With the advent of new technologies such as 5G, IoT, cloud computing and big data, information and communications technologies (ICTs) are rapidly reshaping the world. Yet throughout this digital transformation, the global telecommunications industry is faced with many challenges.
From heavy network investment to low income-to-expense ratios, and huge pressure to reduce carbon emissions, there is an increased demand for upgraded ICT infrastructure within the industry. This calls for telecom operators around the world to proactively transform from merely providing network services to providing comprehensive ICT services to meet the requirements of a digital, intelligent world.
Indeed, the responsibility is now on them to provide digital connections to help traditional enterprises achieve their digital transformation, migrate to the cloud, and generate value in big data. “Cloudification and data utilization” – the development of clouds, data processing capability, and intelligence upon connections – has become a basic consensus among operators during this round of digital transformation.
As the 5G era is propelling the telecom market to create new models and shape the new landscape, operators will need to rely on the combination of powerful 5G connections with cloud computing, big data, and intelligence technologies to restructure networks, innovate businesses and reform their operations. To help operators do so, we at Huawei introduced an intelligent IT Foundation solution that combines a fully-collaborative distributed cloud, all-scenario data pool, with diversified computing power for a successful digital and intelligent transformation at MWC 2022.
Huawei Cloud’s concept of Everything as a Service makes cloudification possible for operators
Cloudification is the first step in cloud-based, data driven transformation, where cloud computing is not only the foundation for operator development, but also for other industries in making leapfrog advances in digitalization.
To build a competitive edge and capture a stake in today’s market, operators need key capabilities in planning and R&D, as well as partnerships with mainstream cloud service providers. In addition, they need to proactively develop cloud infrastructure and services that integrate and deliver comprehensive information services to their external customers, while drawing on industry-leading technologies and business experience.
With over three decades of experience working with global operators to reshape connectivity, Huawei fully understands telecom services and operators’ business scenarios, and can fulfill the needs of even operators’ most demanding customers. Huawei Cloud’s concept of “Everything as a Service” puts forth infrastructure, technology, and expertise all as services.
Firstly, Huawei Cloud provides IaaS in the form of a global network of data centers and accelerated networks to assist operators to go global in record speed. With deployment in 27 Regions and 61 availability zones (AZs) worldwide, covering more than 170 countries and regions, Huawei Cloud serves customers and provides consistent experience on one network around the world, enabling customers with global accessibility.
Secondly, Huawei’s suite of carrier cloud services is bundled into tPaaS to reduce the burden of R&D costs on operators. We translate our technical strength, the results of an annual R&D investment of USD20 billion, into services on Huawei Cloud. These include cloud-native ultra-large container cluster scheduling, intelligent computing frameworks and algorithms, search, maps, databases, 3D ultra-HD audio and video codecs, fully automated development, and test pipelines, blockchain, 5G network planning and optimization, and autonomous driving. Operators and enterprise customers can quickly obtain technical capabilities by directly invoking these services.
Finally, Huawei partners with industry leaders to transform data intelligence into digital assets on aPaaS so operators can enable industries to transform as well. Industry applications are complicated and vary from scenario to scenario. Huawei Cloud has distilled its expertise in its own process IT, device business, and industry digitalization into cloud services, helping operators and industry customers embrace digital transformation and accelerate growth.
Owing to an advanced cloud architecture, industry expertise, and network collaboration, Huawei Cloud boosts carrier IT with distributed cloud native and helps increase carrier revenue. Cloud-network collaboration and cloud-data linkage allow operators maximal network value with differentiated cloud network products. It also enables efficient cloud transformation supported by E2E services and distributed cloud solutions.
In a nutshell, Huawei's carrier cloud services make carriers agile and cloud-native, with fast rollout, fast scaling, fast upgrade, and stable running. In turn, carriers uncover new opportunities in industry data intelligence with comprehensive ICT services. As of the end of 2021, we have partnered with more than 120 carriers in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East to help customers make their migration to the cloud and go intelligent in data.
Strengthened OneStorage strategy enables operators to achieve data utilization
As we all know, the acceleration of digital transformation of operators will imminently lead to data surges. In fact, according to estimates, the billing data volume of their Business Support System (BSS) domains will increase by 7.5 times, the operation data volume of their Operations Support System (OSS) domains will grow by 8 times, the high-definition (HD) video data of to-Customer (to-C) services will climb by more than 10 times, and the data volume of big data analytics will go up by 5 times.
Amidst increased volume of data and diverse data types internally and externally, in-depth big data convergence is inevitable for operators to attain added value in operation and development. That said, the key to effectively utilizing the data is to smash data silos and build a unified data resource pool. It is equally important to efficiently utilize diversified data in all operation and maintenance scenarios and processes throughout the entire data lifecycle from collection, integration, cleaning, to analysis.
Huawei follows the OneStorage strategy, which consists of an all-scenario storage resource pool and multi-cloud connection. Responding to the need for operators to process more diversified data, data applications to be more inclusive, data protection to be more important, and data centers to be more efficient, we also recently launched a series of innovative data infrastructure products to help operators evolve their data scenarios. They include the next-gen OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage, new-gen OceanStor hybrid flash storage, OceanProtect backup storage, datacenter virtualization solution (DCS), and OceanStor Pacific mass data storage.
The new OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage series is designed to supercharge UX by reducing the bill run time from three hours to one hour. This way, operators can handle structured and unstructured core data with ease, enjoying ultimate performance and reliability. The next-gen OceanStor hybrid flash storage eliminates data silos and significantly reduces the storage total cost of ownership (TCO). It is also environmentally friendly, halving the amount of power consumed for 10 PB of data and saving footprint. Meanwhile, the OceanProtect backup storage enables backup of all data instead of only critical data, ensuring that valuable data assets are not lost. The DCS simplifies data integration and significantly improves development and O&M efficiency through best practice pre-verification. Lastly, the OceanStor Pacific mass data storage provides efficient and intensive storage for mass unstructured data.
The OneStorage solution continuously provides applications with converged storage resource pools and highly automated intelligent data management capabilities. Its open architecture breaks down silos and delivers better service experience through streamlined management and operations between various platforms, devices, and data centers – all made possible by unified resource management, intelligent allocation, and multi-cloud convergence.
As a result, the average data center resource utilization rate increases from 35% to 65%. The billing time has been shortened by about 67% and efficiency improved by about three times. Moreover, the migration efficiency increases by about 60%, along with higher data security and lower energy consumption. The management efficiency is also doubled: in the past, one person could only manage 10 sets of storage devices, whereas now each person can manage 50 sets of storage devices.
By the end of 2021, Huawei storage has worked with 327 operators around the world. It has also become operators' first choice to work with their diversified production data, given its achievement as a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for primary storage for six consecutive years.
As we undergo the next round of digital transformation, leading operators worldwide are all proactively upgrading from providing CT and IT services to providing comprehensive ICT services based on advanced communications technologies like 5G. That said, Huawei is committed to once again taking the lead in helping operators transform and upgrade.
With a fully-collaborative distributed cloud, all-scenario data pool, and diversified computing power, our green, reliable, efficient, and intelligent new IT foundation will help operators increase revenue, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and achieve new growth. By helping more industries to go digital and intelligent, Huawei, operators and their customers will uncover greater social and economic value together.
Xuejun Chen is the Director of the Carrier IT Marketing & Solution Sales Department at Huawei.
