Bouygues Telecom boosts its DevOps culture and the quality of service it offers its customers with AWS

A global operator, Bouygues Telecom is one of the jewels in the French telecommunications crown. In 2016, when the “on-premise” network architecture found it difficult to absorb the peak loads on the Bouygues.fr website, Bouygues began to seriously consider the Cloud and the possibilities offered by the various hosting services.

From early migration to Cloud First: performance, resilience and scalability

Bouygues' network architecture and data hosting, provided by "on-premise" solutions, are no longer sufficient to cope with peak loads such as Christmas or New Year's Day. In 2015, the team began to compare what was possible on “on-premise” automation vs in the cloud, and quickly realized that the solutions provided by cloud operators were much more powerful and efficient. At the end of this reflection period, AWS appeared to be the provider of the most advanced solutions on the market, and Bouygues began to migrate its test environments to the Cloud in 2016. After a successful first phase, Bouygues began migrating the first production applications in 2017, including its official website, an absolutely strategic showcase. The initial objective — to gain DevOps agility by exploiting high added value services — was achieved thanks to a resilient, scalable and secure infrastructure: “We achieved our “Cloud first” goals by transforming people and practices within the IT department, but also by gaining in scalability and quality of service; since our applications have hosted in the Cloud, none has been impacted by infrastructure problems,“ explains Christophe François.

Cost control, raising the profile of developers, continuous search for innovation, accelerated deployment of POCs, scalability of infrastructure, improved user experience... Convinced by its progressive mastery of AWS-hosted services, Bouygues deployed the "Go to Cloud" program in 2019 and made the decision to launch each new application as a priority in the Cloud. The operator then set the goal of migrating at least 50% of its business applications within two years; today, in 2022, Christophe François confirms that this has been achieved. “Over the course of the projects, we have increased our skills and have progressively added value to the profession of developer at Bouygues. Today, we are able to deploy applications within a few weeks instead of a few months like before.”

A migration beyond “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS)

As a simple “lift and shift” would not allow it to take advantage of the scalability benefits and all the other perks of the Cloud, Bouygues preferred to completely review its infrastructure. Thanks to these developments, Bouygues Telecom's internal IT department customers now benefit from better “time-to-market” for their applications. The group's end customers, for their part, benefit from a more efficient website and a more accessible interface.

Computer security and priority for hosting data in France

At a time when IT security and data protection issues are increasing, Bouygues appreciates not only the proximity of AWS solutions – the operator hosts its workloads and production data in AWS Data Centers in Paris – but also the fact that it can manage the encryption of its data, using its own keys for sensitive data, or the keys offered by AWS for less critical data. Operating AWS services from Data Centers in Paris and storing customer data there is a guarantee for customers.

Alongside this, Bouygues Telecom has set up third-party security tools administered by the Cloud team that audit the platform in real time. In addition, strict rules have been established to ensure that each new application intended for the Cloud is 100% compliant with the security standards defined by the company, by first passing an internal security audit. These security practices ensure end-to-end protection, and are appreciated by customers and essential for the operator.

“We benefit from a number of efficient AWS services that allow data to be encrypted, whether in transit or at rest, with private network links between Bouygues and AWS.” Christophe François, Cloud & DevSecOps CoE Manager at Bouygues Telecom.

AWS and Devoteam Revolve: value-creating support

The gradual migration of Bouygues Telecom data into the Cloud, which in fact covers multiple projects, was initially facilitated by the daily support of Devoteam Revolve, an AWS-certified partner chosen by Bouygues Telecom in view of its large number of AWS certifications. It supported Bouygues Telecom in creating the “Go to Cloud” program, coaching the operator on the management and implementation of the project and mobilizing experts such as Cloud architects.

For its part, AWS provided Bouygues Telecom with daily support and dedicated points of contacts, allowing it, in particular, to benefit from advice, make changes to the platform and answer security questions.

“AWS teams have the ability and the necessary skills to adapt to our needs.” Maël Louvet, head of the Cloud Expertise division.

FinOps: an approach which is dear to the hearts of the Bouygues Telecom Cloud team

Cost savings weren't the reason for migrating to the cloud. Nevertheless, the implementation of FinOps allowed Bouygues Telecom to control and optimize the cost of its Cloud consumption. The savings generated in the Cloud budget by AWS commit mechanisms and rationalizing usage can thus be reinvested in innovation and the creation of new Cloud projects.

With more than 70 AWS services in their catalog, the internal teams have no doubt: innovation requires the Cloud and in particular managed services, which make technologies such as AI accessible and serverless through services like Amazon SageMaker.

“The AWS development roadmap is constantly improving. We also have a role to play in this enrichment by expressing our needs so that they can develop their services.” Maël Louvet, head of the Cloud Expertise division.