CenturyLink Saves $1.8M Annually by Automating Incident Validation and Resolution

Thanks to Resolve, the CenturyLink NOC has accelerated incident resolution time from more than 1800 minutes to less than 60 seconds. All of this was possible by automating alarm handling, trouble ticketing, triage, intelligent decision-making, and dispatch operations.

Customer Objectives

After working with Resolve for several years, CenturyLink was keen to expand their deployment. Specifically, the team wanted Resolve to:

• Receive alarms from business-owned application script outputs
• Perform software updates en masse for the RAD ETX-204 platform
• Execute automated pre-checks, post-checks, deltas from baseline configurations, trouble ticket updates, and alarm validations

Solution Overview

With Resolve’s interactive automation platform, CenturyLink can process non-traditional alarms such as network configuration compliance and inventory validations (functionality not associated with a traditional surveillance system). Resolve has automated more than 30 event types and provided ongoing training and enablement for CenturyLink staff, resulting in 6 automation types and more than 10 event types automated.

The CenturyLink team has integrated IBM® Tivoli® Netcool® and BMC Remedy into Resolve’s platform for their NOC Automation. Because Resolve seamlessly integrates with hundreds of systems, applications, and existing infrastructure, NOC agents have access to all systems through a single pane-of-glass for accelerated incident resolution.

“Resolve automation was the key to efficiency, if humans had to do this work it would have cost us half a million dollars.” ―Glenn Garbelman, VP Video Service & Operations

Key Benefits

• Improved Productivity – 17% net productivity gain and better customer service at a lower cost in Year One
• Reduced Costs – $1.8M in annual savings by converting manual, reactive tasks into automated, proactive workflows (e.g. proactive testing of T1 circuit so Level 1 agents can resolve incidents without escalation
• Fewer Tickets – 60% reduction in ticket volumes by automating proactive health checks and end-to-end service workflows

Industry: Telecommunications

Company Size: 40,000 – 50,000 Employees

About CenturyLink:
CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is a global communications, hosting, cloud and IT services company enabling millions of customers to transform their businesses and their lives through innovative technology solutions. CenturyLink offers network and data systems management, Big Data analytics and IT consulting, and operates more than 55 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia. The company provides broadband, voice, video, data and managed services over a robust 250,000-route-mile U.S. fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network.