AT&T renewed a cloud agreement with Oracle as part of the mobile operator’s ongoing IT modernisation and data centre consolidation efforts.

The operator is employing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services for IT modernisation and data centre consolidation, and the software company’s enterprise resource planning platform to eliminate manual processes as part of financial and supply chain transformation programmes.

AT&T and Oracle first struck a wide ranging deal in 2017 which involved the operator moving thousands of its internal databases to Oracle Cloud.

The operator started selling off its data centres in 2018 to free up cash for investments into its wireless and video units.

Jon Summers, SVP for IT, told Mobile World Live the strategy is ongoing and AT&T plans to keep some of its data centres once the consolidation process is completed.

The deal with Oracle is separate from an agreement AT&T struck to move its 5G core network onto Microsoft Azure in 2021.