AT&T has singed a seven-year global networking contract with gases and engineering firm Linde Group to provide a single and consistent wide area network for 1,700 Linde sites in more than 60 countries.
The new network is designed to underpin the on-going business transformation to streamline and optimise Linde’s operations worldwide and improve productivity.
Under the contract, AT&T will be Linde’s primary worldwide network services provider and will support the company’s operations with an integrated series of services including an advanced Virtual Private Network (VPN) to support critical business applications.
Linde said that the new single global network from AT&T will replace its current environment of multiple regional and national networks previously provided by a variety of vendors.
The company said that having a single global VPN enables it to standardise customer premise equipment configurations, and routing across the network.
Further, AT&T will have the responsibility of enabling, provisioning and integrating network resources for Linde Group businesses around the world, meaning there is a single point of contact for the customer and a single seamless management under a single sourcing policy.
Linde Group head of enterprise services Ralf Stalinski said it is a critical objective to streamline, centralise and simplify the IT infrastructure and application platforms, to streamline operational practices across the businesses and support the development of integrated offerings.
"It was apparent that the future network would become a key strategic milestone for Linde’s globalisation strategy and after a comprehensive selection process we were pleased to choose AT&T as they provided us with the most comprehensive, cost effective, scalable and future proofed offering," Stalinski said.