During the ‘Network-as-a-Service Forum’ held recently at Atlantis Hotel, Dubai, Huawei announced its latest & innovative Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) offering for the Middle East region, powering enterprises across different industries to build a strong foundation for digital transformation.

These new-generation services will enable enterprise businesses from government, education, healthcare, retail, banking, manufacturing industries and other SMEs to keep pace with innovation, meet rapidly changing business needs and optimize network performance and user experiences through a cloud-like subscription model.

Enterprise NaaS models allow enterprises to outsource provisioning, deployment, ongoing management, decommissioning and end of life for their enterprise networks. The advantages of enterprise NaaS models include faster access to new technology, simplification of network deployment and management, and improved refresh cycles for enterprises to dynamically scale network components as needed.

IDC predicts the enterprise NaaS market will mature rapidly in 2022 and beyond, growing to become a prominent way that enterprises procure, operate, and manage their networks. The close collaboration of technology vendors with their carrier/MSP partners is essential to leverage new growth opportunities fuelled by digitalization.

Len Padilla, Senior Research Director at IDC spoke at the event and said, “Huawei has clearly understood the enterprise demand for Network-as-a-Service (NaaS). In order to meet that demand, they are investing in systems and enablement for their network operator partners, equipping them to address the requirements of current and future clients.”

Using Huawei’s NaaS offering built on the CloudCampus MSP platform, carrier/MSP partners can provide a depth of services to enterprise customers. CloudCampus MSP combines AIOps and a unified infrastructure for wired, wireless and SD-WAN management, providing MSPs with a single platform to manage all customers in their environment. With best-of-breed network hardware, a comprehensive set of APIs, and integration with hundreds of smart solutions offered by Huawei’s technology partners, the CloudCampus MSP platform enables partners to quickly build and deliver a wide variety of managed services offerings that meet their customers’ specific needs.

“Digital transformation requires a network that features integrated security, scalable advanced routing, full visibility into network traffic and sophisticated analytics. Enterprises today need the flexibility and security of the cloud as well as the agility and ability to scale up infrastructure as per customer demand - and all of this in a cost-effective, simple yet comprehensive manner. This is where Huawei’s NaaS solution comes in - it is built with the focus on business agility & continuity, security & compliance resulting in achieving greater efficiencies & optimization for our customers,” said David Shi, President, Huawei Enterprise Business Group, Middle East.

Zarrar Hasham Khan, Group Chief Business Solutions Officer, PTCL & Ufone, spoke at the event about “how carriers are transforming from being a pure-play connectivity provider to an end-to-end solutions provider. PTCL is launching a series of smart solutions for digital transformation across various industry verticals in Pakistan, such as workplaces, banks, educational institutes & healthcare. Furthermore, he shared the experience of PTCL’s Smart HealthSuite solution as an example, which integrates several technologies like Fiber-to-the-Room, Wi-Fi 6, IoT asset tracking and patient medical record management, to deliver a single medical centre solution for a better experience and high reliability.  In the future, these smart solutions will offer a one-stop shop, pay as you grow & cost-effective services model to help businesses contribute effectively to the digital vision of Pakistan.”

During the forum, Ooredoo Business and Huawei signed an MoU to launch a new generation of cloud-optimized managed network services in Kuwait called “Cloud Connect” to improve business performance & enable them to establish secured high-speed connections.

Through this partnership, Ooredoo Business will be able to deliver SD-LAN and SD-WAN managed services to their customers by leveraging leading technologies such as 5G, Wi-Fi 6, AI, SD-WAN, and Passive Optical LAN (POL) from Huawei. These services deliver a variety of benefits, including a single management platform, technical consulting resources and advanced service delivery. Through this offering, customers would be able to focus on their core business without worrying about network complexity.

"Last year, we officially launched the Cloud Managed Network service strategy with our partners. 

Now we strengthen the approach to support our partners to take this business to new heights, with intelligent upgrades and comprehensive solutions. We believe, with the support and collaboration from our partners, together we can help our customers go digital successfully and accelerate industry digital transformation.” added David Shi.

The Huawei Network-as-a-Service Forum was held recently at Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai, as part of the Huawei Network Carnival & Partner Summit 2022, the company’s annual regional flagship event dedicated to the IP networking industry.