GBS Unlocks the Value of Data with Huawei OceanStor Dorado All-Flash Storage

Global Business Solutions (GBS) is an innovative Digital Transformation (DX) solution provider in Saudi Arabia. With a vision to be the best possible DX partner for clients who are looking to become natively digital, over the past 15 years, GBS has been a critical behind-the-scenes player, driving digital innovation forward for myriad businesses. It has, over that time, enjoyed notable success, but the company is always looking to go one step further, to give its clients better and better transformation experiences.

Shared Concerns in the Digital Age

As mobile Internet, 5G, and cloud technologies rapidly develop, enterprises working in the finance, energy, and public sectors, as elsewhere, are facing many complex challenges, including an increasing number of financial transactions, inefficient data analytics in oil exploration, and complex management of various Information Technology (IT) systems. In short, enterprises across these different sectors have far higher data analytics, processing, and storage needs than ever before.

Reflecting on such issues, GBS identified the trend toward all-flash data centers. Traditionally, all-flash media has mainly been used for mission-critical data storage, such as financial core banking and carrier billing systems. However, today, all-flash is increasingly deployed in all industries, across all applications. For example, green all-flash storage is beginning to be adopted in data protection and big data scenarios, helping enterprises achieve higher data center efficiency, higher levels of reliability, smarter Operations and Maintenance (O&M), and lower costs.

However, to provide such future-oriented all-flash data center services, GBS was facing a real problem: its employees were focused on products and lacked technical talent in terms of all-flash solution capabilities. Huawei has long enjoyed an enviable reputation in Saudi Arabia and GBS recognized the company's leading position in the all-flash field and its vast experience in technical support. So a partnership was born.

Building Green, Intelligent Data Highways with Huawei OceanStor All-Flash Storage

GBS worked with Huawei to fully assess its clients' live networks, to better understand the state of play and provide solutions where required. The two also deployed Huawei's OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage to conduct Proof of Concept (PoC) tests. Benefiting from OceanStor Dorado's all-flash performance, reliability, and O&M advantages, Huawei and GBS won recognition from these enterprise clients, outperforming legacy storage vendors in several major financial and public sector projects in Saudi Arabia. So what precisely can OceanStor Dorado achieve?

OceanStor Dorado provides up to 21 million Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and latency as low as 0.05 ms. The entire all-flash series uses End to End (E2E) Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) architecture to allow direct communication between Central Processing Units (CPUs) and NVMe Solid-State Drives (SSDs), significantly reducing E2E latency and improving data processing efficiency. In the financial sector, to take just one example, Transactions Per Second (TPS) are significantly improved when OceanStor Dorado is used to process insurance, mobile payment, and mobile banking services. In addition, Huawei's three-layer intelligent management system implements full-lifecycle data management, reducing required cabinet space, electricity fees, and Operating Expenditure (OPEX). Going yet further still, and in order to build a more intelligent all-flash data center, Huawei OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage provides the industry's only active-active Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions for both Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network-Attached Storage (NAS), meeting ever more demanding enterprise-level reliability requirements.

GBS has been impressed by Huawei's rapid delivery. Ayman Katbeh Bader, Sales Manager of GBS, said: "Everyone is aware that Huawei won the award for the best partner in Saudi Arabia from Gartner. But Huawei also launched a rapid — Flash Track — delivery program to deliver flash storage products in a much shorter lead time than other international vendors." In a global environment where others may struggle to fulfill orders, sometimes taking a very long time to physically deliver critical equipment, this is a notable competitive advantage for both GBS and Huawei.

GBS x Huawei: Success Is Secured

"We chose Huawei because it's considered to be one of the biggest vendor companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in terms of growth, especially in the field of storage and networks," noted Ayman Katbeh Bader. "We have worked with Huawei on several large all-flash storage projects in the public sector and other enterprise-level industries. Every customer has been impressed by the high performance and high reliability of OceanStor Dorado. They are also happy with Huawei's support services, in terms of flexibility, knowledge, and technical strength."

GBS will continue to work with Huawei to build faster, greener, more reliable all-flash data centers for enterprise clients, helping to meet diverse business needs and accelerate DX.