Telstra has scored a $35 million cloud computing deal with resources player, Komatsu Australia.
The five-year agreement entails migration to a new managed ICT, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model to help support Komatsu’s growing construction and mining business.
The whole-of-business contract will see Telstra supply telecommunications services to Komatsu’s 1800 staff spread across 42 branches and 35 service depots at key mining and civil contracting sites in Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. This also involves mobile voice and managed data services on the Telstra Next G and Next IP networks in Australia.
Inside the managed network, an enterprise utility computing capability has been integrated, providing security, computing, storage and a geographically dispersed real-time robust disaster recovery environment.
IaaS will allow Telstra to manage hardware and software, which was formerly undertaken in-house by Komatsu providing both productivity and cost savings. Managed ICT products include scalable computing power and storage via a shared environment within the Telstra cloud, which means Komatsu can add new servers or extra storage capacity on demand. The process previously took up to two months through traditional hardware partners.
Additional enhanced products include managed security, firewall, VPN and co-location services. 1200 Telstra Next G mobile services will enable increased mobility for sales and field staff, while 400 wireless broadband devices connected via Telstra’s Enterprise Mobile Broadband Plus (EMB+) will supply a secure private wireless network. Another 150 wireless email devices will be connected to the Microsoft Mobile Enterprise Solution.
In a statement, Telstra enterprise and government group managing director, Nerida Caesar, said Telstra architected this as a strategic solution to provide Komatsu with instant access to greater scale and flexibility in their ICT platforms.
“By integrating network and computing with scaled infrastructure, the Telstra solution will deliver network expansion and service enhancements to Komatsu, that will reduce costs, remove risk, enable the company to manage growth, and importantly ensure business continuity across Komatsu Australia’s local and international sites,” Caesar said.
Komatsu president, Bill Pike, said Komatsu’s move to a managed network would enable it to improve core business efficiencies and increase overall productivity.
“Put simply the new approach brings us cost certainty, managed risk and long term efficiency,” Pike said. “We can focus our attention on growing our business in Australia rather than being distracted by maintaining the physical hardware and software ourselves.”
