Unleashing the Potential of Connections 2018 Huawei Network Innovation Technology Forum Launched in Beijing

[51CTO.com original article] In recent years, in order to gain a foothold in the fierce market competition, many companies have focused on digital transformation, hoping to gain huge business value from it. Huawei has keenly discovered that in the process of transformation, enterprise networks are gradually becoming an important link in redefining business models. So what kind of network is really needed for enterprise transformation? On August 10, 2018, the "2018 Huawei Network Innovation Technology Forum" Beijing Station was successfully launched. At the conference, Huawei redefined the future network, which will be a network that can heal itself, a network with life, and a network that can learn by itself.

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In short, Huawei believes that the future network must be based on the concept of intelligent network, which aims to connect and bridge the gap between the current digital world and the physical world. Huawei IDN uses three key technologies, AI, big data, and cloud computing, to build a digital enterprise network that can understand customers' business intentions, bringing the network to a new level.

These four points make IDN completely different from traditional networks

At the event, Zhong Kaisheng, president of Huawei's switch and enterprise gateway product line, delivered a keynote speech titled "Intelligent Network - Enabling Optimization of Business Value". Zhong Kaisheng said that compared with traditional networks, future intelligent networks will have four major qualitative leaps:

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First, traditional networks are device-centric, focusing on the device itself, including related connections, especially operation and management, which are based on network elements. In intelligent networks, Huawei believes that the entire user experience must be considered from the beginning of the design, and it is user-centric, able to pay attention to the user experience at all times, and can be adjusted dynamically.

Secondly, it is difficult to understand the actual fault operation status of traditional networks before complaints are received. However, intelligent networks combine big data and artificial intelligence technologies to perceive the network in real time, predict network risks in advance, and proactively intervene and handle them before users complain.

Thirdly, with the migration of applications, data, and services, as well as the mobile office of WiFi, traditional networks have become increasingly complex, and the operation and maintenance costs are also very high. The management skills and management functions of managers are very high, and the management quality of the network is heavily dependent on the skills of professional technicians and is labor-intensive. Intent-based networks combine AI, big data, and cloud computing to reduce the requirements for network maintenance personnel, automate deployment and execution, and significantly reduce the complexity of operation and maintenance and reduce the number of operation and maintenance personnel.

***, the traditional network architecture is closed, and each enterprise organization builds a network to meet its own needs, while the intelligent network is open, allowing data to flow freely, releasing the value of the network to the greatest extent, and stimulating the potential of network connections.

Exploring the value of IDN: smart, simple, ultra-broadband, secure, and open

So how does the intelligent network achieve such a "qualitative change"? Zhong Kaisheng introduced that Huawei's IDN network, or intent-driven intelligent network, uses a three-layer structure of business logic, four key digital engines (intent engine, automation engine, analysis engine, and intelligence engine), and physical infrastructure to achieve network self-management and self-optimization. The value of IDN is obvious:

The most important point is intelligence. The most important value of IDN is predictive maintenance, the ability to perceive network problems in advance, the ability to judge user experience in advance, and the ability to intervene and handle before users complain. This is the most important key feature.

The second point is simplicity. This includes simple architecture, simple protocols, site convergence, and simple operation and maintenance, which ultimately enables visualization and management at the network application layer, logic layer, and physical layer.

The third point is ultra-wideband. After the digital transformation, the network needs to connect more people and things. To do this, the network needs a low-latency and high-performance network architecture, which should be a very basic function.

The fourth point is openness, which includes the opening of interfaces, platforms, and devices, opening up network capabilities to more industries, building an ecosystem, and realizing new businesses and business models.

The fifth point is security. With the increase in data and business, network security becomes particularly important.

"We have implemented the concept of intelligent and simplified network into each of our products. We have defined five major application scenarios for enterprise networks, including campus network scenarios, data center network scenarios, wide area networks, branch interconnection and network security scenarios, so that network connections can maximize commercial value," Zhong Kaisheng concluded.

Entering a smart world of digital twins

The conference also invited three guests, Wu Lianfeng, Vice President and Top Analyst of IDC China, Yang Hongbo, Director of the Information Center of Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Zhang Hong, Technical Director of Honeywell Building Intelligent Systems in China, to give wonderful speeches. Among them, Wu Lianfeng of IDC's views on the development trend of networks in the digital intelligence era coincide with Huawei's and confirm each other. Wu Lianfeng believes that around the three major technical supports of learning, intelligence, and automation, enterprises will need to redesign the overall network monitoring system in the future. Only through redesign can they obtain service guarantees, including digital transformation initiatives, user experience, agile development of applications and infrastructure, and compatibility between network abstraction and legacy systems. "The future network will show six major development trends. The demand for network transformation and innovation of business will become more and more important. The demand for data center networks, control software, and services will be more vigorous. Multi-type SD-WAN deployment requires high-value network consulting services. The demand for edge computing networks will be stronger. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will accelerate the penetration into the network," Wu Lianfeng emphasized. "Intent-based networks will be popular in the future."

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Zhou Rui***, Product Director of Huawei Network Business Analysis, shared with the audience the relevant applications of Huawei's Intelligent Network from a practical perspective. He said that Huawei itself has a very complex network, connecting more than 350,000 terminals, more than 600 applications, covering branch networks in 170 countries, and has more than 300,000 security policies. The Intelligent Network was incubated in Huawei's own information management process, and it continues to develop and mature in practice. It is hoped that more and more customers will choose to join hands with Huawei to step into a digital twin intelligent world together.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]