Deutsche Telekom, Huawei launch innovative Open Telekom Cloud

NEW DELHI: On March 14, 2016 at CeBIT 2016, Deutsche Telekom launched Open Telekom Cloud. The company says that the new public cloud platform will provide European enterprises of all sizes with on-demand, pay-as-you-go, secure cloud services to respond to fast changing market conditions. Huawei was selected as the hardware and software solution provider for Open Telekom Cloud.

Deutsche Telekom is driving digitization in Germany and across Europe. Huawei’s innovative hardware and software including servers, storage, networking and Cloud OS solutions provide the infrastructure and expert technical support for its new public cloud services, which will accelerate Deutsche Telekom’s position in the European cloud services market.

“We are adding a new, transformational cloud offering to our existing portfolio of cloud services,” said Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges at CeBIT in Hanover. “For our business customers in Europe this is an important new service to support their digitization, and a critical milestone for us in our ambition to be the leading provider of cloud services in Europe.”

Commenting on the deal, Huawei Rotating CEO Eric Xu said, “Huawei and Deutsche Telekom have a common strategy and vision in terms of cloud computing. Both parties have the dedication, experience and talent to serve enterprises, as well as outstanding public cloud technology and skills. The strategic partnership allows each party to fully play to their strengths, providing enterprises and the industry with various innovative public cloud services that are beyond those provided by over-the-top content players. At Huawei, we are confident that, with esteemed partners like Deutsche Telekom, we can turn Open Telekom Cloud into the standard of public cloud services for the industry at large.”

Open Telekom Cloud is an OpenStack-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service solution, powered by leading new ICT from Huawei and operated by T-Systems, the enterprise-focused subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. The solution provides rapid access to flexible, affordable and secure computing, storage, network components and other services. The new offering will help Deutsche Telekom gain a strong foothold in a market segment largely dominated by US cloud services providers.

“We will combine Deutsche Telekom’s ubiquitous network, connectivity, and T-Systems’ understanding of enterprise applications and service advantages with Huawei’s strong R&D capability, innovation and experience in serving enterprises. We will also continue to create differentiating and innovative cloud services to meet the needs of enterprises and the industry, strengthening T-System’s leading position,” expressed Dr Zhang Haibo, Head of Global Public Cloud Solutions, Huawei.

According to analyst firm Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), there is significant demand for a Germany-based public cloud solution. “Access to a scalable, inexpensive public cloud provided by a German service provider from a German data center under German law will be very attractive to many customers in Germany,” explained Andreas Zilch, Senior Vice President – User Business & Lead Advisor, PAC Germany. “The combination of a competitive service and German legal security represents a unique selling point right now.”

Open Telekom Cloud allows enterprises to order IT infrastructure and software solutions in a central booking portal in just a few clicks, making resources available in minutes. In this way, Deutsche Telekom is helping its customers to digitize their business models by providing simple and flexible services that can be scaled to suit organizations of any size and in any industry. SAP is one of the first Open Telekom Cloud users and service providers. T-Systems provides the necessary infrastructure services for frequently used SAP applications as well as SAP HANA analysis technology in Open Telekom Cloud first. These services are also available in any combination of public and private clouds.

Open Telekom Cloud will be set up in Europe's most cutting-edge data center, located in Biere, Saxony-Anhalt. Consequently, any data processed will be subject to Germany's strict data protection law. The Biere data center and its twin center in Magdeburg will host almost all of Deutsche Telekom's ecosystem of technology and software partners. Deutsche Telekom's ‘House of Clouds’ offers short distances to link one application to another, one cloud to another. Leveraging the extensive experience of T-Systems' cloud experts, data and entire application environments can be transferred easily from the public cloud to an even better protected private cloud.

Deutsche Telekom aims to double its revenue from cloud-based services for business customers by the end of 2018. Last year, T-Systems revenue from cloud services increased by a significant double-digit figure in the last fiscal year, fuelled by increasing adoption of its secure private cloud solutions.

Deutsche Telekom and its subsidiary T-Systems have been offering secure end-to-end cloud solutions for companies of all sizes since 2005, from consulting, implementation, billing and customer service through to maintenance. Deutsche Telekom’s growing partner ecosystem includes Microsoft, SAP, Cisco, Salesforce, VMWare, Huawei, Oracle, SugarCRM, and Informatica.

Huawei has a solid track record in providing leading new ICT infrastructure and collaborating with industry-leading partners such as Deutsche Telekom and its subsidiary T-Systems to develop and deliver powerful and secure cloud services. Huawei’s servers, storage, networking and Cloud OS solutions have been deployed extensively by enterprises across the globe to drive business innovation, agility and growth.