CASE STUDY

Copyright ©2012, Carousel Industries® www.carouselindustries.comCIENACS-0112

Product List

SIP Enablement and Unified Communications• Avaya Communication

Manager

• Avaya S8300/S8800 Local Survivable Processors

• Avaya G430/450/650 Media Gateways

• Avaya One-X Unified Communications Solutions

At A Glance

Ciena Corporation• Network infrastructure solutions provider

• Presence in over 60 countries

• Over 4000 employees worldwide

• Headquarters in Linthicum, MD

• Incorporated 1992

Challenge• Develop enterprise-wide data/voice platform for next generation services

• Minimize cost increases expected in major Nortel corporate acquisition

• Extend capabilities to build more agile global customer reach

• Leverage existing technology investments as much as possible

Solution• Enable SIP environment in 13 global locations with Avaya solutions

• Consolidate vital telecommunication systems to achieve greater scalability

• Include robust support for VPN, VOIP, mobile and four-digit dialing

• Develop plan for extending new platform to remaining locations

Success• Completed initial implementation phase in under six months

• Increased productivity by unifying common user experience

• Realized cost savings by consolidating and updating aging data/voice infrastructure

• Strong satisfaction and confidence of customer

Challenge

Upon purchasing Nortel’s MEN (Metro Ethernet Networks Group) organization, Ciena Corporation assumed a high level of corporate growth in a short amount of time - more than doubling their size, adding thousands of new employees to their workforce, and dramatically increasing their global market reach. Understandably, the merger was also expected to come at a significant increase in costs, new expenses involved in maintaining an aging and heterogeneous telecommunications infrastructure. In order to contain these costs while also swiftly and productively migrating former Nortel MEN users to Ciena’s systems and practices, the company’s entire global network needed to be simplified, standardized and consolidated.

Complicating this task was the global nature of this acquisition: many of the 30 new office sites were in international locations, in such far flung places as France, the UK, China, Japan and Australia. Most of these sites were using existing Nortel technologies, including a broad portfolio of mobility tools provided by different vendors. The current architecture was outdated and could not support the company’s growth plans. However, containing rising costs was only one of Ciena’s concerns. To best leverage their newly acquired assets and extend Ciena’s market leadership around the world, they needed a global voice and data network that could also accommodate a wide range of next generation communications services, from VPN and VOIP to peer conferencing suites. Their existing collage of platforms could not consistently provide such functionality on a global scale.

Eager to develop a global upgrade plan that could be implemented in a relatively short amount of time, Ciena turned to Carousel Industries. Much of the company’s existing telecommunications assets could be preserved and leveraged, updated and extended to include many of the Unified Communications (UC) capabilities they required. With the assistance of an experienced technology team capable of implementing such a complex task set in such a wide range of worldwide locations, Ciena could efficiently integrate their Nortel assets and continue setting the industry pace in global network solutions.

In today’s information driven global economy, long term profitability is deeply intertwined with the robust ability to quickly and reliably manage the flow of data around the world. Data networking forms the spine and heartbeat of modern commerce - and in that world, Ciena Corporation leads the way in providing intelligent Ethernet network solutions to telecommunication service providers, governments and large enterprises. Incorporated in 1992, today Ciena employs over 4000 technology professionals in over sixty countries.

In March 2010, Ciena Corporation completed the acquisition of Nortel’s MEN (Metro Ethernet Networks) group, a major transition that would effectively double the company’s size with an additional 30 global locations. Already facing escalating maintenance costs with their current aging data network systems, Ciena anticipated significant cost increases as they worked to incorporate the massive global infrastructure of the former Nortel organization. Needing a comprehensive plan for updating their entire data and voice network into a single scalable, cost effective architecture, Ciena contracted Carousel Industries in August 2010 to develop a next generation SIP telecommunications strategy.

Ciena Leverages Avaya Unified Communications and Extends Global Capabilities

CASE STUDY

Solution

After careful evaluation of Ciena’s current infrastructure and that of their newly acquired Nortel MEN group, the Carousel Industries team recommended consolidating the company’s voice and data services into an enterprise-wide digital SIP environment based on Avaya solutions. This would accomplish many of Ciena’s technology goals, starting with lowering their overall costs by reducing service oversubscription and simplifying support needs. Coupled with a full conversion to VOIP telephony, the entire enterprise would also be connected via a four-digit dialing system.

With the sheer number of individual smaller projects that needed to be completed, the combined Ciena and Carousel teams decided to split the full initiative into three distinct project phases.

Phase One would focus primarily on thirteen facilities that formed the core of Ciena as well as the former Nortel MEN organization. At their main data hubs in Maryland, Ontario and India, Avaya S8800 Communications Servers and Avaya G650 Media Gateways would offer SIP enablement and trunking. Remote sites in Brazil, Germany, Mexico, the UK and other regions would subsequently be brought online with the new network via Avaya S8300 Media Servers and Avaya S430/450 Media Gateways. This new infrastructure, incorporating many existing Avaya solutions already in place, would create a robust, scalable data and voice backbone for their newly expanded enterprise.

Once completed, Phase Two would turn the team’s attention to remaining North American MEN locations, updating all existing Avaya platforms to current software releases and integrating them with the Phase One SIP backbone. Phase Three would then concentrate on applications, evaluating opportunities to empower new business processes with Unified Communications solutions that added mobile, VPN, voice mail and other SIP-enabled features.

Phase One, the initial SIP installation for international core locations, began implementation in August 2010. While a year was allocated for Phase One completion, careful activity coordination and detailed planning enabled the Carousel Industries team to finish in six months, in early 2011.

Once upgraded to SIP, this new architecture would also afford Williams Scotsman with new mobility capabilities that management also found attractive. Leveraging Avaya One-X Mobile Edition, the company’s telecommunications network would enable them to integrate smart phones and other mobile devices directly into their sales and service processes - further allowing their field personnel to respond more quickly and

more accurately to their own customer’s changing needs.

With Carousel Industries, Ciena

is today working with a partner

who not only can provide cutting

edge technology, but also offer

the managed services necessary

to make the most of it.

Carousel Industries, Inc.659 South County Trail

Exeter, RI 02822

800.401.0760 www.carouselindustries.com

Success

With the core Nortel MEN locations - including a 2000-seat Avaya SIP/VOIP implementation at the company’s consolidated Canadian facility in Ottawa, Ontario - successfully completed in record time, planning for Phase Two is now currently underway. Pleased with the progress made so far, Ciena is working now to identify further areas of cost reduction and feature upgrades. The transition to SIP has given the company an important new tool for building productivity and streamlining their ability to effectively provide global services.

Purchasing the Nortel MEN Group had been an important strategic move for the company - a strong extension into worldwide markets, a signifi cant infusion of new expertise and capabilities, and an immediate portfolio increase that doubled the size of the company. Ciena knew, however, that technology and personnel were not enough to make such a large merger successful. The company needed a managed services partner with an equally global reach, who could advise not only on the challenges and opportunities present, but could also work with different locales and ensure that equipment was shipped and installed properly and on time.

With Carousel Industries, Ciena is today working with a partner who not only can provide cutting edge technology, but also offer the managed services necessary to make the most of it.

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