BHP to shift global applications portfolio to Microsoft Azure

BHP will shift its global portfolio of applications, including those currently hosted on SAP HANA, to Microsoft Azure under one of two new long-term cloud agreements.

The miner on Friday announced agreements with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services to “help improve safety, productivity, and reliability across its global operated assets”.

The multi-year agreement with Microsoft will see BHP’s “global applications portfolio” transition to Azure over three years.

“This will enable BHP to leverage its existing Microsoft licences and SAP applications portfolio, and help to reduce its reliance on regional data centres,” BHP said.

Microsoft said the applications – or “up to 17,500TB of data” – will transition from “regional data centres, corporate offices and operational sites as well as its SAP HANA environment”.

“Microsoft has strong relationships with BHP’s three global systems integrators, Accenture, Infosys and Cognizant and has an existing global partnership with SAP,” it said.

“The companies will work together to accelerate BHP’s move to the cloud over the next three years and their combined efforts will help reduce risk and optimise outcomes.”

AWS, meanwhile, will support BHP’s data analytics and machine learning (ML) needs, allowing it to “rapidly deploy digital solutions globally to improve operational performance”.

In a separate statement, AWS said BHP planned to “leverage the breadth and depth of AWS services, including analytics, ML, storage and compute”.

It pointed to a recent project where BHP had developed a solution on AWS that “uses artificial intelligence to optimise commodity logistics schedules from mine to market”.

BHP will also launch a AWS Cloud Academy program as part of the agreement to upskill staff, joining dozens of other Australian companies, including NAB, Telstra and Kmart.

BHP chief technical officer Laura Tyler said the new agreements highlighted the importance of cloud for the company’s digital transformation.

“Digital technology is in everything we do at BHP, from how we connect to our customers and partners every day to how we extract and find resources more safely and sustainably,” she said.

“We are leveraging next generation technologies like cloud, machine learning and data analytics to solve complex business problems and unlock value even faster.”

“Cloud is the foundation to our plans, and it will enable us to deploy digital solutions to the frontline quickly and at scale.

“Cloud will dramatically reduce the amount of hardware on sites, and reduce costs.

“We are thrilled to have AWS and Microsoft on board to ensure we have a strong foundation to accelerate our digital transformation plans and lift capability across the business.”

Microsoft’s worldwide commercial business executive vice president Judson Althoff said the partnership will “accelerate the company’s cloud journey, improve enterprise agility and security and advance its sustainability commitments through better data insights.”

“We are excited to collaborate with BHP on deploying the digital tools and capabilities needed to respond quickly to opportunities in the global resources sector and ensure its people are fully supported to do their best work safely,” he said.

AWS’s vice president of engineering Bill Vass said the collaboration with BPH will “support them to become a more efficient and data-drive resources company”.

“With AWS, BHP can put their vast global data to work, helping the company make the best possible decisions and better respond to market changes, while upskilling employees to prepare for the digital workforce,” he said.