AT&T signed a multi-year alliance agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for delivery of integrated offerings on the AWS cloud and the AT&T network.

The companies envision joint services that span cloud networking, Internet of Things (IoT), security, and analytics, with a focus on implementing new strategies. They claim customers are demanding such a partnership to supply services over both public and private clouds.

AT&T and AWS plan to designate professionals from their respective companies to work on the joint cloud offerings.

Initially, the collaboration will focus on three main business areas: business cloud networking, IoT, and security.

For business cloud networking, the partners will focus on AT&T’s NetBond — an MPLS VPN service that connects enterprises to public clouds. Speaking at the Goldman-Sachs Communacopia conference in September, AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson said of NetBond, “Basically, this is virtual private networking into and out of the cloud, and every major cloud provider is NetBonded to AT&T's network, whether it's Microsoft or Amazon.”

AT&T says it’s seen four-fold growth in NetBond traffic over the last year. Now, AT&T and AWS are working to enhance customer visibility, security, and automation on NetBond.

“Going in and out of the cloud, if you put a mission-critical application in the cloud, you can't tolerate and you don't afford latency,” added Stephenson.

AT&T and AWS will also coordinate to send data from AT&T IoT sensors into the AWS cloud. AT&T's global network, which connects nearly 29 million connected devices as of mid-2016, will integrate with the AWS IoT managed cloud platform.

Also as part of their relationship, AT&T and AWS plan to employ their respective expertise in security. AT&T plans to specifically boost its Threat Intellect platform that it launched this summer. It’s the nerve center behind AT&T’s machine learning-based threat intelligence system.