HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL) announced Thursday that it has signed a five-year agreement with Autodesk to provide offshore application and datacenter services. The deal is worth about $50 million, according to a company spokeswoman.

Autodesk, of San Rafael, California, sells software and services for the manufacturing, building, infrastructure, wireless data services, and media and entertainment markets. HCL, an Indian outsourcing company in Noida, near Delhi, will provide Autodesk with application and data center services for business applications from vendors such as SAP, Informatica, and Siebel Systems, HCL said.

The agreement with Autodesk covers application administration, software configuration management, monitoring, maintenance, and technical support including support tools and utilities implementation, the company said. HCL will also provide general infrastructure management such as storage and Data management, technical support and database administration.

"This is the first time Autodesk has outsourced a significant IT capability to an offshore vendor. Clearly it is important for us to put our trust in the leader in this arena. The key factor in choosing HCL as our preferred partner is its pioneering experience and execution capability in the IT infrastructure management space," said Martin Wegenstein, VP and CIO, Autodesk.

Commenting on the contract, Anant Gupta, COO, HCL's Infrastructure Services Division (ISD) said, "This engagement takes our remote infrastructure management proposition to the next level. Autodesk, as a leading solutions and services provider,has a very large and complex application and data centre environment. We will deliver the managed services to allow them to succeed in their strategy of building IT operational scalability and implementing world-class IT management processes."

Source: Infoworld. HCLPrashanth RaiTag(s):IT Services,India