The growing emphasis on service provider IT infrastructure echoes loudly at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2023, taking place in Barcelona, Spain until the 2nd of March. The event saw Huawei, a leading vendor in the ICT and digitalization space, unveiling its IT Infrastructure Architecture, a cutting-edge, future-oriented solution which puts IT infrastructure at the crux of telco digital transformation. Under the ‘+IT, Grow Together’ theme, Huawei aims to deliver an intelligent, efficient, collaborative and reliable IT infrastructure that helps telcos grow beyond communications technology (CT) to become leading players in the information and communications technology (ICT) space.
Huawei’s DNA for curating custom IT architectures
Huawei’s IT Infrastructure Architecture is designed to enable carriers to maximize the value of their three core assets – Data, Network and Application (DNA). In terms of ‘data’, the extensive repository of sensitive data owned and managed by operators has to be supported by an efficient and flexible storage solution. ‘Network’-wise, an integrated approach such as that offered by Huawei’s Network Cloud Engine (NCE) is needed to simplify network management/control via unified scheduling of cloud and network resources and one-stop provisioning that is combined with end-to-end SLA assurance. This drives agility, supports differentiated experiences and accelerates monetization for operators. ‘Application’ diversity is another criteria that has to be incorporated in cloud transformation strategies. Core telecom applications hosted on-premises depend on low latencies and high service reliability, while newer applications in the public cloud require shorter deployment cycles and higher scalability. Featuring three layers of collaboration – CT and IT; software and hardware; and online and on-premises, Huawei’s IT Infrastructure Architecture allows an infrastructure mix that is closely aligned to telcos’ unique needs and strengths.
Delivering a future-oriented IT infrastructure with Huawei Cloud
Underpinning Huawei’s IT Infrastructure Architecture is the HUAWEI CLOUD scenario-based solution. The solution comprises HUAWEI CLOUD Stack, which is tailored for traditional and mature services, and HUAWEI CLOUD, which supports newer, more ‘volatile’ applications. By combining both solutions, Huawei brings to market a distributed cloud architecture that covers both steady-state applications such as BSS and OSS; and agile applications such as video and cloud smartphone apps. HUAWEI CLOUD stack, with comes with more than 90 cloud services, ensures the reliability, latency and efficiency of on-premises deployments. HUAWEI CLOUD on the other hand, takes care of public cloud deployments with one-stop DevSecOps development and O&M capabilities, greatly accelerating innovation across emerging services.
With pre-integrated software services such as analytics, HUAWEI CLOUD helps telcos enhance performance, optimize resources, reduce TCO and shorten time-to-market (TTM). Its intelligent data lake, for example, merges access to more than 35 data sources. Real-time replication and convergence of data at this scale, which is supported by leading analytics application MRS and DWS, addresses data fragmentation and paves the way for an open ecosystem.
Enterprises are also set to gain significantly from HUAWEI CLOUD. The combination of Network and cloud services in a single cloud platform offers enterprises one-click provisioning that speeds up the deployment of B2B services to just days.
Huawei OneStorage: Developing a robust data infrastructure
As part of the IT Infrastructure Architecture, Huawei has also launched OneStorage, a unified data solution. Recognizing the central role of data in supporting telcos’ digital transformation, OneStorage complements Huawei’s distributed cloud with multi-cloud support and high-performance / large-capacity data resource pools, boasting 30% higher resource provisioning efficiency. Its capabilities include hierarchical data migration and unrestricted data flow between clouds. OneStorage also comes with container support capabilities for cloud-native environments. OneStorage security features including Dorado storage, SAN and NAS active-active solution for disaster recovery and E2E anti-ransomware ensure zero interruption and zero data loss for applications. With the highest hardware density in the industry, OneStorage achieves 20% space savings and cuts energy consumption by 40%.
Huawei Cloud better understands carriers
The launch of Huawei’s IT Infrastructure Architecture intensifies the industry’s momentum in the cloud transformation space. Already, Huawei has supported more than 140 operators in implementing cloud transformation. A China-based operator for example, brought down the service rollout time of enterprise branches from more than 20 days to just 3 days by using one-click provisioning enabled by HUAWEI cloud-network solution. An operator in France managed to shorten its IoT service development time from two months to about two weeks, leveraging Huawei’s distributed cloud capabilities to migrate its video platform to a cloud-native architecture.
More recently, Huawei supported Axiata, a prominent service provider in Asia, in reducing the go-to-market time from several months to just a few days while driving down its IT expenditure. Axiata’s choice of vendor was driven by Huawei’s proven telco domain knowledge, its local and industry-leading skills for cloud migration support and its ability to tackle deployment complexities.
Huawei is also taking the lead in the data storage space, boasting a clientele of more than 400 operators to date. In Indonesia, Huawei helped Carrier T realize zero service disruption for its core services via a highly available disaster recovery solution delivered via three data centers in two cities. The data centers support both SAN and NAS.
+IT, Grow Together
With offerings spanning all key facets of IT infrastructure – cloud, storage and computing – and a local support network in more than 130 countries, Huawei is fast becoming the partner of choice for telcos looking to step up their cloud capabilities. With the launch of its IT Infrastructure Architecture, Huawei has again taken the lead with highly relevant and timely solutions that help telcos embrace and accelerate their cloud transformation journey.
To learn more about Huawei’s future-oriented IT infrastructure, visit: IT Infrastructure by Huawei Carrier
