Halliburton, Microsoft Corp. and Accenture have entered into a five-year strategic agreement on July 17 to advance Halliburton’s digital capabilities in Microsoft Azure.

Under the agreement, Halliburton will complete its move to cloud-based digital platforms and strengthen its customer offerings by enhancing real-time platforms for expanded remote operations, improving analytics capability with the Halliburton Data Lake utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence, and accelerating the deployment of new technology and applications, including SOC2 compliance, for Halliburton’s overall system reliability and security.

“The strategic agreement with Microsoft and Accenture is an important step in our adoption of new technology and applications to enhance our digital capabilities, drive additional business agility and reduce capital expenditures,” Jeff Miller, Halliburton chairman, president and CEO, said. “We are excited about the benefits our customers and employees will realize through this agreement, and the opportunity to further leverage our open architecture approach to software delivery.”

The agreement also enables the migration of all Halliburton physical data centers to Azure, which delivers enterprise-grade cloud services at global scale and offers sustainability benefits. Accenture will work closely with Microsoft, in conjunction with their Avanade joint venture, to help transition Halliburton’s digital capabilities and business-critical applications to Azure. Accenture will leverage its comprehensive cloud migration framework, which brings industrialized capabilities together with exclusive tools, methods, and automation to accelerate Halliburton’s data center migration and provide for additional transformation opportunities.

“Building a digital core and scaling quickly across a business is only possible with a strong foundation in the cloud,” Julie Sweet,  Accenture CEO, said. “Halliburton recognizes that this essential foundation will provide the innovation, efficiency and talent advantages to do things differently and fast. We are proud to be part of this transformational change, which builds on our long history working with Halliburton and Microsoft.”

The companies expect to complete the staged migration by 2022.