Merrill Lynch has signed a multi-year extension to its technology networking outsourcing agreement with AT&T Solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In addition to retaining oversight responsibility for the US investment bank's global wide-area network transport, the vendor will network 11 major Merrill Lynch buildings in the New York-New Jersey metro area via its new Ultravailable Broadband Network, a new high-speed, high-capacity custom managed fibre optic service.
AT&T Solutions, the networking professional services subsidiary of AT&T, assumed responsibility for Merrill Lynch's domestic networking infrastructure in 1996. A team of more than 200 AT&T staff currently manages more than 11,000 routers, switches, hubs and nodes at nearly 1300 domestic and international Merrill Lynch sites.
"Five years ago we formed a strategic alliance with AT&T Solutions to design, build and manage a world-class networking...while helping to hold the line on costs," says John McKinley, chief technology officer for Merrill Lynch. "Though technology has dramatically changed the global operating environment, our priorities today remain much the same."
Under the original agreement, AT&T Solutions designed, implemented and manages the networking infrastructure for delivering real-time market data to private clients over the Merrill Lynch Trusted Global Advisor platform.