Creating the finest education cloud in the UAE and Middle East

An increasingly digital world needs an education sector that can keep pace with the always-on requirements of students, educators, and so on. Ankabut, the UAE’s Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN), has a vision for the UAE to be a global leader in research and education, which it aims to enable by providing leading edge network infrastructure to educational and research institutes within the country. Through technology, Ankabut supports initiative such as e-learning, library content, distribution systems and research collaboration, which, together with network, processing and storage support, provide a solid basis for developing a collective collaborative approach to research and education.

Cloud technology is an essential component for any collaborative project in today’s world. Earlier this summer, Ankabut selected Huawei as its long-term new cloud solution provider and strategic technology partner in order to take full advantage of the company’s technology solutions. In collaboration with Huawei, Ankabut aimed to establish the best education cloud in the UAE and the Middle East, enabling UAE universities and educational institutes to access cloud service, and strengthening the UAE’s position as a regional leader in educational services.

As such, Huawei deployed a full cloud stack solution, including a cloud platform, SDN, high-speed data center network, and high-performance all-flash storage.

Looking into the finer details of the project, Ankabut utilized cutting-edge solutions such as:

• Huawei Cloud Stack, a full-stack hybrid cloud, which builds high-performance IT infrastructure by leveraging Huawei’s end-to-end expertise, from in-house chip design to hardware optimization – including solutions such as Atlas servers, Dorado all-flash storage, ARM servers, and KunLun mission-critical servers. With closely integrated technology working together seamlessly, Huawei is able to build resource pools that outperform those consisting of general-purpose hardware.
• Huawei CloudFabric, a software-defined network (SDN) solution that provides seamless intra- and inter-data center connectivity for physical, virtual, or container-based workloads and applications. The solution consists of iMaster NCE-Fabric controller, iMaster NCE-FabricInsight network analyser, and CloudEngine series switches. CloudFabric delivers an intelligent, simplified, ultra-broadband, secure, and open digital network platform enabling enterprises to achieve business success.
• Huawei OceanStor Dorado V6 Flash Native All Flash Storage, which uses Huawei-developed AI chips, FlashLink® intelligent algorithm, and full-series end-to-end NVMe architecture to deliver 20 million IOPS and 0.1 ms latency — which is best-in-class performance and twice that of the next-best player in the industry.

As a result of using a robust selection of Huawei solutions to build a solid cloud infrastructure, Ankabut is able to roll out a strong cloud offering to the UAE’s educational and research institutes. This will enable them to access cloud services as and when needed, contributing to developing the UAE’s position as a leader in education, research, and technology adoption.