Huawei South Africa IT Day demonstrates how data can transform businesses
Huawei is committed to providing local businesses with the infrastructure, device and business support they need to utilise data effectively
Huawei used its recent South Africa IT Day to demonstrate how businesses can harness the power of data to gain insights into customer behaviour, improve operational efficiency and decision-making, and increase productivity.
Held at Huawei’s Woodmead campus in Johannesburg, this year’s South Africa IT Day was held under the theme, “Unleash Data Power, Towards the Intelligent Era” over two days. More than 200 guests and decision-makers from a range of industries were in attendance at the event, where they were presented with the latest IT technology trends, product innovations, and cutting-edge solutions in the intelligent data space.
Opening the event, Huawei Enterprise South Africa Managing Director Gene Zhang underlined Huawei’s commitment to providing local businesses with the infrastructure, device and business support they need to utilise data effectively.
“We are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world, and provide reliable products, solutions and services,” he said.
Following Zhang was Huawei’s Senior Director, Enterprise Storage Market and Solutions, Bang Chang. He outlined five major trends Huawei is tracking in end-to-end flash storage infrastructure. These include the need for advanced storage capabilities, the explosion of data thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), ongoing security concerns around data storage, the coming all-flash media era, and the growing urgency to adopt carbon-neutral and green storage.
Chang additionally spoke about how increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks have seriously affected enterprises’ business continuity and why traditional methods of combating these attacks are no longer effective. Chang then explained how Huawei is fighting this trend through its multilayer ransomware protection (MRP) offering. He also shared how the Huawei MRP complies with NIST’s core network security framework — IPDRR — and how the MRP collaboration approach ensures more accurate identification, thorough interception and rapid recovery.
The offering is so effective that it received special recognition from The Tolly Group, which specialises in independent IT testing and benchmarking.
“This test covered all four aspects of ransomware protection, including virus detection, virus blocking, system protection and system recovery,” said founder Kevin Tolly. “ It used 21 typical test scenarios and is the most comprehensive and strict test that Tolly has conducted so far on ransomware protection. The test results show that the capability of Huawei MRP solution is industry-leading.”
Huawei CTO of Cloud Storage, Steve Tan, meanwhile explained how Huawei has spent 15 years of continuous investment and innovation in the Virtualization Field through its Datacenter Virtualization Solution (DCS), the full-stack solution that builds lightweight and simplified multi site data centres, and how the company has 11 years of experience delivering five million virtual machines (VMs) for commercial use in more than 150 countries and regions.
Marcel Meyer, Senior Solution Manager of Huawei Cloud, was next on the programme. He spoke about Huawei’s commitment to “everything as a service” in its cloud offerings, something which has helped it gather more than three million customers globally. It’s also an approach which, together with its investments in data centres across the globe and its hybrid cloud capabilities, has allowed Huawei to become the fifth-largest cloud vendor on the planet and the fastest-growing in Africa.
In addition to the trends outlined by its executives, Huawei used South Africa IT Day to launch several All-Flash and SSD storage products. These include:
- The entry-level all-flash SAN storage: OceanStor Dorado 2000, aimed at clients who want to have a smaller database, is perfect for low-cost applications as it does not use expensive technology
- The entry-level all-flash NAS storage: OceanStor Dorado 2100 which is suitable for images and videos
- The entry-level backup storage: OceanProtect X3000 which can host databases, files, and images from the same system and is as capable as the larger systems.
- The eKitStor Xtreme 300 Standard U.2 SSD, which works to equip servers with more efficient SSDs in place of HDDs.
The event also showcased the Huawei IdeaHub. The virtual teleconferencing product is the world’s first COB telepresence endpoint with a giant screen. The product includes a TV screen and cameras for two-way communication. It also includes a whiteboard that everybody in the meeting can write on for better collaboration.
Following the product launches and showcases, Huawei executives highlighted its partner incentive programme as well as its training platforms and initiatives. These include IT scenario-based solution enablement training, the HCIX-IT Certification Programme, and the self-service WeiKnow platform that provides convenient, efficient, and intelligent Q&A services for partners and customers to search and find information about any of Huawei’s products and any technical information. The O3 Community: Online LAB, meanwhile, allows users to combine theories with practice through rich scenario experiments to meet users’ requirements for practice drills.
Frenndy Wang, Director of the South Africa Enterprise Partner Development Management Department, concluded the event by paying tribute to Huawei’s partners.
“We thank our partners who have cared for and supported Huawei for a long time. As a leading global provider of information and communications technology infrastructure and smart devices, we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home, and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world,” he said. “We appreciate your support and trust, and we will continuously adhere to the open and cooperative strategy and work with our partners to extensively explore industries and win ongoing recognition from customers.”
About Huawei
Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud services – we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Huawei’s end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home life, and inspire innovation in organisations of all shapes and sizes.
At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward. By December 31, 2023, Huawei had 207 000 employees, more than 114 000 of which were R&D employees (55.4%). We operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people worldwide.
In 2023, through the efforts of all employees, the company achieved an estimated annual sales revenue of USD 99.4 billion. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.
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