Tata Communications on Tuesday joined hands with Google Cloud to drive cloud adoption among Indian businesses. The announcement of the partnership led to the shares of Tata Communications climbing close to 6 per cent on the BSE to Rs 1,050.90. Tata Communications said the deal had expanded its managed public cloud services portfolio to include the capabilities of Google Cloud.

The partnership is expected to enable organisations to deploy and access Google Cloud services through Tata Communications’ “IZO Managed Cloud” platform. Companies will get access to end-to-end services, including cloud architecture planning and workload migration.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, technology firms have been witnessing a rise in demand for services such as cloud computing. A cloud is where various services can be accessed from the Internet through a provider.

Tata Communications said as a Google Cloud India partner, it will support organisations with services across infrastructure modernisation, data centre transformation, application modernisation and smart analytics.

According to the company, with the current global scenario, there is wider recognition for business resilience and agility that cloud enables and most businesses are now beginning to explore a cloud-first model.

“The current demands on enterprises to manage and optimise their cloud solutions has never been more important, especially in the wake of Covid-19 and our increasing reliance on cloud infrastructure,” Rajesh Awasthi, global head of cloud and managed hosting services at Tata Communications said.

As organisations migrate to Google Cloud, they need a partner that will support them across their entire IT ecosystem and deliver a unified cloud management platform that offers greater transparency, control and security of their data and applications, Awasthi said.

Tata Communications, erstwhile VSNL was in the news last month when the Government said that it will sell its entire 26.12 per cent stake in the company through offer for sale and strategic sale route in the current fiscal.

In a notice, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) had said that a part of the shareholding will be offered through offer for sale (OFS) and the balance, including any leftover portion in the OFS, will be offered to strategic partner Panatone Finvest Ltd. The transaction is to be completed by March 20, 2021, the DIPAM had said.