MTN Business and Microsoft team up to offer a cloud solution

MTN Business is partnering with Microsoft to provide a pan-African cloud platform that offers customers a true hybrid cloud solution serviced from MTN’s data centres.

The platform is powered by Microsoft’s technology and is built on MTN’s Global MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) network which has 23 points of presence across the globe to ensure lower latency and better response times.  

MTN’s customers will be provided with a self-service management portal, powered by Microsoft Azure Pack, with a consistent look and feel as Microsoft Azure, one of the best public cloud offerings.

The platform runs off enterprise-grade infrastructure, providing clients with flexibility and increasing their agility. 

“We have undertaken a strategic journey that has prepared us to become a formidable and a key player in the ICT space,” said Alpheus Mangale, Chief Enterprise Officer for MTN Business SA.

“We have developed tailored and bespoke solutions that cater to the requirements of our corporates, SMEs, multinationals and public sector customers across our footprint in Africa and the Middle East.”

This offering will provide corporates and the public sector with a platform to build and run mission critical applications for their end users, as well as develop and host new applications for their own customers.

In addition, customers can use the platform as a disaster recovery site to comply with their own business continuity requirements.

The decision to launch MTN Business Cloud platform follows the unveiling of Africa’s first Pan African Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

This lays the foundations for the introduction of a global Machine-to-Machine (M2M) sim card which is expected to give customers the same rate for M2M activity across MTN’s footprint in Africa.

MTN will offer Azure ExpressRoute at the end of the third quarter of 2015.

This will leverage MTN’s Global MPLS network, enabling the company to offer a more reliable, secure and faster connection to the Microsoft Azure data centres through a private connection as opposed to going over the public Internet.