The five-year collaboration will see Nokia streamline everything from its real estate portfolio to software applications through Google Cloud, as it aims to boost its “innovation capabilities” and reduce costs over time.
Specifically, Nokia will use “a suite” of Google Cloud products and professional services, although which in particular was not specified. However, it will migrate its on-premise IT infrastructure – including data centers and servers around the world, as well as various software applications – onto Google Cloud infrastructure.
This means Nokia’s infrastructure and applications will run in the public cloud or in a Software-as-a-Service model going forward. Deployment of the migration has started and is expected to extend over an 18- to 24-month period and Google Cloud said it will deploy strategic systems integrators, solutions specialists, and engineers to ensure a stable migration.
Ravi Parmasad, VP global IT infrastructure at Nokia, said: “Nokia is on a digital transformation path that is about fundamentally changing how we operate and do business. This is crucial for how our employees collaborate so that we continue to raise the bar on meeting the needs of our customers.
“We are very pleased that Google Cloud, with its engineering and operational excellence, is joining our transformation work to help us deliver on the many goals we have set. Given Nokia’s digital ambitions and plans, this is an ideal time for Nokia to be taking this step with Google Cloud to accelerate our efforts; and doing all of this in a secure and scalable way.”
Nokia said the strategic collaboration is part of its shift to a cloud-first IT strategy, along with its “aggressive efforts to strengthen and transform its digital operations globally”. Its aim is to expand collaboration and innovation capabilities of among employees and enhance delivery to customers.
Rob Enslin (pictured), president cloud sales, Google, said: “It’s an honour to work with Nokia to help modernise its infrastructure on Google Cloud. We look forward to bringing our leading networking, data analytics, AI/ML, and other technologies to empower Nokia to deliver a cloud-first strategy and better serve its customers.
“We are excited to help Nokia revamp its IT infrastructure with our backbone network and our approach to data security, using advanced software-defined networking. We look forward to providing the full menu of our capabilities to help Nokia deliver on its cloud-first strategy and reach its performance requirements.”
