Telstra expands cloud services to US

Telstra has announced it will offer a point of presence on the East Coast of the United States for its VMware-based cloud infrastructure services, which are currently offered in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

Nathan Bell, Telstra's global marketing director told iTnews that the telco aspires to offer a suite of cloud services across a global footprint and with a consistent configuration.”

To that end, the US cloud hub will follow the same previously developed technology footprint of Cisco servers, VMware virtualisation technology and EMC storage and will serve as a platform for both infrastructure-as-a-service offerings to enterprise customers and for a range of current and planned SaaS offerings.

“Using the same technology platform for all hubs ensures customers receive predictability of cost and experience and provides us the ability to quickly replicate existing offerings from other markets,” Bell explained.

While the Telecommunications supplier still has a way to go to offer a full global footprint, the experience of establishing hubs in the Asia has helped the company to prepare for the regulatory requirements that would inevitably occur in emerging markets.

 “What we’ve been able to do is address where we can see a clear and immediate demand," he said. "We will watch and wait on emerging markets like the Middle East, Africa and South America.”

Build has commenced on the US East Coast hub and Telstra Global expects to be able to support customer projects within the next three to six months.

Telstra announced earlier this year that it would launch Cisco Cloud Services based on Cisco’s InterCloud platform in Australia by the end of 2014.

"We don’t claim to have all the answers for cloud," he said. "The Cisco offering is helping to fill the growing demand for a utility cloud in the market.”