Deutsche Telekom is increasingly relying on Google Cloud for cloud-native support. The telco just announced the expansion of its existing partnership with the US public cloud provider, which provides core network services and data analytics.
The two partners highlighted initial plans to trial a standalone 5G service in Austria and launch a pilot of a remote packet gateway function based on Google Cloud Platform and Google Distributed Cloud Edge. Other projects will involve experiments with web and customer experience analytics techniques.
In fact, it may only be a matter of time before the German carrier announces some sort of trial with Google Cloud involving edge technology. The hyperscale company in April acquired MobiledgeX from Deutsche Telekom and other shareholders, intensifying its pursuit of cloud computing in the telecom industry.
T-Systems, owned by Deutsche Telekom, also integrates edge computing into public clouds such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and its own open telecom cloud.
The Germany-based carrier noted that it has worked with Google for many years. For example, in the fall of 2021, T-Systems is partnering with Google Cloud to build and deliver sovereign cloud services for German public sector, enterprise and healthcare companies.
The new joint offering, due to launch in mid-2022, is designed to govern a range of sovereign controls and measures, including encryption and identity management. In addition, T-Systems said it will exercise control over relevant parts of Google’s cloud infrastructure in Germany.
It always seems ironic that European telcos have to rely on big US tech companies to launch sovereign cloud services. French peer Orange has built a separate cloud platform called Bleu, designed to meet French “enhanced data sovereignty” requirements and based on Microsoft Azure.
T-Systems maintains that its services are fully compliant with German regulators, while retaining the public cloud capabilities of hyperscale servers.
The operator offers two versions of Sovereign Cloud: Sovereign Cloud Platform, a Google Cloud Platform monitored by T-Systems; and Sovereign Private Cloud based on Google Cloud technology and operated by T-Systems in private data centers. The latter product is aimed at customers with particularly sensitive workloads.
T-Systems also stated that both versions meet the core Gaia-X requirements for cloud sovereignty. The Gaia-X initiative aims to create a federated data infrastructure based on European data privacy principles.
