The cloud has become a requisite for digital transformation. Countries in the Middle East and Central Asia have recognised the role of cloud technology in driving the digital economy; they are actively promoting it as part of their digital transformation strategy. For example, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have launched initiatives embedded into their national visions to establish cloud-first policies and actively promote the adoption of cloud technologies.
According to a recent research report from MarketsandMarkets, the cloud computing market in the Middle East is projected to grow from US$14.2 billion in 2021 to US$31.4 billion by 2026, highlighting a significant growth potential in the region. Undoubtedly, the Middle East is a launchpad for various digital technologies, ranging from the transition from 4G to 5G to advancements in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, with global implications.
In Central Asia, iKS Consulting forecasted the cloud market in Kazakhstan would increase to 72.5 billion tenge within the next five years, with IaaS/ PaaS accounting for the largest share. Similarly, Uzbekistan has made significant strides in digital infrastructure development. A United Nations report on the global rating of e-government development acknowledges Uzbekistan’s progress, with an 18-position rise in rankings. Additionally, the country has shown improvement by four points in the Global Innovation Index for 2022.
The increasing appetite for cloud services in the region has attracted all major global cloud technology players, including Huawei, which launched its cloud region in the UAE two years ago and is currently setting up another cloud region in Saudi Arabia to accelerate its digital transformation initiatives. Huawei Cloud operates in over 170 countries and regions, offering 240 plus cloud services.
Governments and enterprises in the Middle East and Central Asia recognise the need to digitally transform their operations to keep pace with technological advancements and meet ever-evolving customer expectations. AI, big data, IoT, and cloud computing are foundational technologies driving this transformation, enabling organisations to modernise their infrastructure, processes, and service delivery models.
While public cloud services are popular and widely used, on-premises cloud infrastructure, built and managed within an organisation’s data centre, has become equally important in driving continuous digital innovation.
This is where Huawei steps in with its Huawei Cloud Stack offering, which shares the same DNA as its public cloud architecture. Catering to the government and enterprise market, it is a reliable full-stack cloud solution deployed in customers’ data centres. Huawei Cloud Stack helps users meet security compliance requirements and perform operations and maintenance on premises. Besides, it can quickly synchronise a wide range of cloud services from the public cloud to ensure continuous innovation.
Currently, Huawei Cloud Stack boasts an extensive selection of over 80 high-frequency and essential cloud services, making it the industry’s widest range of on-premises cloud services. Since its introduction in 2020, Huawei Cloud Stack has already become China’s top on-premises cloud platform, serving more than 5,200 customers, including 800 e-Government clouds and the top five banks in China, in addition to top airports and energy companies.
In the UAE, Ankabut, which provides ICT services to the education sector, runs on Huawei Cloud Stack. The platform’s strong capabilities and abundant cloud services are helping the UAE cement its position as a leader in the education and research fields. Another case in point is the e-Government Project Management Center in Uzbekistan, which has signed an MoU with Huawei to launch a national data centre to accelerate the country’s digital transformation.
Building intelligence
Huawei Cloud Stack stands out from other offerings in the market due to its robust foundation and wide range of capabilities encompassing high reliability, diverse computing power, strong security measures, efficient storage, comprehensive network connectivity, and effective cloud management. Huawei believes these capabilities are crucial for ensuring business continuity, scalability, and security in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.
With its extensive expertise in both cloud solutions and traditional IT infrastructure, Huawei distinguishes itself as the sole cloud vendor capable of supporting disaster recovery without requiring application modifications. It also provides cloud-native disaster recovery solutions. Huawei Cloud Stack offers various options for different business scenarios, including single-DC reliability and geo-redundant disaster solutions. In case of a fault, failover can be swiftly executed within minutes, eliminating the need for manual intervention. Furthermore, Huawei Cloud Stack delivers disaster recovery as a service and supports fine-grained disaster recovery.
Security is another prominent feature of Huawei Cloud Stack. It employs a one-centre and seven-layer defence architecture to assist customers in building a comprehensive end-to-end security protection system. The security operation’s central intelligence, SecMaster, integrates over 100 detection models and 50 handling scripts. This empowers Huawei Cloud Stack to respond to 95 percent of security events within minutes, transforming security from passive protection to proactive intervention.
Industry know-how
As with any new technology, the foundation of widespread cloud adoption lies in ease of use, while industry-specific solutions play a crucial role in driving this adoption. In segmented industry scenarios, Huawei Cloud Stack has identified common features and standardised hardware, cloud service portfolios, networking, configurations, and applications to simplify deployments and facilitate the sharing of industry expertise. In addition, by collaborating with ecosystem partners, Huawei Cloud Stack validates industry-specific solutions, ensuring that applications are tailored to specific use cases and consistently updated.
Building on its extensive project experience, Huawei Cloud has introduced four scenario-based solutions: national government cloud, national AI cloud, financial cloud, and carrier cloud. These solutions incorporate pre-integrated and optimised software and hardware, forming reference architectures for specific scenarios. Industry applications within these solutions are thoroughly verified in advance through collaboration with ecosystem partners, enabling large-scale replication.
Industry customers are progressing from basic cloud migration to a deeper adoption of cloud technology, which presents numerous unpredictable challenges. To address these challenges, Huawei Cloud has developed over 70 professional services based on years of experience in digital transformation, both internally and across various industries. These professional services encompass high-level design, planning and implementation, cloud support, and auxiliary operations. This replicable professional experience assists customers in navigating the complexities of deep cloud adoption.
Accelerating transformation with rich services
Cloud platforms have become fundamental for businesses seeking innovation in data, AI, and application development. To meet the ever-growing demands of customers, cloud platforms must continuously evolve and improve, providing access to the latest capabilities and technologies.
Huawei Cloud is an advocate and leader in open-source technology worldwide. In 2015, Huawei Cloud participated in establishing CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation), becoming the only founding member from Asia. In addition, Huawei Cloud has invested in and continuously innovated in the cloud native field. In 2020, Huawei Cloud introduced the concept of cloud native 2.0 system, marking a significant milestone. It worked with CNCF and China Academy of Information and Communications Technology to set up an Elite Club to explore innovative technologies and promote the convergence of the cloud native technology ecosystem with various industry ecosystems.
Huawei Cloud Stack claims to be the only cloud solution in the industry that supports full-stack innovation which eliminates the need for enterprises and developers to reinvent the wheel. It utilises the intelligent cloud management platform, ManageOne, developed based on the requirements of government and enterprise customers, to match diverse organisational architectures. For large enterprises with complex structures, its five-level VDC (Virtual Data Centre) enables refined rights- and domain-based management. Furthermore, it supports a multi-level architecture of headquarters and branch clouds, providing a unique advantage in the industry.
In the cloud-native era, application modernisation is crucial for enterprises to keep up with evolving requirements. Huawei Cloud Stack provides comprehensive modernisation solutions for infrastructure, development, operations, governance, and operations and maintenance. It offers CCE (Cloud Container Engine), fully compatible with Kubernetes, for cloud native infrastructure. Additionally, its converged integration capabilities for data, messages, and service APIs enable seamless collaboration between legacysystems and new business systems, maximising return on investment.
Moreover, Huawei Cloud Stack leverages Huawei Cloud FusionInsight to offer a big data cloud platform built on a lakehouse architecture. This enables faster data access and utilisation within the lake. In terms of agile application development, ROMA, honed by Huawei’s extensive expertise in digitalisation, allows users to reuse legacy applications for a steady cloud-native evolution.
Huawei’s AI strategy
AI is driving transformative changes across society, with new AI technologies emerging at an unprecedented pace. According to the Huawei Global Industry Vision report, AI adoption by enterprises is projected to reach 86 percent by 2025. Under the direction of AI for Industries, Huawei Cloud is committed to serving various sectors, including government, energy, oil & gas, manufacturing, and carriers, with their AI adoption. Huawei Cloud AI has already been deployed in over 1000 projects.
Huawei’s AI strategy revolves around investing in basic research and talent development, building a full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio, and fostering an open global ecosystem. Huawei Cloud Stack provides developers with a faster AI development platform called ModelArts, which supports end-to-end model production and seamless integration of AI into the development process. Huawei Cloud’s AI offerings also include DataArts, providing a one-stop solution for data development and governance, facilitating the convergence of data and AI.
Traditional AI model development often requires significant manpower, customisation, and sample training for specific scenarios, resulting in lengthy development cycles. To address these challenges, Huawei Cloud’s Pangu Models enable industrial-scale AI development by quickly extracting smaller models from pre-trained large models and further training them using specialised datasets.
Overall, the Middle East and Central Asia are at the forefront of embracing cloud technology and leveraging its transformative potential. With its comprehensive range of cloud services and industry expertise, Huawei Cloud is playing a pivotal role in supporting digital transformation initiatives and driving innovation in the region.
To share its commitment to supporting digital transformation initiatives in the region, Huawei is holding its Huawei Cloud TechWave Summit Middle East and Central Asia 2023 on 7th June 2023 in Kazakhstan to showcase how local organisations can leverage Huawei’s deep cloud expertise.
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