Telefonica embarks on enterprise cloud push with Huawei

Telefonica Business Solutions has struck a worldwide deal with networking provider Huawei to help enterprises move to the cloud.

The venture will see Huawei deploy an OpenStack-based public cloud infrastructure in eight of Telefonica’s datacentres that enterprises can use to consume cloud-based compute, storage and backup services.

Fear of supplier lock-in is often cited as a sticking point for many enterprises and their cloud strategies, which goes some way to explaining why the firms have opted to use the open-source OpenStack platform to underpin the project.

Recent research from market watcher Forrester has cited the open-source nature of OpenStack as a key factor in it being named one of the top five most favoured cloud platforms among Global 2000 enterprises since its introduction in 2010.

At present, the pair have committed to rolling out the setup to Telefonica datacentres in Brazil, Mexico and Chile before the end of the year, and then to five more locations in 2016.

As a follow-on to the agreement, Telefonica will also join forces with Huawei to open a cloud innovation centre that will focus on developing new tools and technologies that can be fed back to the OpenStack community.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Vives, CEO of Telefonica Business Solutions, said the partnership means the telco should be better placed to meet the enterprise’s cloud needs.

“This is all possible thanks to Telefonica’s capabilities of providing end-to-end service management, including the network and datacentre,” he said.

“The smart combination and scale of Telefonica’s and Huawei’s capabilities reinforce both companies and also represent the best guarantee for our customers.”

Ryan Ding, director of the board and president of products and solutions at Huawei, added: “Joint innovation capabilities, customer focus and global scale will allow us to sustainably bring cutting-edge solutions and differentiated offers to our enterprise clients.”