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NEWS IN BRIEF
07
The data centre moves to the channel
Aiming to ease resellers and users into private and hybrid cloud operations , Cardiff based NGD has decided to offer its services through its newly appointed channel partner , Exertis . NGD runs a purpose-built carrier-neutral Tier 3 facility offering 750,000 square feet of secure and cost-effective space , housing up to 19,000 racks . As is increasingly expected , NGD strives to operate an environmentally-friendly technology infrastructure that is designed to meet and exceed the ever increasing demand for more computing power .
Defining it as a data centre as a service ( DCaaS ), the bundling deal is designed to enable low risk , high margin business opportunities for resellers with customers taking their first steps into cloud , unified communications hosting , disaster recovery management and more .
Exertis will be the first in the UK to offer resellers leading brand rack server hardware , including Dell , Lenovo and Fujitsu bundled with NGDs Data Cube ready-to-run DCaaS hosting platform . This comprises a quarter rack configuration , connectivity , power supply , cooling infrastructure and a wide range of high speed network connectivity options . Half rack and full racks are also available . The service will run through the Exertis billing system so that resellers can bill end users using their own identity and avoid the need to invest in a platform of their own .
Gareth Bray from Exertis commented that , “ For under £ 15 per day our data centre infrastructure package allows resellers easy access to high margin annuity revenues plus additional product and accessory sales opportunities , all with the peace of mind that comes with having NGDs secure , resilient data centre facilities and engineering support services behind them .”
Located close to the M4 , NGDs facility was opened six years ago and so far the company has invested over £ 35M in the campus which offers a 100 per cent green and carbon tax exempt power supply , multiple low latency carrier and ISP connectivity options .
Commenting on the arrangement , Ben Senouillet from NGD said , “ Exertis channel partners can use our data centre to develop their own-label private and hybrid cloud services , offering the benefits of the Cloud to their customers while keeping keep control of the infrastructure .” n
Three steps to ‘ cloudification ’…
Huawei has unveiled three stages of network evolution towards what is describes as an “ All Cloud ” architecture that is enabled by NFV ( Network Functions Virtualisation ) technology . It aims to help telecommunication operators transform their networks so that they can support growth , deliver high service levels and reduce costs . Huawei has set out a clear roadmap for network transformation and outlined its strategy to drive industry development around three core stages , Virtualisation , Cloudification and Cloud Native .
The advent of 4.5G and later 5G , a better connected world featuring the Internet of Things ( IoT ), video and cloud services will place telecoms operators at the centre of delivering a Real-time , On-demand , All-online , DIY , and Social ( ROADS ) experience for enterprise and consumer customers . The demand for these services and intensifying competition will place pressure on operators ’ networks . Many operators will be challenged with the rigidity and complexity of their networks which will limit their ability to meet customers ’ needs .
Libin Dai , Director of Network Transformation at Huawei explained that , “ Huawei ' strategy and solutions are designed to help operators transform from legacy networks to a cloud based infrastructure … to reduce network complexity , gain network agility and control to help deliver service innovations and generate increased revenues .” n
Gulf Air takes up the red hat
Gulf Air , the Kingdom of Bahrain ’ s national carrier , is building a private cloud for big data Innovation using Red Hat Technologies . The initiative will allow Gulf Air to realise its social media monitoring ambitions without making an additional hardware investment .
Specifically , Gulf Air has deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux , Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform ( JBoss EAP ) and Red Hat Storage as the platform for its big data solution called Arabic Sentiment Analysis . This solution is capable of addressing social media posts in both Arabic and English .
Gulf Air ’ s private cloud encompasses 200 servers running more than 100 core applications and it uses more than 50 terabytes of data . The scalability that Gulf Air achieves in this environment with Red Hat solutions provides sufficient capacity to host the big data solution using its existing hardware .
Dr . Jassim Haji , who is Director of Information Technology at Gulf Air said , “ As an airline , it is crucial to know what our customers are thinking . We want to know who is satisfied with Gulf Air ’ s service , who is not , and why , and also what Gulf Air can do to improve its services to passengers . The big data solution deployed is an open source one , which meant no special license fees to pay , while the infrastructure it runs on is based on our existing open source-based cloud environment and virtual servers , meaning that no hardware investment was required .”
Red Hat claims to be the world ’ s leading provider of open source software solutions , using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud , Linux , middleware , storage and virtualisation technologies . n
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