Oracle is the latest cloud provider to be added to the AT&T NetBond for Cloud ecosystem. The NetBond service provides dedicated connectivity to cloud platforms for enterprise customers.
The Oracle deal allows AT&T customers to manage and access the Oracle FastConnect cloud service using the NetBond platform. The access component includes AT&T's MPLS virtual private network (VPN), with traffic isolated from other NetBond customers using a virtual circuit. AT&T said the isolation of traffic supports "enterprise-grade" security.
Oracle explained the NetBond product uses an enterprise's existing IP prefixes to establish border gateway protocol (BGP) peering to connect to the FastConnect service. NetBond also provides network address translation (NAT) and advertises public routable IPv4 prefixes to Oracle.
AT&T's NetBond product, which the company launched in 2013, was one of the operator's first commercial software-defined networking (SDN) solutions. It's designed as a fully managed network and cloud infrastructure connection model targeting cloud service providers.
AT&T said its NetBond for Cloud program now includes more than 20 members providing access to more than 125 cloud services. The cloud platforms include Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM, Equinix, and Microsoft Azure.
AT&T last month added NetBond support for more than 100 cloud software and service providers hosted on AWS. AT&T said the move allows users to bypass the public Internet to connect to cloud platforms using a secured connection via AWS Direct Connect.
The two companies in early May announced a deal to move thousands of AT&T's internal databases to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Oracle said the deal includes the migration of thousands of existing Oracle databases and associated applications to Oracle Cloud. The move is set to provide AT&T with access to those assets via Oracle's public cloud platform and its own Integrated Cloud, and provide AT&T enterprise customers with more access choices.
The deal also called for AT&T to deploy Oracle's Field Service Cloud in conjunction with its own machine learning and big data platforms to customers as a scheduling and dispatch option. AT&T said the platform could reach more than 70,000 field technicians.