We live in a renaissance connectivity age claims CTO
Etisalat UAE from e& claims it has designed and built a virtual edge cloud that will make its enterprise and government customers efficient and responsive. The CTO who oversaw the creation of the service hailed the ‘renaissance of connectivity’ created by ADVA’s Ensemble software, which allows any type of device to communicate with the cloud. Universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) may be an ungainly word, but it describes a simple but valuable principal of open and inclusive communication.
Better still, new business services can be instantly adopted on a try basis, saving a fortune on investment and training. This means the telco can become a business service provider. These transformations are available from Etisalat UAE, the telecoms unit of e& (formerly the Etisalat Group) which is now offering on-demand virtual services to its corporate customers. It achieved this by using ADVA’s suite of Ensemble NFV technologies after system integrations was conducted by NEC in close collaboration with Etisalat UAE.
The new cloud computing system works with any hardware, which the operator has described as a universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) offering. This promises to give enterprises across the Middle East quick and secure access to the widest range of multi-vendor virtual technologies in the IT industry. The cloud computing service has virtual network functions (VNFs), including SD-WAN, routing, firewall, DDoS prevention and Internet of things (IoT) applications. Etisalat UAE’s business clients can instantly try out any of these services without risking their budget and their time, which allows them to be the first to exploit any new business opportunities.
The offering means virtual services can be enabled on demand and gives businesses in 16 countries across the Middle East, Asia and North Africa access to the Ensemble Harmony Ecosystem.
“Our service offers us multiple opportunities to maximize value creation for our customers,” said Khaled Murshed, chief technology and information officer at Etisalat UAE. “Our new services enable our business customers across the Middle East to accelerate their digitisation journey by supporting the creation of new business models while re-inventing their current processes.”
Until recently, this called for multiple hardware platforms in several different sizes to be stored in multiple locations to meet stringent SLAs. Thanks to NEC’s integration and ADVA’s Ensemble software it can run on a universal range of customer premise equipment. “We live in the connectivity renaissance age,” said Murshed.