Overture Networks was a company that designed, manufactured, and marketed networking and

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

equipment. It was "a leading developer of converged packet access platforms for Carrier Ethernet services." Overture was headquartered in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina and also maintained offices in Westford, MA and

Bangalore, India Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

. Overture was a member of the

Metro Ethernet Forum MEF, founded in 2001, is a nonprofit international industry consortium, of network, cloud, and technology providers. MEF, originally known as the Metro Ethernet Forum, was dedicated to Carrier Ethernet networks and services, and in recent years, ...

(MEF). It also held a TL 9000 certification which it received from the QuEST Forum in May 2007. In January 2016, Overture was acquired by telecommunications vendor ADVA Optical Networking.

History

In 2000, Overture was launched by co-founders Jeff Reedy and Prayson Pate to develop solutions designed to help service providers and network operators transition to an all-packet network. In December 2008, Overture Networks acquired Ceterus Networks, a

Richardson, Texas Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 119,469. Richardson is an inner suburb of the city of Dallas. It is home to the Universit ...

-based manufacturer of

Carrier Ethernet Carrier Ethernet is a marketing term for extensions to Ethernet for communications service providers that utilize Ethernet technology in their networks. Background Ethernet has a long history. It has become dominant in enterprise networks. This d ...

equipment and technologies for mobile backhaul. In March 2011, Overture merged with Hatteras Networks, the number one-ranked Ethernet over Copper market leaderHatteras and Overture Lead Growing Carrier Ethernet Access Platform Market Segments in 2008, Heavy Reading Reports
''Submarine Telecoms Forum'', March 20, 2009. and manufacturer of Ethernet service delivery solutions for the Carrier Ethernet,

Metro Ethernet A metropolitan-area Ethernet, Ethernet MAN, carrier Ethernet or metro Ethernet network is a metropolitan area network (MAN) that is based on Ethernet standards. It is commonly used to connect subscribers to a larger service network or for intern ...

, and

DSLAM A digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM, often pronounced ''DEE-slam'') is a network device, often located in telephone exchanges, that connects multiple customer digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces to a high-speed digital co ...

and mobile wireless backhaul markets. Post-merger, the unified company operated under the Overture Networks name until February 2012, when a rebranding initiative was announced. Marking the final integration of the two companies, Overture introduced a new logo, color palette, company blog, and tagline, "Overture - An Entrance to a Smarter Network", and informally dropped "Networks" from its name. Beginning in 2008, and continuing through 2009, 2010, and 2011, Overture was named as the number one provider of Ethernet over TDM (EoTDM) access circuits and Ethernet over bonded copper pair (EoC) platforms by analyst firm Heavy Reading. In September 2012, Overture appointed former Ciena Corporation Senior VP of Global Field Operations, General Manager of Global Government Solutions, and VP of Americas, Mike Aquino, as its new President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Overture announced the company's entry into the

software-defined networking Software-defined networking (SDN) is an approach to network management that uses abstraction to enable dynamic and programmatically efficient network configuration to create grouping and segmentation while improving network performance and monit ...

(SDN) space in March 2012 with the launch of a new product, ''Ensemble OSA''. ''Ensemble OSA'' is an

open architecture Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture intended to make adding, upgrading, and swapping components with other computers easy. For example, the IBM PC, Amiga 2000 and Apple IIe have an open architecture supp ...

based on

open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979 * ''Open'' (Go ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

standards like

OpenFlow OpenFlow is a communications protocol that gives access to the forwarding plane of a network switch or router (computing), router over the network. Description OpenFlow enables network controllers to determine the path of network packets across ...

and has three layers, which may include Overture-developed components, as well as those developed by service providers or third-party vendors. Overture followed this with the release of the Overture 6500, the first ''Ensemble OSA''-ready platform and the inaugural product in its Open Service Delivery Family product line. In January 2016, Overture was acquired by ADVA Optical Networking in a $35 million purchase which was reported to involve "an additional $5 million conditional 'earn-out' payment".

Products

Overture's products were generally used in the following solution categories: business services, mobile backhaul,

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

transport and infrastructure for speeds from 1

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

to 10

Gbit/s In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

, and SDN. The company's products addressed these core applications using a range of access technologies including optical Ethernet, Ethernet over bonded copper, Ethernet over TDM/

SONET Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diodes ...

/ SDH/ PDH, and multi-service Carrier Ethernet that supported TDM pseudo-wires and IP service aggregation using VLANs. Targeted to users such as

competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) is a North American telecommunications provider classification that emerged based on the competition model of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the United States. The act required the previously esta ...

incumbent local exchange carrier An incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) is a local telephone company which held the regional monopoly on landline service before the market was opened to competitive local exchange carriers, or the corporate successor of such a firm, in the Un ...

s, cable companies, and wholesale ISPs, its technologies were used in applications and settings like

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

data center A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for busines ...

services, and

mobile data Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...

services. Overture Network's products achieved MEF 9, 14, and 18 certifications."MEF Certified Companies - Equipment and Services"
, ''Metro Ethernet Forum'', June 23, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.overturenetworks.com * Overtones Blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20151210181826/http://www.overturenetworks.com/connect-with-overture/overtones-blog/ Telecommunications companies established in 2000 Privately held companies based in North Carolina Telecommunications companies of the United States Telecommunications equipment vendors Networking companies of the United States Networking hardware companies Research Triangle American companies established in 2000 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies