Huawei's new data centre solutions bring AI and 5G to APAC Internet infrastructure

Huawei today unveiled a suite of new solutions to help Internet service providers (ISPs) revamp Internet infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G are poised to go mainstream. By integrating infrastructure with new technologies, Huawei aims to help customers in successful digital transformation.

Huawei executives launch four new solutions for Internet infrastructure in the age of AI and 5G.

Announced at the Huawei ISP Summit Asia Pacific 2019, the solutions will enable traditional ISPs to reshape their legacy Internet infrastructure into a more open, agile and secure platform that can handle a cloud-first business model. The solutions include the industry’s first-ever data centre switch with an embedded AI chip, the CloudEngine 16800; FusionServer 2298 V5; the all-flash storage OceanStor Dorado 3000, and the 600G DCI + OXC.

CloudEngine 16800

This is the industry's first data centre switch with an embedded AI chip that uses the iLossless algorithm. The switch implements global network auto-optimisation capabilities of millions of flows and application-based queues in various scenarios.

This ensures that the data centre network can achieve the highest throughput while packet loss is prevented. The AI computing power has been increased from 50% to 100%. The switch also provides the industry's highest density 48-port 400GE line card per slot and the industry's largest 768-port 400GE switching capacity.

FusionServer 2298 V5

The scalable system provides ultra-large local storage expansion capabilities while delivering excellent computing performance. The 2U 2298 V5 supports two Intel Xeon Scalable processors, 12 DDR4 DIMMs, and 24 3.5'' and four 2.5'' (up to four NVMe solid state disks [SSDs]) drives for local storage.

Patented technologies include Dynamic Energy Management Technology (DEMT) and Fault Diagnosis & Management (FDM); the integrated eSight software from Huawei handles lifecycle management, helping customers drive down operating expense (OPEX) and improve returns on investment (ROI).

OceanStor Dorado3000 V3

This entry-level flash storage product leverages FlashLink technology to ensure stable performance even during peak hours The intelligent multiprotocol interface chip supports 32 Gbps Fibre Channel and 100GE front-end protocols, while Huawei's intelligent baseboard management controller (BMC) manages CPUs, memory, and other components to shorten fault recovery time from two hours to 10 minutes.

The OceanStor Dorado3000 V3 also adopts inline deduplication and compression technologies to cut the costs of energy consumption, cooling, and management and maintenance, reducing overall OPEX by 65%.

DCI + OXC

Based on expertise derived from Huawei-developed optical digital signal processor (oDSP) chips, Huawei combined channel-matched shaping (CMS) and optical-layer AI neuron technologies to integrate 600G commercial capabilities into this data centre interconnect (DCI), achieving the best transmission performance in the industry.

The DCI helps to provide high-speed, non-blocking data transmission and switching, forming a resource pool for delivering cloud services reliably. CMS modulates the electronic pulses so to improve performance. AI neurons are Huawei's method of adding more AI capabilities to the hardware.

The OXC all-optical switching technology simplifies the optical layer. The all-optical backplane supports 32-degree wavelength switching and a high degree of integration. With the application of Huawei's One Direction One Unit (1D1U) philosophy, one board replaces multiple boards, such as the multiplexer/demultiplexer, optical amplifier (OA), and optical supervisory boards. This significantly simplifies internal fibre connections. One-click service provisioning and automatic hitless bandwidth adjustment are enabled, allowing ISPs to stay agile while providing cloud services.

The new solutions from Huawei comes amidst industry consensus that traditional ISPs in Asia Pacific will find themselves in a fully cloud-driven era by 2020, with accelerating AI innovation and managing more data than ever before.

IDC research shows that companies in Asia Pacific have shrunk traditional ICT spending and moved budgets to more cloud-based spending on infrastructure, software and services. According to IDC, by 2020, at least 55% of organisations in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) will be digitally determined, transforming markets and reimagining the future through new business models and digitally enabled products and services.

By 2022, the spending of enterprises in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) on managed cloud services will be increased to nearly US$18 billion, driven by the need to optimise ROI, reduce budgets and cope with the scarcity of cloud experts in the region.

However, at present, many ISPs in the region continue to struggle with the demands arising from increased use of applications and services in e-commerce, social networking, gaming, e-payments, and streaming. These pressing business challenges include a dramatic surge in demand for digital resources, low latency in big data transmission, large bandwidths, and need for network traffic optimisation.

Wing Kin Leung, CTO of Marketing and Solution Sales Department of the Huawei Enterprise Business Group commented, “As a provider and innovator of cloud services and infrastructure, Huawei will meet the needs of customers for rapid service rollout, flexible release of resources, big data analytics, ultra-wide data centre (DC) interconnection, and virtual reality (VR) and ultra HD streaming services, helping ISPs complete rapid transformation. By unified cloud management, Huawei cloud DCs enable application acceleration, agile delivery, and energy efficiency.”

As an annual milestone event, the Huawei ISP Summit Asia Pacific 2019 reflects Huawei’s leading position in the ICT industry and the company’s commitment to the Platform + Ecosystem strategy for enterprise business. Huawei is dedicated to providing ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive intelligence for ISPs.

Most recently, Huawei has helped Indonesia's ISP Biznet complete its digital transformation. Biznet's new fibre network consists of a terabit core router network, metro Ethernet 10G/100G distribution networks, and gigabit passive optical network (PON) access technology from Huawei. The network delivers services at up to 2.5 Gbps, enabling customers to cope with heavy traffic.

Huawei has provided solutions for more than 1,000 Internet companies and DC service providers in more than 50 countries, helping them cope with the pressure of operational restructuring and infrastructure and complete digital transformation.

*Huawei sponsored transport and accommodation to the Huawei ISP Summit Asia Pacific 2019.