BT says 5 year deal with AWS will help it save £2 billion annually by 2025

Amazon Web Services will speed digitisation save billions

BT’s Digital unit is to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a cloud conversion with a modularity that can be duplicated quickly across the business.The agreement is one element of a broader BT modernisation programme aiming to save £2 billion a year by January 1 2025. The AWS cloud agreement, announced on Wednesday, is part of its drive to replace its legacy infrastructure and internal applications to a new cloud-first design.

Cloud creatives

BT said the new computer system will help its staff to be more creative and to build their inventions faster. To this end it is investing in a new suite of digital products and services, while cutting its IT maintenance costs. This it says, will create value that it will pass on to its Consumer, Enterprise, Global and Openreach customers.

Expensive legacy

By the end of financial year FY24, BT will have saved £2 billion by retiring legacy applications, associated infrastructure and data centres, it said. The digital transformation will involve application workloads via containers and serverless technologies. AWS will help it achieve a ‘dramatic simplification from the company’s current IT estate’ and BT will become cloud-native, microservices-based and fully modular. This creates security, privacy and compliance by design, BT claims.

Pay per use

“The AWS pay-as-you-go model offers flexibility so BT only pays for the IT needed,” said Adolfo Hernandez, Vice President and General Manager, Telecom Global Industry Business Unit, AWS. BT has a big opportunity when it comes to modernising its infrastructure, according to Thomas Dücke, Chief Operating Officer, BT Digital. “Our collaboration with AWS is a key one for us as we deliver the transformation needed to accelerate BT,” said Dücke.