The ‘Data Center of Tomorrow’ Revealed at Huawei eco-Connect Europe 2020 Internet Industry Forum

[Germany, 20th Oct, 2020] The crucial role of managed service providers, and the new standard for data centers as part of an intelligent internet, were central themes in the Internet Industry Forum at Huawei eco-Connect Europe 2020.

During the two-day virtual event, Huawei’s dedicated forum for the internet service industry brought together ICT thought leaders and executives from all over Europe for a set of broadcasts and discussions, all under the theme ‘Building an All-Optical and Intelligent Internet’.

The forum presented innovative solutions for coping with the accelerating demands 2020 has placed on service providers – including a surge in broadband traffic, requirement for an all-optical Internet, and more complex demands on data centers – and realizing business transformation and growth.

During the forum, Huawei and CRT Informatique revealed CRT’s new data center housed in a château in the Loire Valley in France. Supported by Huawei infrastructure and services, the data center is an industry-leading example of agile, optimized data hosting and provision – so much so that it will be a reference site for future data center designs.

A One-stop Data Solution for Connectivity and Cloud Services

Violaine Petit, Sales and marketing VP of CRT Informatique, said the data center offered a new way of doing business: a one-stop data solution for CRT’s offering, which includes network monitoring, internet services, hosting, and Software-as-a-Service aimed towards public bodies and the medical sector.

CRT Informatique selected Huawei as a partner who could offer the full range of design and construction services as well as supporting the CRT team with training. Huawei was able to work to a tight schedule, within the constraints of a historical building where modifications are strictly controlled. Despite this, the finished product achieved full functionality: a flexible data center incorporating the full suite of e-enterprise services, offered to anyone, anywhere within minutes while remaining fully secure.

“In this project, we are putting forward a new concept,” said Violaine Petit. “We did not just want to build something regular. We wanted to be different. When we are different, we are successful in the market. We also wanted to invest in a meaningful project for our customers.

“We chose Huawei as their services cover the full scope of our needs: cloud computing, networks and infrastructure. They gave us a ‘turnkey’ solution with everything included, and supported us with a real sense of partnership.”

Elsewhere at the forum, industry leaders discussed what they viewed as the biggest trends affecting internet services providers today.

Ewa Zborowska, director at IDC Europe, emphasized the important role of ICT in meeting the challenges the world faces today. In particular, innovating in cloud and other new technologies is a way for organizations to adapt and accelerate in times of difficulty.

She said that businesses have realigned their priorities in light of the events of 2020, and are now looking to increase their crisis capabilities, business continuity, flexibility and security, while modernizing their workloads and data handling processes. In view of this, there is a trend for external data centers and managed services in Europe, with more businesses appreciating the efficient data handling and resource management this provides.

“Transparency and empathy became important this year,” said Ms Zborowska. “Those two words may not be immediately associated with data centers, but we found that clients appreciated being informed about what is happening in data centers, as well as being offered more flexible provision of resources, such as when there was a sudden peak in usage. This really improved relations between clients and providers.

“There is a need for traditional data center modernization. Companies will invest in making them more efficient, but they will also reach out to external partners to provide that service. In addition, the network becomes more important, especially when it comes to hybrid environments and 5G connectivity. We see the role of telcos as extremely important for the years to come.”

Maxim Kuschnerov, director of Huawei Optical and Quantum Communication Laboratory, described the trend towards 1 Gigabit connection strategies in Europe and introduced Huawei’s all-optical network solutions. Huawei’s vision is for every room, desktop, and machine to have an optical connection, and Huawei’s intelligent OptiX network features high bandwidth, reliability, low latency, and intelligence, helping ISPs go all-optical throughout each portion of the network. He also announced a new solution, DQ ODN, which simplifies deployment through plug-and-play without any splicing, improving efficiency and reducing cost.

Robbie Wang, Director of ISP Industry Business, Huawei Enterprise Business Group Western Europe, said that the Internet service industry is seeing three trends: internet connection technologies are evolving towards all-optical, data centers are evolving towards multi-cloud architecture, and internet services are becoming increasingly intelligent and diversified. He reaffirmed Huawei’s commitment to providing all-optical and intelligent infrastructure solutions to achieve smooth evolution of ICT architecture and enable business success for customers. He also introduced the Huawei FusionCol and FusionDC solution, which enables fast data center construction while meeting PUE targets.