Huawei to Address Technological Barriers For Success at IDC Saudi Arabia CIO Summit 2014

Huawei highlights cost benefits of innovative networking for the Educataion, Transportation and Government Sectors

Mobilk - Huawei, a leading global ICT solutions provider, connected with public sector and business leaders at the IDC CIO Summit discussing the new era of networks and the collaboration opportunities for Government, Transport and Education organizations in Saudi Arabia. 

After announcing that Middle Eastern ICT spending will likely exceed $32 billion in 2014, International Data Corporation (IDC) hosted the KSA CIO Summit in partnership with the Ministry to address the ICT challenges that face CIOs around third platform technologies such as Cloud, Big Data and Mobility. 

With the continuous evolution and development of ICT networks, chief information officers are increasingly challenged by problems that reduce the efficiency of the overall network and ICT infrastructure. To help address the issues, Huawei showcased how next-generation software defined networking (SDN) can streamline operations, increase productivity and improve citizen services. 

“As reliance on ICT infrastructure grows, CIOs need to pay closer attention to the overall efficiency of the network to ensure that all services are reliable and uninterrupted. This is particularly important for public sector entities offering citizen e-services, education institutions offering expanded e-learning platforms and the increasingly connected Transport sector. These are three key sectors in KSA that we believe require the added flexibility and benefits of an agile network due to the rapid influx of data and information they are required to process,” said Toni Shi.

According to Huawei, the age of technological trends from Software-Defined-Networking (SDN), cloud computing, Bring-Your-Own-Device to Big Data has increased in popularity over the past few years and consequently demanded new requirements for higher density, performance flexibility and larger-scale internet connectivity. 

Saudi Arabian organizations are already witnessing the convergence of data centers, wireless and wide area network (WAN) technology. From smart campus solutions, designed to enable seamless internet connectivity through providing traffic awareness, control and protection; to embracing future networks like Software-Defined-Networking (SDN), Huawei’s expertise in developing simplified network architectures will help public and vertical sector enterprises. 

Saudi Arabia is the biggest ICT market in the Middle East accounting for more than $7 billion in predicted spending in 2014, with the public sector allocating $1.63 billion to improve government services, education, healthcare and transportation amongst others. The Ministry understands the crucial role that ICT plays in furthering not only the business interest of organizations across the Kingdom but also the future prospects of individual citizens. 

Abdulaziz Al-Helayyil, regional director for IDC Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain said: “Networks are an organization’s backbone and are continually evolving to meet demands. Whether it is the plethora of connected devices on a School’s network or the increasing complexity of online citizen services, the network requires agility and rapid transformation to help the CIOs manage the challenges of their organization while still providing a secure environment.”

Software-Defined-Networking (SDN) allows an organization’s network to be easily built and programmed to make faster decisions on a software-based infrastructure that is more flexible than ever before.

 “With IDC predicting that the rising market value of SDN will reach $3.17 billion by 2016, the potential business opportunities for Saudi Arabian enterprise is vast. Investing in Software Defined Networking will help CIOs address the challenges by developing a service friendly, highly efficient and easy to control ICT infrastructure that will streamline the decision-making processes and add greater flexibility to the network,” concluded Toni Shi. 

Now in its fourth year, the IDC CIO Summit in Riyadh is the foremost gathering of business leaders in the country. It provides the region’s most influential ICT end users with a vendor-neutral platform for sharing ideas and absorbing advisory services, which help to drive positive transformations within organizations. 

Attendees heard from IDC’s global leadership alongside senior representatives of the world’s foremost technology vendors. Tony Shi, General Manager of Huawei, Enterprise Business in Saudi Arabia hosted a keynote speech discussing how CIOs can best manage their ICT networks to ensure optimization and specifically the rising impact of Software Defined Networking.