This year has been a busy one in the relationship between Amazon Web Services Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. First there was the move of Oath Inc., the Verizon subsidiary formed from the purchase of AOL and Yahoo, to the AWS Cloud. That was swiftly followed a few weeks later by the news that Verizon would migrate its business-critical applications and backend systems to the public cloud provider.

“The movement to the public cloud is not just a cost play,” said Mahmoud El-Assir (pictured, right), senior vice president and chief technology officer of IT at Verizon. “The primary objective should be speed and innovation. The heart of our technology transformation is the public cloud.”

El-Assir spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Executive Summit in Las Vegas. He was joined by Annette Rippert (pictured, left), senior managing director of technology at Accenture LLP, and they discussed the need for enterprises to embrace a more agile infrastructure and the critical role that training employees will play in use of cloud technologies. (* Disclosure below.)

Agility for a changing market

In making the May announcement to migrate its critical operations to AWS, Verizon company officials indicated that the move was motivated by a desire to increase agility by more fully utilizing the features that the public cloud provider can offer. It is a trend that partners like Accenture are seeing in the changing market dynamics of the enterprise world.

“The market is changing every day, so by leveraging innovative products like AWS’ platform, it really provides the opportunity to constantly leverage new technology in that environment,” Rippert said.

Verizon’s cloud move is also being accompanied by the creation of AWS-specific training facilities, which the company calls “dojos.” Training employees in cloud technologies and services is a key element for building a culture where innovation can create sustainable momentum for Verizon’s business, according to El-Assir.

“We have more than 1,800 people certified now with AWS,” El-Assir said. “Technology is one thing, but you need the culture.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Executive Summit event. Neither Accenture LLP, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE