MTN and Microsoft are in the process of delivering a program of work that will see the latest technologies deployed for the benefit of MTN’s customers, beginning with South Africa and Nigeria, following the signing of a five-year strategic partnership in September 2022.
The program’s core focus will be on migrating BSS and OSS applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud, with the goal of realizing operational benefits and cost efficiencies. Work on establishing an MTN Group Cloud Centre of Excellence and Project Nephos to migrate carefully selected business applications to Azure has already begun. To successfully enable the migration and operation of the targeted environments, MTN and Microsoft will collaborate closely with Accenture, which will provide technology implementation, integration, and support services.
One of the program’s pillars is the migration of EVA, MTN’s extensive core big data platform, to Azure. MTN will expand its common data model beyond infrastructure optimization to enable use cases that bridge typical divides across network, IT, and commercial domains by leveraging native Azure capabilities such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
MTN’s fundamental belief is that everyone deserves to live a modern, connected life. With Project Nephos, we have embarked on an extensive skills development program in cloud technologies, devsecops, and data management thanks to our partnership with Microsoft. Hundreds of MTN employees in Nigeria and South Africa have already benefited from the Microsoft Enterprise Skills Initiative (ESI), which provides hands-on technical training and certification in Microsoft Azure technologies; the program will be implemented in multiple countries where MTN operates to maximize the partnership’s impact.
Project Nephos is based on the principle of delivering maximum value as soon as possible by selecting the best applications to migrate to Azure with a fixed migration cost and carefully designed operational costs. MTN, in collaboration with Microsoft and Accenture, is taking a novel approach to workload deployment to the public cloud, looking for opportunities to improve customer experience and organizational agility while pursuing cost transformation in a predictable and committed manner. In just a few weeks, MTN was able to complete a proof of concept for the world’s first 5G standalone core network solution deployed in Microsoft’s Azure public cloud!
“Through our strategic partnership with Microsoft, we will be able to transform how we deliver products and services to our customers.” We will harness the power of cloud computing to drive development and innovation through faster, more flexible, and predictable investments and operations. “We will continue to focus on developing digital skills within MTN and in the societies in which we operate, as well as building digital platforms to drive digital transformation across Africa and the Middle East,” says Nikos Angelopoulos, MTN Group Chief Information Officer.
“We will collaborate closely to build the next wave of compressed digital transformation across the continent, leveraging the power of MTN, Microsoft, and Accenture.” “We see this program becoming a global standard in the industry for years to come,” said Nitesh Singh, Accenture Africa’s Communications, Media, and Technology Lead.
