Global technology provider for the utility industry deploys managed service to improve company network performance and collaboration across its global locations

Ciena® Corporation (NYSE: CIEN), the network specialist, and AT&T, one of the world’s leading data, voice, wireless and Internet services providers, today announced a deployment with Itron, a world-leading technology and services company dedicated to the resourceful use of energy and water. With Ciena Network Transformation Solutions (NTS) and AT&T’s global managed service, Itron can better manage, monitor and control its network performance to ensure availability and performance of business-critical applications. The managed service provides a comprehensive view of Itron’s available network resources and offers a sustainable governance platform to allocate bandwidth consistent with defined business objectives.

Key Facts:

  • With a global workforce of more than 8,000 employees in more than 80 offices worldwide, Itron relies on advanced communications and back-office applications to keep its team productive. It is critical that the company’s network keep pace with demand, prioritizing and guaranteeing bandwidth availability for a rich and consistent experience for employees.
  • Driven by powerful analytics and a software-enabled solution set, Ciena’s Network Transformation Solutions allow businesses, like Itron, to guarantee the performance of critical business applications such as unified communications and centralized back-office software. Specifically, Application Assurance Managed Service (AAMS) gives Itron precise control over its network resources, helping the company’s IT team to manage finite bandwidth and direct it to the applications and communication services that need it most.
  • By managing network resources proactively and programming the network to allocate capacity automatically, Ciena’s AAMS guarantees that critical business services will perform when needed. Part of Ciena’s suite of Network Transformation Solutions NTS, AAMS draws on Ciena’s OPn architecture approach for building programmable networks that scale and automatically respond to changing demands for high-bandwidth applications and services.

Executive Comments:

  • “We need to ensure that our team is focused on delivering value to our customers, not whether their communications tools are going to perform as expected. In particular, with a finite amount of bandwidth, we need to make sure that our network resources are used efficiently, in ways that drive greater productivity and collaboration. Ciena’s Application Assurance Managed Service adds intelligence to our network that allows us to achieve both of those goals.”
    - Chuck McAtee, vice president of information technology and Chief Information Officer, Itron
  • “The proliferation of network-enabled and mobile business applications gives our enterprise customers new tools to communicate, collaborate and grow. Collaborating with Ciena to deliver this advanced managed service enables us to address our customers’ changing communication requirements while giving them the ability to get the most value out of their network. Together we have the strength and commitment to seize business opportunity with innovative alliances that use intelligent, software-enabled network architectures and managed service solutions.”   
    - Anne Chow, senior vice president, AT&T Premier Client Group
  • “Ciena has a deep understanding of how networks operate and the strategies to ensure resiliency and predictability. It is our job to focus on networks, so that enterprises can stay focused on their business. IT departments today are under constant strain of changing traffic patterns and needs. Our Network Transformation Solutions practice helps to monetize service providers’ network architectures, offering proactive managed services that allow operators to leverage network assets more efficiently.”  
    - Michael Jones, vice president and general manager AT&T account, Ciena   

Technology Background:

  • Ciena’s NTS is a consultative practice offering a suite of services based on network analytics and transformational planning that help carriers and enterprises migrate, consolidate and build out new networks, maximizing revenue and profitability. AAMS is a new service offering within this portfolio.
  • AT&T delivers a variety of tools businesses require to govern and forecast network performance at every level. Through an agreement with Ciena, AT&T customers have access to view the network’s applications to drive greater productivity and efficiencies while preserving business cadence. Although our agreement is relatively new, Ciena was one of six recipients of the 2013 AT&T Supplier Award.
  • Ciena’s AAMS uses technology from Ipanema Technologies, to proactively provide application performance management. Ciena is also demonstrating its corporate and strategic commitment to supplier inclusion by contracting      with Link America to deliver next-generation operational support for this service.

Supporting Resources:

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and internationally. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile Internet, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV service with the AT&T U-verse® brand. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com/aboutus or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/att and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/att.

© 2014 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Reliability claim based on data transfer completion rates on nationwide 4G LTE networks. 4G LTE availability varies.

About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPn architecture for next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena Investors
Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-K, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 20, 2013. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.