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BT inks five-year agreement with AWS

BT’s Digital unit has announced an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to transform legacy infrastructure and internal applications to a new cloud-first architecture.

This activity is part of BT’s plans to build a new suite of digital products and services and reduce costs in IT maintenance. The company added this project should deliver more value for consumer, enterprise, global and Openreach customers. 

This agreement is one element of BT’s broader modernisation programme that aims to deliver £2 billion in gross annualised savings by end FY24, as BT retires legacy applications, associated infrastructure, and data centres.

Thomas Dücke, chief operating officer, BT Digital (pictured), said, “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.”

BT said this collaboration with AWS represents a dramatic simplification from the company’s current IT estate, and is designed to be cloud-native, microservices-based, and fully modular.

Adolfo Hernandez, vice president and general manager, telecom global industry business unit, AWS, added, “BT’s move to cloud-first applications can help reduce IT maintenance costs, streamline operations and help it better adapt to evolving customer needs. Plus, the AWS pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility so BT only pays for the IT needed.”

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