BT Opts For AWS As Cloud Provider To Assist In IT Transformation

BT’s digital unit has signed a five year agreement that will see Amazon Web Services (AWS) provide it with the needed cloud infrastructure in the years ahead.

The announcement did not disclosed the costs of the AWS agreement, but BT says the deal is part of its “drive to transform legacy infrastructure and internal applications to a new cloud-first architecture.”

Essentially, the former UK telecoms incumbent is planning to better utilise new digital products and services, in order to reduce IT maintenance costs by moving away from “legacy infrastructure” and make better use of internal applications.

Digital transformation

This means that BT will retire legacy applications, associated infrastructure, and data centres.

BT is hoping this will help save costs, as part of it’s broader modernisation programme that aims to deliver £2 billion in gross annualised savings by end FY24.

“The collaboration with AWS is a cornerstone of BT Digital’s plans to deliver an industry-leading, cloud-first architecture for BT Group,” said the carrier.

It added that the deal “represents a dramatic simplification from the company’s current IT estate, and is designed to be cloud-native, microservices-based, and fully modular.”

“We have a big opportunity when it comes to modernising our infrastructure, and our collaboration with AWS is a key one for us as we deliver the transformation needed to accelerate BT,” said Thomas Dücke, chief operating officer at BT Digital.

“BT’s move to cloud-first applications can help reduce IT maintenance costs, streamline operations and help it better adapt to evolving customer needs,” added Adolfo Hernandez, VP and GM at the Telecom Global Industry Business Unit at AWS. “Plus, the AWS pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility so BT only pays for the IT needed.”

Over the next five years, BT said it intends to continue to make significant investments and use of AWS technology to accelerate its digital transformation with a particular focus on application workloads via containers and serverless technologies.

Green move?

And the AWS move will not just help BT’s bottom line, but could also assist the carrier in its emission ambitions.

Last September BT brought forward the date it will curb its own carbon emissions by an additional fifteen years.

BT said at the time it would bring forward its net zero target from 2045 to 2030 for its own operational emissions, and 2040 for its supply chain and customer emissions.

BT has been seeking to reduce its carbon emissions for a long while. As far back as 2010 for example, BT pledged 80 percent carbon cut by 2020.

But achieving this has been difficult.

Since 2016, BT has reduced the carbon emissions intensity of its operations by 57 percent and has reduced supply chain emissions by 19 percent over the same timeframe.

AWS Investments

Meanwhile Amazon Web Services has steadily been ramping up its UK operations, after it first opened its London region in 2016.

But in March this year AWS announced a significant investment in the UK, spending more than £1.8 billion in the next two years building and operating data centres in the UK.

Earlier this year AWS announced it had created a further 25,000 permanent roles across the UK in 2021, taking its total permanent workforce to more than 70,000 in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Cambridge.