Many local firms – especially those using private or hybrid clouds – may not have fully embraced the potential of advanced technologies because their networking resources lack the scalability, agility and flexibility that a successful cloud implementation needs, according to H3C Technologies Co., Ltd.
According to Joseph Lee, Product Director of H3C Hong Kong, while cloud services are already an essential tool for local companies, difficulties in allocating network and security resources have hindered the effective deployment of private clouds. This could, in turn, threaten the efficiency and growth of Hong Kong businesses.
“Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), offer a solution to this cloud challenge. They contribute to a simplified network and make multi-platforms within an enterprise network easy to manage centrally,” he said.
To meet this challenge, H3C has launched a series of SDN software and hardware solutions such as different virtual and physical switches, and the most critical component, the SDN controller – Virtual Converged Framework (VCF) Controller.
The technology promises to extend the efficiencies of cloud computing to through on-demand provisioning of every network service including bandwidth allocation, routing, firewall (FW) /intrusion prevention system (IPS), and antivirus.
Features include real separation between tenants; IP overlapping; tenant-based and on-demand provision of FW/IPS/LB resources; scale out; service chain; and an ppen standard and interface.
Lee believes the issue requires urgent attention. According to the Hong Kong Government Census and Statistics Department, in 2015 an estimated 159,268 establishments were already using cloud computing services, representing 49.1% of the business sector.
The cloud sector is also growing rapidly. According to IDC, the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) SDN market, consisting of spending in the enterprise and cloud service provider segments, will grow from US$6.2 million in 2013 to over US$1 billion by 2018.
“SDN and NFV are critical components for private clouds and implementing genuine cloud networking infrastructures. H3C is helping businesses in Hong Kong – especially in the public sector, institutes of higher education, service providers and large enterprises – to establish efficient and effective private clouds with our comprehensive end-to-end SDN and NFV solutions,” Lee said.