Telstra announces cloud computing partnership deal with Cisco

Telstra has announced a partnership deal that will see the telecommunications giant offering services on Cisco’s global cloud communications platform.

Under the deal, Telstra will build cloud and network services infrastructure in partnership with the networking equipment maker.

The telco giant has also announced it will use Cisco’s Evolved Services Platform for its networking infrastructure as part of the deal.

The company claims the partnership will be able to provision both cloud and network services in real-time, as required by customers with improved speed, security and performance.

Telstra global enterprise and services executive director for cloud, Erez Yarkoni, says the deal will open new opportunities for Telstra customers.

“Our customers will now have the choice of cloud infrastructure from global leaders, allowing them to select the cloud service to meet their requirements and scale network and cloud resources to deliver service agility, security and performance. We are excited to be developing an intelligent network enabled cloud with Cisco.

“This world first partnership sees us move from being a provider of enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure and market-leading cloud solutions, to adding more value to our customers by helping them design the best cloud environment to suit their business.

“Applications are critical to delivering business value and we believe we can offer our customers a differentiated solution for managing their applications across clouds. The Cisco relationship allows us to offer deeper and broader service capabilities to help our customers manage their critical applications, making the transition to the cloud simpler and more cost effective.”

The acquisitions form part of an ongoing shift in strategic focus for the carrier, which has been shifting from a focus on traditional telecommunications services to cloud services and NAS (network applications and services).

The shift has seen Telstra acquire cloud-based services businesses O2 and NSC, form a cloud computing joint venture with Telkom Indonesia and begin offering a cloud-based multipoint video conferencing service called Blue Jeans Network in Australia.

Meanwhile, the carrier has sold a 70% stake in its Sensis directory advertising business to US-based private equity firm Platinum Equity for $454 million.

The company has also divested its stake in Hong Kong-based mobiles business, CSL, to HKT Limited for $US2.425 billion in December of last year.