Broadcast Media Africa has learnt that MTN Group, Microsoft and Accenture have collaborated to accelerate the digital transformation into the public cloud, focusing initially on MTN’s most significant markets – South Africa and Nigeria.

Part of a five-year strategic partnership, work has already begun with establishing Project Nephos to migrate carefully selected business applications to Azure, the group noted.

In addition, the programme’s core will focus on migrating MTN’s business support system (BSS) and operations support system (OSS) applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud, with the telco saying it aims to realise operational benefits and cost efficiencies.

In a statement, MTN says it will work closely with Microsoft and Accenture, which will provide technology implementation, integration, and support services, to successfully enable the migration and operations of the targeted environments.

One of the programme’s key elements is migrating to Azure of EVA, MTN’s core big data platform.

MTN said, “Beyond infrastructure optimisation, MTN will evolve further its common data model to enable use cases that bridge typical divides across network, IT and commercial domains, taking advantage of native Azure capabilities, including machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

“Through the partnership with Microsoft, with Project Nephos, we have embarked on an extensive skills development programme in cloud technologies, DevSecOps and data management. As a result, hundreds of MTN employees in Nigeria and South Africa have already benefitted from the Microsoft Enterprise Skills Initiative (ESI), which provides hands-on technical training and certification in Microsoft Azure technologies; the programme will run across multiple countries where MTN operates to maximise the impact of the partnership,” it added.

Nikos Angelopoulos, MTN Group’s chief information officer, comments: “Our strategic partnership with Microsoft will enable us to transform how we deliver products and services to our customers. We will bring the power of cloud computing to life, driving development and innovation with speed, flexibility and predictable investments and operations.”

Also commenting, Nitesh Singh, communications, media and technology lead for Accenture Africa, said, “Harnessing the power of MTN, Microsoft and Accenture, we will work closely together to build the next wave of compressed digital transformation across the continent. We see this programme becoming a global standard in the industry for years to come.”

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The post MTN Group and Microsoft Collaborate to Hasten Public Cloud Projects In South Africa And Nigeria first appeared in Broadcast Media Africa on March 29, 2023.