An increasingly digital world needs an education sector that can keep pace with the always-on requirements of students and educators alike. Ankabut — the Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — has a vision for the country: to be a global leader in research and education, providing advanced network infrastructure to education and research institutes in the country.

Ankabut is the UAE’s largest ICT service provider operating in the education industry, offering a wide array of services to a range of educational institutions, from universities and colleges to research institutes and vocational schools. These services include cloud services, network connections, IT infrastructure, equipment room, cabinet hosting and leasing, managed services, professional services, and training.

Service scope extends to more than 35 educational institutions and 80 campuses, including the UAE’s ministry of education and Khalifa University, ranked first in the UAE and second in the Middle East and North Africa region. Through technology, Ankabut supports e-learning, library content, distribution systems and research collaboration initiatives, which together with network, processing and storage support, provide a solid basis for developing a collective and collaborative approach to research and education.

Project objectives

Cloud technology is an essential component for any collaborative project in today’s world. Ankabut selected Huawei as its new, long-term cloud solution provider and strategic technology partner, taking full advantage of the company’s advanced technology solutions. In collaboration with Huawei, Ankabut has now established the best education cloud in the UAE and the entire Middle East, making it accessible for universities and educational institutions. This achievement has strengthened the country’s position as a regional leader in educational services.

Implementation

Huawei deployed a full cloud stack solution, including a cloud platform, software-defined networking (SDN), a high-speed data centre network and high-performance all-flash storage.

Specific solutions include:

Huawei Cloud Stack — a full-stack hybrid cloud —that builds high-performance IT infrastructure using Huawei’s end-to-end capabilities, from in-house chip design to hardware optimisation. It includes solutions such as Atlas servers, OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage, ARM servers and KunLun mission-critical servers. Huawei is able to build resource pools that outperform those built from general-purpose hardware by using closely integrated technology that works seamlessly as a whole.
Huawei CloudFabric — an SDN solution that provides seamless intra- and inter-data centre connectivity for physical, virtual or container-based workloads and applications. The solution consists of iMaster Network Cloud Engine (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 – all-flash storage uses proprietary artificial intelligence chips, the FlashLink intelligent algorithm and full-series end-to-end non-volatile memory express (NVMe) architecture, delivering 21 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) and just 0.1ms latency. This represents best-in-class performance, twice that of storage solutions from the next-best industry competitor.

Results

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

Compared to traditional data centres, cloud data centres significantly reduce costs and complexity. They provide a unified and consolidated infrastructure resource pool, automation and orchestration while offering cloud services by monetising infrastructure. The Huawei Cloud platform will support Ankabut, hosting application workloads, including AD/DNS, exchange, SQL DB, SFB, Fortinet, SSO, ServiceDesk and asset management, as well as industry applications, including intelligent campus management, e-learning, interactive teaching and massive open online courses, known as Moocs.

“This project represents one of the largest investments made in the UAE’s education sector in 2019 and will strengthen the UAE’s position as a regional leader in educational services,” said Fahem Al Nuaimi, CEO of Ankabut. “Huawei’s technology enables us to offer cloud services to our partner institutions throughout the UAE, which makes the academic process more efficient, reducing expenses and boosting collaborative work, to benefit education and research facilities alike.”