by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – FOLLOWING an investment of R100 million in the Cloud Spark programme and the third data centre availability zone set to go live three years ahead of schedule, Huawei is adopting an “Everything as a Service” approach.
It is being adopted in South Africa and globally.
These were among the major announcements at the recent Huawei Eco-Connect 2022.
The different business streams of Huawei Enterprise hosted sub-forums to discuss important topic, one being Huawei Cloud and its approach to “Everything as a Service.”
Cloud Spark is set to provide support to more than 1000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over the next three years.
Speaking at the Huawei Eco-Connect event at the Sandton Convention Centre, Jay Zhou, Managing Director, Huawei Cloud South Africa, explained that the “Everything as a Service” approach brings together traditional cloud offerings such as Infrastructure as a Service, Technology as a Service and Expertise as a Service.
Key to this approach is thinking cloud-native, acting cloud-native, and applying an all-digital, all-cloud, AI-driven mindset.
“In the future, sensors will replace our hands and feet and the cameras will replace our eyes,” he said.
“Students in rural areas will have the same learning experience as students in the city,” Zhou added.
These things however require significant computing power and the cloud is seen as the best way to provide that power.
While investment in traditional IT infrastructure has fallen, investment in cloud computing has grown 32 percent in South Africa.
The growth has enabled Huawei grow its availability zones (AZs) in South Africa.
Having opened its first one in 2019, its third AZ will halve cloud latency to 20ms.
Cloud Spark is a hybrid accelerator programme for tech startups and SMEs.
While there are key vertical focus areas, it is open to other SMEs outside those areas.
Run in partnership with the Silicon Cape organisation, it will provide financial, technical, training support, and go-to-market support for all programme participants.
Huawei Cloud customers detailed their experiences with the company.
“What struck me about Huawei is that they are really invested in the business,” said Willem Groenewald, Chief Executive Officer of the Automobile Association of South Africa (AA).
AA used Huawei Cloud to transform from a legacy organisation into a digitally capable organisation effectively able to improve road safety.
Ross Matthee of Altron Systems Integration said as well as using Huawei Cloud for customer deployments, it has moved its own internal systems to Huawei Cloud.
“Our partnership with Huawei is a ten-year relationship. The last year and a bit has been on an accelerated track with Huawei Cloud,” Matthee said.
U-Learning, meanwhile, is an online education provider which has been in business since 2006, with more than 10 million users in academic, corporate, and education verticals around the world.
Its vision is to bring smart education to every classroom.
“We deploy all of our platforms in Asia, Latin America, and Africa using Huawei Cloud,” said U Learning General Manager Christina Ng.
In the long term, Huawei Cloud hopes to keep fostering such success stories.
“We are going to build a smart ecosystem in South Africa for South Africa,” Zhou concluded.
– CAJ News