Lumen Technologies announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Azure focused on the next generation of enterprise application delivery at the network edge.
The companies cited several go-to-market efforts to support mutual customers worldwide:
- A certified Azure deployment which will be able to run in Lumen Edge Computing nodes worldwide, unlocking more low latency and high bandwidth use cases for customers of Azure service platform.
- Communication sector solutions based around Private 5G networks that would leverage the cloud-native software capabilities of Microsoft and the Lumen fiber network and Edge Computing capabilities. These solutions would allow customers to optimize their wireless networks and push workloads even closer to digital interactions.
- Enterprise sector managed solutions for a wide range of Microsoft software and cloud services to help optimize performance of business workloads and support a customer’s entire workforce, wherever they may reside.
“By making Microsoft Azure technology available on the Lumen platform we are giving enterprises access to an environment where they can get the low-latency performance they need for critical applications, with the familiarity of Microsoft services and tools,” said Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president, Azure for Operators at Microsoft. “With this collaboration we are expanding the ways in which businesses can connect Azure to their enterprise networks and are excited about having Lumen as a collaboration partner to expand the number of use cases we can achieve at the edge of the network.”
“Working with Microsoft, Lumen will offer businesses and developers capabilities at the edge that are unique in the industry,” said Shaun Andrews, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Lumen. “By deeply integrating more of our platform services with Microsoft Azure, we can help businesses quickly utilize their data for the insights they want and need, with the ability to support unique and customized use cases. We’re excited about the innovations and amazing new digital experiences we can enable for our mutual customers by extending Azure to the edge of our global network.”
Also under the alliance, Lumen has selected Azure as the preferred public cloud venue for workloads that serve its enterprise customers. Lumen will also leverage Azure, Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft 365 E5 Security & Compliance for its internal digital transformation.
Additionally, Microsoft has named Lumen as one of its preferred partners supporting Azure globally with Lumen networking, infrastructure, and managed services.
https://www.lumen.com/en-us/solutions/edge-computing.html#edge-computing-map
- The Lumen network is comprised of approximately 450,000 global route miles of fiber and more than 180,000 on-net buildings, seamlessly connected to global edge nodes, 350 Lumen data centers globally, and 2,200 third-party data centers in North America, Europe & Middle East, Latin America, and Asia Pacific.