The global public cloud market was worth US$112.9 billion in 2015, representing a CAGR of 18.5 percent, according to Gartner's latest report on public cloud services. The largest market is North America at 59 percent, followed by Western Europe at 24 percent. The highest rate of growth, however, can be found in emerging markets like China, India, Latin America, and Russia.
Leading carriers into the public cloud
The market for public cloud continues to grow unabated, and the cloud service model is maturing. In addition to Internet companies and SMEs, public cloud service providers have large corporations and even government departments in their sights. Indeed, a growing number of major companies and government agencies are choosing to host part or all of their IT systems in the data centers of public cloud service providers.
The needs of these kinds of customers can include part or full hosting and a mixture of private and public services, requiring that providers can deliver hybrid cloud services. Hybrid cloud enables companies to deploy their IT systems in different environments and regions, and allows existing and new applications to be identically provisioned. Service departments can fully leverage internal and external universal management and scheduling programs, as well as network connectivity and security models.
The market leader of the public cloud – Amazon (AWS) – was a strong proponent of public cloud until it realized that hybrid is the future. AWS entered the hybrid cloud market in 2013, winning a US$600 million CIA contract to deploy an isolated cloud service called GovCloud. Other major cloud service providers, including Rackspace, IBM, and VMware, have also introduced hybrid cloud solutions, aiming to build their own differentiated solutions for the enterprise hybrid cloud market.
IBM spent US$2 billion to acquire data center service provider SoftLayer in the same year AWS won the CIA contract, reflecting a repositioning move away from one-stop IT solutions provider for SMEs to cloud service provider of products, solutions, and services for all sectors. Focusing on large enterprises, IBM's hybrid cloud services combine SoftLayer's cloud service capabilities with IBM's traditional outsourcing services.
VMware previously positioned itself as an enabler by providing private cloud solutions for enterprises. However, with the public cloud market booming, VMware has also launched public cloud services, focusing on the hybrid cloud. The company aims to build core competency by trading on its leading position in the enterprise cloud market, strength in cloud management tools, and consistent user experience.
So, what about operators? Compared to cloud service providers, carriers have unique advantages in infrastructure, operations, existing users, and existing channels.
First, they own infrastructure such as server rooms, bandwidth and ancillary facilities, and are already hosting the IT equipment of Internet companies. Second, they have mature marketing, technical support and customer services teams and processes. Last, their greatest strength is their huge customer base and viable ways of attracting more customers.
Most operators around the world have started to build public clouds. For example, Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems is expanding its ICT services, focusing on the top 400 multinationals and governments. BT Global Services is eyeing major companies and government ICT services. Orange Business Services is specializing in ICT services for multinationals and major French businesses, and Telefonica kicked off its public cloud project in 2015, concentrating on ICT services for large enterprise customers.
Getting it right for customers
Operators' key targets for public cloud services are governments and enterprises, especially large multinationals, which must guarantee high-quality, consistent services in domestic and foreign markets. They need integrated ICT services with strong solutions for computing, storage, networking, security, and O&M. This is where operators' strengths in ICT services can come into play.
Operators' ability to provide scale and reliability can also meet enterprise needs for renting extra public cloud resources and forming hybrid clouds with their own IT resources during busy periods.
Helping operators grow
Huawei's public cloud data center solution is based on its deep understanding of enterprise customers and long history of end-to-end solutions in the areas of consulting, design, delivery, and operations. The Huawei solution includes several major technical innovations to help operators develop free and convenient public cloud services. These include a large number of service types, one-stop delivery, a PAYU business model, and distributed storage architecture. Huawei has helped dozens of carriers – including China Telecom Global, Indonesia's Telkomsigma and Thailand's True – provide highly competitive public cloud services to SMEs, as well as major government and enterprise customers.
Huawei has already built infrastructure architecture based on OpenStack and SDS, and is exploring the commercialization of SDN with the launch of FusionStorage. Numerous operators have deployed the product in cloud data centers, helping them provide public cloud and hybrid cloud services. With distributed architecture, FusionStorage can lower infrastructure TCO, ensure clear advantages in data reconstruction and data reliability, and simplify management. Combined with the various security and reliability solutions like VSA, vFW, and vLB in Huawei's cloud computing platform FusionSphere, FusionStorage deploys different applications to meet enterprises' specific needs.
Built on an IaaS solution, Huawei's public cloud solution provides a leasing service for virtual machines in public cloud environments and handles IT outsourcing services. Services include application and service system assessments, professional migration, and system integration.
With the Huawei solution, operators can confidently provide high-grade IT outsourcing services for government and enterprise customers.
