Seen & Heard: Telcos Need to Fine-Tune Their Cloud Strategies

In order to keep and win over more enterprise customers, carriers need to focus on becoming a one-stop shop for cloud, network and applications services, according to a recent white paper.

Based on a look at various enterprise application scenarios, telcos will become leaders in the B2B cloud service market due to their advantages in cloud network collaboration, according to the white paper, which was produced by Huawei.

When it comes to competing against big cloud service providers, carriers should be able differentiate themselves by offering professional services and varied cloud service experiences, the white paper states.

According to research by Gartner Inc. , total spending on cloud services was forecast to reach $367 billion through 2020, growing at a CAGR of 16% from last year through 2020. The white paper cites research by IDC that says 91% of the new software that would be developed over the next five years would be applicable to cloud computing.

The white paper also says the industry is headed towards large traffic spikes both within networks and data centers over the coming years. In order to meet the bandwidth demands for services such as video, carriers need to implement a multi-tiered cloud strategy that also covers "most standards," according to the white paper.

By uniting cloud services with their networks, telcos have the ability to manage and operate the internal network of data centers, global networks, their edge-computing networks and their data centers' cloud resources.

The interaction between cloud services and the network allows data centers to calculate, store and collect the resources needed to distribute them in on-demand mode as well as achieve one-stop ICT resource auto-deployment and intelligent optimization.

With those resources in hand, telcos will be able to fine-tune the resource allotment process while also improving the network efficiency of enterprise cloud services, which in turn should lead to better customer experiences for the end users, the white paper says.

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation