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Telstra: Where Cloud and Telco meet

Telco and Cloud technology

Telstra, well versed in telecommunications and technology, empowers customers with innovative technology solutions including cloud solutions, data and IP networks, network application services, unified communications, and integrated services. It’s a highly desirable combination to offer private high-performance connectivity and end-to-end cloud solutions—especially since customers who move to an Azure cloud want to maintain high performance secure connectivity. “Azure CSP is a huge opportunity for us because we're already a trusted brand. We can leverage Azure, a great platform, and offer additional networking expertise,” said Andrew Kirk, Senior Product Manager, Public Cloud, Telstra Enterprise.

From the start, Telstra works closely with customers to set cloud strategy, define roadmaps, and design effective public and hybrid cloud architectures. New Azure CSP customers experience an onboarding assistance process which includes an assessment. Beginning with the initial environment orientation, Telstra helps customers understand where account details and configurations are, and identify common pitfalls. Getting customers on the right build from the start positively influences their overall experience. “Lots of customers need education around the cloud and Azure. The depth of skill needed to bridge the customer knowledge gap is quite large; Telstra fills the gap,” said Kirk.

Automating visibility

Creating a seamless CSP customer experience means that Telstra invests deeply in IP and automation. Telstra’s custom Cloud Services Portal was developed as a customers’ first stop to provisioning a public cloud with Azure CSP. Using APIs, Telstra’s custom billing and writing engine integrates with the Azure platform. Monthly Azure consumption reports are incorporated into a comprehensive account view of services used. Additional automation on the OSS business layer is provided by partner, IngramMicro Cloud. The portal dashboard is a great tool in determining which services customers can best take advantage of in the future.

"Azure CSP is a huge opportunity for us because we're already a trusted brand. We can leverage Azure, a great platform, and offer additional networking expertise."

– Andrew Kirk, Senior Product Manager, Public Cloud, Telstra Enterprise

With a hybrid cloud, applications go where they’re needed

Right after the migration, customers can leverage the power of the latest Intel processors in Azure, including M-series VMs for heavy Enterprise workloads. M-series VMs are powered by Intel® Xeon® E7-8890 v3 CPUs. The biggest VM in the series, M128s, utilizes four 18-core CPUs, based on Intel Haswell processor technology with Intel® Hyper-Threading, running at 2.50 GHz, 128 vCPUs per VM in total. For customers migrating to Azure, it means a significant increase of computing power, compared to older CPUs that they used on-premise.

Bridging gaps

Azure retail customers who had migrated to Azure CSP were requesting additional usage detail. They wanted real-time information to make provisioning changes throughout the month, rather than at months’ end. Telstra looked to a trusted partner, RightScale, who already had a cloud analytics platform with the ability to forecast from a dashboard with great visuals, create budget alerts, filter, and forecast in a graphic with an easily digested style. At the time, RightScale did not support CSP but quickly added CSP to their offerings with Telstra’s encouragement. Working together, Telstra and RightScale delivered customers a feature-rich CSP solution that filled the gap in just under two months.

Local investments, global rewards

Focused on innovation, Telstra has partnered with local service companies, like Resolution IT, Digital Armor, and Oreta, as well as other partners to bring more technical skills to their business. In 2016, Telstra acquired two strong companies with extensive Microsoft technical capability. Kloud, a systems integrator, has deep Azure migration and integration expertise with the value add of offering consultancy skills. Legacy workloads that need to be modernized, whether they need a lift and shift migration or have an ecosystem that requires a series of steps, are perfectly suited to Kloud’s capabilities. The second company, Readify, an independent software vendor, adds application tools including code cutters working with net native and online native apps. Through Ooyala, a US-based subsidiary of Telstra and a leader in video streaming and analytics, they also have a growing video analytics business. “It’s important to have a strong set of partners to offer customers the best level of service. It’s even better when you can globally scale. We are well-suited to do both,” said Michael Burke, Product Portfolio Manager, Cloud Management, Telstra Enterprise.

"It’s important to have a strong set of partners to offer customers the best level of service. It’s even better when you can globally scale. We are well-suited to do both."

– Michael Burke, Product Portfolio Manager, Cloud Management, Telstra Enterprise

Connecting securely: Cloud Gateway

Telstra’s Cloud Gateway is a one-to-many portal that connects corporate networks to multiple cloud services, making it easy to purchase, setup, and manage multiple connections. Cloud Gateway is flexible as it allows customers to dynamically allocate bandwidth between multiple clouds depending on needs. “Increasingly, customers are looking for secure connectivity to the public cloud,“ said Burke. “We have the ability for the customer to attach the public cloud into their secure private network as if it were any other endpoint. Customers have the comfort of knowing that all of those endpoints are running out of a private and secure programmable network.”

Telstra’s prebuilt network in Azure has points of presence (PoP) in Australia, and is connected to key Azure PoPs throughout the world via the Global Telstra Network Capability. If a company has a multi-cloud environment in which there is a private instance, for example an Intelligent Edge in a data center instance and Azure CSP, Telstra can connect them with other components of the customer’s ecosystem, all over the secure network. And it’s all integrated.

Across public and private clouds, Telstra offers a level of secure access through their Cloud Service Portal. Telstra provides an integration into customers’ existing identity layer with Microsoft Entra ID (ME-ID) for a single authentication layer in a multi-cloud environment (public cloud or private cloud). "It’s something that customers can’t easily put together,” said Burke. Helping customers develop and implement a fully realized cloud strategy is pretty easy for Telstra with their expertise, partner relationships, and unique offerings as a telecommunications provider. Leveraging secure global networking capabilities, Telstra plans to grow the managed cloud services aspect of their business and will launch targeted CSP marketing campaigns later this year.