Business / Airtel signs deal with Amazon to grow cloud business

New Delhi: Telecom company Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced a multi-year strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services to offer a suite of cloud solutions to businesses in India.

Airtel serves over 2,500 large companies and more than a million emerging businesses with its product portfolio, including Airtel Cloud, a multi-cloud product and solutions business.

"The strategic collaboration between Airtel and AWS will offer suite of cloud solutions to drive digital transformation of businesses in India," Harmeen Mehta, Chief Information Officer and Head – Cloud and Security Business, Bharti Airtel, said at a virtual conference.

The collaboration brings the strength of Amazon Web Services (AWS), leading cloud platform, together with Airtel's reach and expertise in handling network, data centres, security, and cloud as an integrated solution, Mehta added.

Under the partnership, "Airtel Cloud will build an AWS Cloud Practice supported by AWS Professional Services, as well as develop differentiated Airtel Cloud products and capabilities, leveraging AWS services, Airtel's data centre capabilities, and Airtel's network and telecom offerings," a joint statement by the companies said.

Airtel customers are expected to benefit from an integrated sales, consulting, and support approach from both companies, and improved security, scalability, and cloud management capabilities.

"Airtel Cloud will offer customers a range of AWS services, including Windows on AWS, SAP on AWS, VMware Cloud on AWS, database migration, and security and risk governance solutions," the statement said.

In addition, Airtel Cloud will leverage AWS' innovation and transformation services across analytics, data warehousing, Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning (ML) to help customers adopt new services and migrate to the cloud from legacy infrastructures.

Puneet Chandok, President, Commercial Business, India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services said the collaboration will give customers a single point of contact when dealing with complex migrations or custom-built solutions.

"Airtel has demonstrated a strong commitment to our shared customers, and we look forward to continue working with them to bring innovative solutions to market," Chandok said.