With their joint solutions, the two firms plan to help Spanish public administrations and companies in regulated environments to respond to the requirements of digital sovereignty
Microsoft teams up with Telefónica Tech to offer specific confidential hybrid cloud solutions in Spain. (Credit: Elekes Andor/Wikimedia Commons)
Microsoft and Telefónica Tech, a unit of Spanish telecom group Telefónica, have joined forces to offer specific confidential hybrid cloud solutions in Spain for public administrations and firms in regulated sectors.
The partners will aim to provide public administrations and others with monitoring and encryption services to ensure the security and privacy of their data in Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft 365.
For public sector organisations, including defence, and firms in regulated environments, the partners will offer the possibility to leverage the best-of-breed cloud computing and infrastructure services. This is expected to help them advance their plans of digital transformation, while adhering to the data protection provisions and recommendations of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
Microsoft Spain president Alberto Granados said: “At Microsoft, we have long demonstrated our commitment to meeting and exceeding the data protection requirements of the European Union.
“This joint value proposition with Telefónica to provide confidential hybrid cloud solutions responds to the needs of digital sovereignty and demonstrates that we continue to make progress on this commitment.”
Microsoft’s role in the partnership will be to provide privacy safeguards and address the requirements of digital sovereignty via a set of technologies and certifications.
Telefónica Tech, on its part, will handle consultancy, implementation, and operation services. These will help in the deployment of maximum security cloud services, said the partners.
Furthermore, the Telefónica unit will complement the joint offer of the partners with value-added services. Included in these are the intelligent management of infrastructures and communications or the tracking and handling of cyber threats from its cybersecurity operations centre.
Besides, Telefónica Tech will provide specialised consulting services for designing, deploying, and operating Big Data platforms on Microsoft Azure Cloud capabilities.
Apart from that, the company will help public administrations and companies in regulated sectors in defining and executing their strategy pertaining to data and artificial intelligence.
For the defence sector, the partners will offer specific solutions that will combine Telefónica’s 5G connectivity solutions with Microsoft cloud services to facilitate innovation in highly secured environments while meeting compliance requirements.
Telefónica Tech CEO José Cerdán said: “We believe that the alliance between Microsoft and Telefónica is a giant step forward in enabling the digital transformation of the public sector and, in general, of the country.
“The combination of Microsoft’s technology with Telefónica’s service, management and control capabilities guarantees both sovereignty and privacy as well as scalability and the evolution of infrastructures and citizen services, all with the highest level of quality.”