Vodafone teams up with Google Cloud for global data platform

They say the platform will support new digital products and services for customers, as well its distributed systems.

The platform, Nucleus, will house a new system, Dynamo, to “drive data throughout Vodafone to enable it to more quickly offer its customers new, personalised products and services across multiple markets.
 
“Dynamo will allow Vodafone to tailor new connectivity services for homes and businesses through the release of smart network features, such as providing a sudden boost to broadband speed.”

Built in-house

The parties claim Nucleus and Dynamo are industry firsts, and they will be being built in-house by Vodafone and Google Cloud specialist teams.
 
Up to 1,000 employees of both companies located in Spain, the UK, and the US are collaborating on the project. Dynamo will be able to  process 50TB of data per day. 
 
Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer for Vodafone (pictured), said: “Vodafone is building a powerful foundation for a digital future.
 
“We have vast amounts of data which, when securely processed and made available across our footprint using the collective power of Vodafone and Google Cloud’s engineering expertise, will transform our services, to our customers and governments, and the societies where they live and serve.”
 
Vodafone has identified more than 700 use-cases to deliver new products and services quickly across its markets to support fact-based decisions, cut costs, remove duplication of data sources, and simplify and centralise operations.
 
The speed and ease with which Vodafone’s operating companies in multiple countries can access its data analytics, intelligence, and machine-learning capabilities will also be vastly improved.
 
Some of the expected key benefits are:

• better mobile, fixed, and TV content and connectivity services due to instant availability of highly personalised rewards, content, and applications – such as a speed boost to broadband.
• to increase Google Cloud’s footprint from eight markets to all of Vodafone’s so the operator Vodafone can match network roll-out to consumer demand, increase capacity at critical times, and use machine learning to predict, detect and fix issues before they affect customers.
• to enable data scientists to collaborate on environmental and health issues in 11 countries using automated machine learning tools. Vodafone is assisting governments and aid organisations, upon their request, with secure, anonymised, and aggregated movement data to tackle COVID-19. This partnership will help to provide deeper insights, in accordance with local laws and regulations, into the spread of disease through intelligent analytics across a wider geographical area.
• to provide a digital twin of many of Vodafone’s internal support functions using AI and analytics It supports analytic models running on Google Cloud to cut response times to enquiries and predict demand. The system will also run a digital twin of Vodafone’s infrastructure worldwide.

 Vodafone will move its entire SAP environment to Google Cloud, including core SAP workloads and corporate SAP modules like SAP Central Finance.
 
On the back of their collaborative work, Vodafone and Google Cloud will also explore opportunities to provide consultancy services, offered either jointly or independently, to other multi-national organisations and businesses.