To fast-track its comeback to the global business picture, Nokia, the connectivity technology major has entered into a five-year strategic collaboration agreement with Google Cloud. The agreement is towards Nokia migrating its on-premise IT infrastructure onto Google Cloud, including the company’s data centers and servers around the world, as well as various software applications. The deal lucidly implicates Nokia’s operational shift to a cloud-first IT strategy.

Nokia will be now able to use a suite of Google Cloud products and professional services. Indeed, the tech giants over the past few months have already crafted a highly customized migration approach that will allow Nokia to exit its IT data centers on a rapid schedule.

Going forward, Nokia’s infrastructure and applications will run in the public cloud or in a Software-as-a-Service model. The deployment is already on the go.

In a statement published by Google Cloud, Ravi Parmasad, VP Global IT Infrastructure at Nokia, said, “Nokia is on a digital transformation path that is about fundamentally changing how we operate and do business. This is crucial for how our employees collaborate so that we continue to raise the bar on meeting the needs of our customers. We are very pleased that Google Cloud, with its engineering and operational excellence, is joining our transformation work to help us deliver on the many goals we have set. Given Nokia’s digital ambitions and plans, this is an ideal time for Nokia to be taking this step with Google Cloud to accelerate our efforts; and doing all of this in a secure and scalable way.”

Commenting on the occasion, Rob Enslin, President at Google Cloud, said, “It’s an honor to work with Nokia to help modernize its infrastructure on Google Cloud. We look forward to bringing our leading networking, data analytics, AI/ML, and other technologies to empower Nokia to deliver a cloud-first strategy and better serve its customers. We are excited to help Nokia revamp its IT infrastructure with our backbone network and our approach to data security, using advanced software-defined networking. We look forward to providing the full menu of our capabilities to help Nokia deliver on its cloud-first strategy and reach its performance requirements.”

In the light of upcoming 5G boom, Nokia is said to have a robust roadmap ahead and the agreement with Google Cloud for Cloud migration is expected to create a huge boost in its endeavors. The company had recently announced its collaboration with Chunghwa Telecom in its efforts to deliver comprehensive 5G coverage to key indoor and outdoor locations across Taiwan.