Kathy Gibson at Huawei Connect in Shanghai – Cloud computing is set to become to the digital enterprise what electricity was to the industrial enterprise.
This is the word from David Wang, president of products and solutions at Huawei, who says a connected cloud adds value to organisations.
“We believe that connections plus the cloud are the two drivers powering digitalisation of the enterprise,” he says.
Huawei plans to focus on these two areas, he adds. Traditionally a connections leader, the company has a long history of telecommunication equipment and services.
“Huawei Cloud is the result of long-term innovation. We have been building our expertise in this field for 10 years, in the Chinese public cloud and big data market.”
In fact, Huawei has experienced 238% growth in users and has added more than 4 500 new features and 40 new cloud services on its public cloud.
Wang explains that what Huawei means by connections embrace uses cases like commerce, education, city technology and manufacturing, using intelligent networks.
“Intelligent connections makes our lives more interesting and exciting,” he adds.
This convergence is top of mind with Huawei’s new virtualised networking solutions.
The company today launched its CloudCampus solution that brings together enterprise networks with cloud solutions.
“More and more enterprise are migrating services to the cloud, whether it is public or private cloud,” says Kevin Hu, president: switch and switch gateway product line at Huawei.
“But how do we connect all of our end users to the cloud? That is the challenge that companies are facing now.”
Cloud services are rolling out in many different industries, including retail, education, logistics and more. But companies are battling to find ways to enable users on the new solutions and future-proofing their business processes, using the existing business infrastructure.
Hu explains that the campus network is traditionally used to connect computers and devices within a fixed area. “But in the new era of cloud-everywhere, this is no longer enough.
“So we have found a smart way of addressing these challenges, with a solution that also offers a smarter way of managing the customer experience in a way that is stable and secure.”
On the access layer, Huawei has launched its X-Generation WiFi access point (AP), based on the new IEEE 802.11ax standard.
The new AP increased data traffic speed by three times and throughput by four times. At the same time, it can support four times more users that the previous generation, with a better customer experience.
The X-Gen WiFI AP7060DN supports both WiFi and IoT connections, so data from the traditional enterprise computers and devices like laptops, tablets, projectors and more is no combined with IoT data, RFID, Bluetooth and more.
“So you can install one box and it collects all the data” Hu says.
Within the CloudCampus design, the WiFi is also multi-tenanted and virtualised, making it easier to manage, provision and secure. An open API means it can support multiple applications.
On the next level, CloudCampus is driving the convergence of LAN and WAN management.
Hu explains that one Agile controller can now manage both LAN and WAN interfaces, giving enterprises unified O&M for headquarters, branch and enterprise interconnectivity.
“The consistent LAN and WAN policy control is based on user and application identity, cloud-based bandwidth and QoS control, offering consistent network-wide service experience.”
This unified LAN and WAN deployment means users can implement plug and play at headquarters, branches and enterprise networks on the cloud.
“Currently, enterprises have a static pre-set networking that is limited by solidified network topologies,” Hu says. “In the future, the multi-tenant fabric consists of one physical network that is virtualised into multiple networks that allows for multi-tenant network applications and shared network resources. And, because it is virtualised, it supports virtual deployment.”
So far the Huawei CloudCampus provides more than 150 APIs to allow partners to digitalise their campus solution
The final piece of the CloudCampus solution is an open cloud platform that so far has 30 partners and more than 20 industry applications.