Telstra, AWS sign framework agreement

The companies will co-ordinate on edge computing solutions and a new Centre of Excellence as their partnership deepens.

Amazon Web Services ANZ MD Adam Beavis. Source: Supplied

Telstra has inked a framework agreement with global cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services, a partnership the companies say will allow them to bring edge computing closer to Australian customers and better capitalise on futuristic new technology solutions.

The deal, announced Wednesday, will see Telstra explore AWS edge compute solutions such as AWS Outposts and AWS Wavelength, which the telco‘s group executive David Burns said should result in ultra-fast response times and enhanced resilience for a customer’s critical applications.

The company is also launching a new Centre of Excellence in a bid to help mid-market, enterprise, and government organisations with their digital transformations.

Mr Burns said that integrating AWS’s edge compute solutions and Telstra’s 5G network would enable application traffic from 5G devices to reach cloud services running in edge compute locations without leaving the Telstra network, which would avoid latency that would result from application traffic having to traverse multiple hops across the internet.

He said customers in industries that require low-latency and resilience such as media and entertainment, manufacturing, healthcare, and gaming would particularly benefit from the speed and resiliency boost.

Drone technology will be boosted by the partnership.Picture: MATHEW FARRELL

“This is one of the most critical and key elements of our Network Applications and Services (NAS) growth strategy,” Mr Burns said. ”This is a significant milestone for us. We are existing partners of each other and we work well together, but this really accelerates that.”

The executive, who took over from former enterprise executive Michael Ebeid late last year, said that Telstra has committed to training more than 4000 of its employees with AWS cloud skills, and that Telstra‘s commitment to covering 75 per cent of the Australian population with 5G by the end of the fiscal year meant new opportunities were possible across technologies like industrial robotic and drone automation, connected vehicles, ML-assisted healthcare, and immersive entertainment.

He added that the new Centre of Excellence will include Telstra Purple, a team of consulting and managed services experts, alongside AWS Professional Services representatives who will work with Telstra to deliver product and customer innovations, and participate in joint go-to-market activities.

Mr Burns cited a recent project with Vic Roads, in which Telstra Purple helped it adopt AWS technology including Docker and Amazon’s Elastic Container Service – ECS), to help it scale its cloud presence.

“COVID-19 has accelerated our customers’ need for flexibility and reduced costs, which is driving a greater adoption of cloud applications and seeing more workloads move to public clouds. With every cloud migration, organisations also need a flexible, modern network to support their application performance,” Mr Burns said.

AWS Australia and New Zealand managing director Adam Beavis welcomed the deepening partnership.

“If you look at 5G networks, we‘re expecting to see speeds 10 times quicker than 4G, and that can be used to dramatically increase the number of supported devices that will be on the network. So that ability to work together to have AWS compute and storage potentially sitting in the Telstra facilities closer to the network will mean a lot lower latency,” he said.

“The collaboration will help us accelerate the digital transformation of customers from SMBs, medium customers through to large enterprises as well. It‘s very exciting for us.”