Cybersecurity expert Symantec is looking to cut down on its data center costs by moving some of its workload to Microsoft Azure. The deal between the two companies, which was revealed on Monday, would see Symantec delivering its Norton product line to its customers from Azure.

Microsoft announced that Symantec has already moved “105 critical consumer digital safety capabilities” to its data centers to provide support for services like advanced threat protection, reputation scoring, and security telemetry. The security firm is also utilizing Azure to keep track of its financial, security and operational metrics.

However, this extensive cloud migration will take time and extensive planning before it’s finalized. Moving the selected apps and data to Microsoft’s cloud servers will take about 18 months from its commencement last year to its expected completion on March 2018.

The world’s largest #security software provider @Symantec trusts #Azure to deliver @NortonOnline consumer security: https://t.co/5yx3bxhEWj

— Microsoft Azure (@Azure) October 16, 2017

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft and Symantec have worked together though. But this latest collaboration comes on the heels of Symantec’s view to adopt hybrid cloud policies to enhance performance and agility while lowering their operating costs.

Sheila Jordan, Symantec’s CIO and senior vice president, said that the cloud is crucial in their strategy to streamline operations, accelerate innovation and protect and empower their customers. She also added that Microsoft has been a reliable partner in ensuring their strategy’s success.

The Mountain View-based security software company’s decision to have Microsoft’s cloud facilities host its line of consumer security products is not only a major win for Azure but also a clear affirmation of the company’s data security capacities.

Symantec’s current plans will undoubtedly assist Microsoft and its partners to sell the cloud to large enterprises. A lot of companies are still laboring under the assumption that the cloud is less secure than in-house data centers. But having two major enterprises like Microsoft and Symantec standardizing their workloads on Azure would give other businesses the confidence to shift their own data and software over to the cloud.

Public cloud facilities like Azure or Amazon Web Services are composed of a large set of computer servers, networking apparatus and storage systems which are rented out to companies that do not want to run or expand their data centers. This is particularly useful to businesses with uneven workloads.

A lot of big companies, like Salesforce and Infor have already taken advantage of the cloud’s capabilities for about two years now. Hopefully, many more companies will follow them into the cloud.

[Featured image via Microsoft]