Spurred by the need to automate and improve operations across its 450,000 global route fiber miles, Lumen picked the Itential Automation Platform to improve its efficiencies.
With networks evolving across the cloud, edge and 5G, automation is a key element for orchestrating and managing applications and services.
Itential's automation platform is a low-code, scalable solution for multi-domain and multi-vendor networks. Using an API-first and machine-first model, Itential said the platform drives automation across field operations, service assurance, and service delivery.
Combined with DevOps principles, the Lumen IT and operations teams were able to partner and deliver end-to-end automation that scaled over tens of millions of jobs and tasks.
“Itential provides us with a network automation platform that can be used across our operational groups to drive productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction,” said Richard Batelaan, executive vice president of Lumen's North America operations, in a statement. ”Over the past 18 months, Itential has made it possible for our customers to utilize the Lumen application and data delivery platform in a way that best suits their individual needs – regardless of product mix, location, scale, scope and speed.”
As part of its own internal digital transformation, Lumen developed an abstraction layer to unify its internal processes, customer purchase workflows and various networking products into a platform that can orchestrate functions such as order management, service provisioning and service assurance across disparate networks.
By using Itential, the orchestration layer works with the control systems for each of the separate networks to provide end-to-end visibility and management. Having the new automation and orchestration platform in place was particularly helpful to Lumen and its customers during the Covid-19 pandemic as many businesses ramped up their digital transformations.
“In partnership with Itential, Lumen has enabled customers to rapidly respond to changing market demands by providing agile, on-demand and responsive network and cloud services,” said Itential CEO Ian Bresnahan, in a statement. “Itential’s automation and integration capabilities provide Lumen with comprehensive orchestration of activities across all network types and IT systems while ensuring a streamlined customer experience.”
RELATED: Lumen Technologies gives automation a turbo boost with Itential
Atlanta-based Itential has been making in-roads with Lumen. In December, Lumen announced it had teamed up with Itential to boost automation across multi-domain networks for service providers, enterprises and cloud providers. Lumen is now serving up Itential's automation platform as part of its consulting services for enterprises' IT teams.