Nokia will migrate the entirety of its on-premise IT infrastructure to the cloud in the hope that the operational and cost efficiencies generated will support its pursuit of the 5G equipment market.
The Finnish firm hopes the adoption of a cloud-first strategy will allow it to be more agile and its employees more innovative and collaborative so the company can better support its telecoms customers.
The entirety of Nokia’s IT infrastructure will be moved to the public cloud, allowing the organization to shut down its private data centres. The two parties have worked together on a strategy that minimizes the threat of disruption and the process is expected to take between 18 months and two years.
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Nokia says the move will generate savings thanks to a reduced property portfolio, lower energy consumption and lower hardware expenditure costs. The firm will also benefit from Google’s cloud-based analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
“Nokia is on a digital transformation path that is about fundamentally changing how we operate and do business,” explained Ravi Parmasad, head of Global IT Infrastructure at Nokia. “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.”
“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,” added Rob Enslin, President at Google Cloud. “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.”
The shift to cloud-based infrastructure will strengthen Nokia’s pitch as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for telcos and enterprises looking to embrace 5G. Its portfolio extends across the radio, transport and core layers of the network and its software-based capabilities are pitched as a key differentiator.
Nokia has struggled with the high costs of competing in the market, meaning any efficiencies that can be gained are welcome. However, it has also been one of the key beneficiaries of Huawei’s recent struggles, most notably in the UK where it has become BT’s largest single supplier of 5G radio gear.
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