Orange taps Huawei for public cloud services for MNCs

Orange Business Services, the B2B arm under Orange Group, has contracted Huawei to support the delivery of a new global public cloud offering to multinational corporations.

Under the agreement, Huawei will provide a turnkey solution, including the hardware, develop the technology platform and OpenStack operating system, as well as level-three support. Orange will provide the data center facilities, network and security infrastructure, customers’ infrastructure and applications management, and professional services to support cloud migrations.

Announcing the partnership at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Philippe Laplane, director of Orange Cloud for Business at Orange Business Services, said initially the company will target three major verticals – healthcare, public transportation and smart cities – for the new offering.

With the new offering, Orange is extending its international cloud strategy with a portfolio of advice, integration and managed services for cloud infrastructure and applications.

The new offering is aimed at helping multinational corporations migrate their legacy enterprise application to the cloud. It is designed to complement the company’s existing private cloud portfolio, Laplane added.

Orange plans to roll out new services across Western Europe and Southeast Asia in April, followed by the US in October. The Middle East and Africa are scheduled for next year.

Laplane said the French operator will host two sites in Western Europe and an additional one in Singapore for MNCs with a presence in Asia.

“Our customers have a genuine need for an international public cloud offering that will allow them to adapt to the uses imposed by new technologies and meet the challenges of transforming their IT services on a global scale,” the executive said.

“To continue to support them, it is essential for us to have the best technology, combined with the highest levels of security and services, that can meet the challenges of both digital transformation and international development.”