CenturyLink announced today that it has enlarged the scope of its partnership with Google Cloud Project to help drive customers' digital transformations.
The expanded partnership enables CenturyLink to connect its IT consulting services across Google Cloud Platform's public cloud. CenturyLink inked an agreement with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) last year to connect its customers to Google Cloud globally through Google Cloud Partner Interconnect.
In addition to the cloud-based services, CenturyLink's global broadcast fiber network, Vyvx Cloud Connect, provides an on-ramp to GCP by offering multi-site, connectivity paths into GCP for high-bandwidth and high-quality video services.
"Our work with CenturyLink is a prime example of our fast-growing cloud ecosystem and Google Cloud's commitment to support the technology needs of enterprises today," said Carolee Gearhart, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Google Cloud, in a prepared statement. "We look forward to continuing to expand our partnership with CenturyLink, which brings a wealth of expertise in SAP consulting, big data analytics and secure private networking to public and hybrid cloud workloads."
In order to further help its customers transition to the cloud, CenturyLink also has opened the doors on a Google Cloud center of excellence that's staffed by certified Google Cloud Architects and engineers who are skilled in cloud infrastructure, networking, migration and managed services.
CenturyLink Cloud Connect Solutions for Google Cloud also provides organizations with enterprise-grade, dedicated connectivity so they can move both private and public workloads from offices and data centers on their wide-area networks (WAN) to Google Cloud Platform in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
CenturyLink Cloud Connect can deliver real-time connections between data centers and a variety of cloud services that enable organizations to spin up services and applications on demand.
"This partnership enables global enterprises to leverage the power of CenturyLink's diverse global network combined with our innovative thought leadership in optimizing application deployment and advanced IT services that help meet the full range of their hybrid cloud needs," said Mahesh Dalvi, vice president, Global IT Solutions and Managed Services, CenturyLink, in a statement. "Both Google Cloud and CenturyLink are highly focused on tackling complex enterprise needs, including the optimization of critical workloads such as SAP and big data."
Service providers reach for the clouds
After largely selling off their own cloud assets, a number of service providers have been striking partnerships with cloud providers in order to stretch their business solutions into the more agile cloud environments. While AT&T and Verizon exited the cloud business, CenturyLink still offers its CenturyLink Cloud.
CenturyLink has been checking off boxes for deals with the various cloud providers, both large and small.
RELATED: CenturyLink expands private cloud offerings to Dell servers
Earlier this month, CenturyLink announced that it had expanded its private cloud offerings to include Dell servers. In July, CenturyLink started offering dedicated and private access services to Oracle Cloud through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect.
In August, after a six-month process, CenturyLink was granted AWS' stamp of approval by being named a Managed Service Provider Partner. CenturyLink has a previous relationship for cloud services with AWS.
In October, BT Cloud Connect for Cloud announced a partnership with CGP that gives BT's customers direct connectivity with interface speeds varying from 50 Mbps to 2 Gbps.
Last year, AT&T announced its partnership with Google Cloud after reaching similar arrangements with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. In May of 2018, Verizon announced that it had picked AWS as its preferred public provider.