With the proliferation of cloud-based services, carriers need to ensure they have connections in place with the major cloud providers. BT checked off one of those cloud provider boxes with Thursday's news that it has launched a new service that provides fast access to Google Cloud Platform.
BT Cloud Connect for Cloud gives BT's customers direct connectivity with interface speeds varying from 50 Mbps to 2Gbps. With a resilient pair of high-performance connections to Google Cloud Platform services, business customers gain additional security and higher availability compared to going over the public internet.
The service is currently available at Google Cloud’s Ashburn and Chicago points of presence in the U.S., as well as in Frankfurt, Germany and London. In its overseas locations, Google Cloud can work with organizations to help them optimize their performance levels as well as meet the compliance requirements that can vary from country to country.
The new service is in addition Google Cloud’s Partner Interconnect, which is a service that offers enterprises access to the Google Cloud Platform from anywhere in the world.
“BT can now offer customers direct, secure and reliable access to Google Cloud, a global platform engineered to handle very large, data-intensive workloads," said BT's Neil Sutton, vice president strategy and strategic alliances, in a statement. "It’s the latest development in our 'Cloud of Clouds' approach, which has seen us invest in direct links to all of the world’s leading hyper-scale cloud platforms.
"It offers customers a comprehensive choice of cloud services providers and value-added services such as Check Point firewall, Connect Intelligence Riverbed and Connect Intelligence InfoVista, which provide security and end-to-end applications visibility, control and acceleration from branch sites to where data is hosted in the cloud.”
BT started its Cloud of Cloud approach three years ago to help its customers with their digital transformations. The cloud services are built on BT’s global network, which spans 198 countries and territories.
While there are varying levels of partnerships and connectivity options with the major hyperscale cloud service providers, BT has similar connectivity agreements in place with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud.
A spokesman for BT said the telco's cloud relationships with Microsoft Azure and AWS were the most extensive.
With Microsoft, BT has strategic engagement across all its BT lines of business—from gaming through to hyperscale cloud. BT is in the process of transforming its data centers and cloud proposition with Microsoft Azure.
"So we have best-in-class hybrid solutions that incorporate new dynamic network services for secure, low latency consumption. We're working together on developments for Microsoft Teams, and we're collaborating on new flexible options for direct routing connectivity," the spokesman said in an email to FierceTelecom.
BT's partnership with Amazon Web Services focuses on networking, security and managed cloud services help organizations worth with AWS at scale.
"Our strategic collaboration includes customer initiatives, like our hybrid cloud landing zone—as well as our research and innovation in future network services and cloud security—which are all designed to help accelerate cloud adoption," according to BT's spokesman.
Forecast for service providers: More cloud deals
Service providers are striking up partnerships with cloud providers in order to stretch their business solutions into the more agile cloud environments.
CenturyLink has been making its way through cloud-deals of late. In June, the telco announced support for Google Cloud Partner Interconnect, a service from Google Cloud that allows customers to connect to Google Cloud Platform from anywhere in the world.
RELATED: CenturyLink garners AWS Managed Services Provider Partner status
In July, CenturyLink started offering dedicated and private access services to Oracle Cloud through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect.
In August, after a six-month process, CenturyLink was granted AWS' stamp of approval by being named as a Managed Service Provider Partner. CenturyLink has a previous relationship for cloud services with AWS.
Earlier this year, AT&T announced its partnership with Google Cloud after reaching similar arrangements with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. In May, Verizon announced that it had picked AWS as its preferred public provider.