Telstra's multi-cloud architect Craig Fulton joins IBM

The architect of Telstra's multi-cloud strategy Craig Fulton has popped up at IBM as the new leader of its cloud migration services division.

Fulton will be responsible for leading cloud innovation advisory and security, big data services, accelerated application development and complex SI and architecture practices, according to LinkedIn.

An IBM spokesperson said: "Craig’s mandate is to delight our customers and make the IBM Cloud Application Migration Services business in Australia [and] New Zealand a trusted advisor to our customers and the number one partner of choice in all aspects of Multi-Cloud adoption."

IBM Cloud Migration Services allows customers to migrate workloads into IBM's hybrid cloud SoftLayer, BlueBox, or on-premises data centres.

Fulton left Telstra in January this year after more than four years with the telco. He was named Telstra's director of infrastructure and cloud solutions in July 2015, taking lead of the 'cloud first' strategy, which enabled Telstra to migrate its applications into a public cloud.

He also led Telstra's multi-cloud strategy of building an ecosystem of networks, security, clouds and tools to allow customers to grow their own business solutions.

In March, Telstra revealed it was preparing to move one in every five of its mission critical applications to IBM's Bluemix over the next 12 months, to be hosted from dedicated private environments in Sydney and Melbourne. The list of applications includes Telstra's core ERP applications and identity management systems for customers and internal staff.

The two companies went as far as to form the 'Migration Factory' made up of staff from Telstra and IBM to identify which workloads could be lifted and shifted from 4000 targeted workloads. Fulton will be responsible for the Migration Factory while working for IBM.

Telstra said IBM was chosen out of all the public cloud players because of its partnership with VMware; Telstra had a "very large VMware environment" and was able to recreate legacy gateways and workloads with IBM.

After leaving Telstra in January, Fulton joined mobile and web collaboration firm Aconex as chief technology officer, where he was responsible for product development. He was also chief security officer for Australia Post for six months in 2012, and before that, head of technology workplace services at ANZ Bank.

Updated at 9:42am on 15 September to include commentary from IBM.