VMware Virtualization-led agility drives a 10-fold increase in CITIC Telecom CPC’s hybrid cloud subscriptions

INDUSTRY 

Technology

LOCATION 

Hong Kong (Headquarters)

KEY CHALLENGES 

• Support for a multi-tenancy environment 

• Integrate existing customer solutions into a cloud infrastructure

• Scale to meet growing demand 

SOLUTION 

VMware vCloud Service Provider Bundle provides a flexible platform for CITIC Telecom CPC to deliver its SmartCLOUD™ cloud computing solution series to customers across the Asia Pacific region. 

BUSINESS BENEFITS 

• Met growing market demand for cloud services

• Delivered software-defined services to customers

• Gained a flexible virtual datacentre platform for cloud services expansion

• Able to on-board customers faster via rapid prototyping

VMWARE CASE STUDY

“The impact on the revenue growth of the company from our cloud services extends beyond the cloud because the cloud architecture provided by VMware enables us to provision complete sets of software-defined services, which integrates with our networking connectivity and managed security services. This means that every dollar a customer spends on the cloud platform is also spent on security and connectivity. In the last two years due to the SmartCLOUD™ solution our security services product group has almost doubled its business.” 

Mr Daniel Kwong, Head of IT and Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Security Services, CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited

VMWARE FOOTPRINT  

• VMware vSphere 

• VMware vCloud Service Provider Bundle including vCloud Suite Automation Capabilities and vCloud Suite Networking and Security Services 

APPLICATIONS VIRTUALIZED

• SAP 

• Oracle 

• Microsoft Exchange 

• Microsoft SQL Server

PLATFORM

• Dell servers 

• EMC VNX storage 

• Dell EqualLogic storage 

• Juniper switches 

• Dell Networking switches

Customer Profile

CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited (CITIC Telecom CPC) operates across Asia and provides comprehensive ICT services to a wide array of industries such as banking, financial services and insurance, trading and manufacturing, transportation and logistics, as well as IT and professional services. These include TrueCONNECT™, a state-of-the-art fully meshed MPLS VPN (Multiprotocol Label Switching Virtual Private Network) service, TrustCSI™, an integrated suite of information security solutions, and SmartCLOUD™, a high performance cloud computing solution that complements the company’s managed network and managed security solutions.

The Challenge

CITIC Telecom CPC began its partnership with VMware® by consolidating its server infrastructure on VMware vSphere® EXI to simplify the upgrade of its email system in 2010. Originally the company planned to deploy further physical infrastructure to accommodate the upgrade. However, when taking over the role of Head of IT, Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Security Services, Mr Daniel Kwong re-evaluated the plan and realised the budget allocated to new physical infrastructure would cover the cost of upgrading the mail system and migrating almost all the company’s systems to a virtualized platform. With obvious cost benefits, the virtualization project was approved and successfully implemented within two months.

Recognising the benefits of decreased deployment costs, Mr Kwong realised that the virtualization project had unlocked the potential to expand the company’s ICT services portfolio to include an Asia Pacific based hybrid cloud service offering. Mr Kwong says, “Based on the speed of deployment for our email system, I approached our management and put the case forward for a cloud business model for our company.” 

When the company investigated potential solutions, they identified several key challenges that needed to be addressed by a cloud infrastructure platform. The first was the need for multi-tenancy. The second was software-defined networking to enable greater flexibility for its customers. Mr Kwong says, “When customers utilise public clouds, it is a common experience that they will be provided with software firewall and some level of security but the customer has to align with the service provider’s security and connectivity standards, which is not always possible. We wanted to ensure customers could seamlessly integrate with our existing network and security services to deliver a complete ICT services portfolio.” 

The Solution 

CITIC Telecom CPC evaluated several solutions before selecting the VMware vCloud® Service Provider Bundle to deliver an enterprise-class cloud service to its customers. “We chose a solution that would fit our business model. The cloud architecture provided by VMware is highly scalable to deliver a complete set of cloud services. It supports multitenant environments, which means our customers have the flexibility to develop cost effective hybrid cloud environments according to their business needs,” says Mr Kwong.

The company launched its SmartCLOUD™ solution series in Asia Pacific, which delivers a full spectrum of flexible, secure and on-demand, high performance cloud services for SMEs and enterprises. The range of solutions available includes SmartCLOUD™ Compute, which deploys a resource pool model through the online self-service console SmartCLOUD™ Compute PA. Other SmartCLOUD™ solutions running on vCloud architecture include SmartCLOUD™ BRR (Backup, Replication and Recovery), SmartCLOUD™ TAB (Traffic and Application Balancer), SmartCLOUD™ EPS (End-Point Backup Service), SmartCLOUD™ vOne (Private Cloud Solution) and SmartCLOUD™ SafeBox.

CITIC Telecom CPC deployed vCloud Suite Networking and Security Services, which is integrated with VMware vCenter Server™ and vCloud Suite Automation Capabilities to support its multi-tenant environment via sophisticated computing and network segregation. Mr Kwong says, “I think that the vCloud Suite Automation Capabilities are the first in the market providing a complete automated provisioning solution. When the customer requires a solution, we use our virtual data centre infrastructure to build the entire customised service for the customer and in doing so we have changed the way that a system integrator operates. We have created a hybrid business model that combines both system integration and services.”

He continues, “Our concept is to provide large scale ‘production level’ POCs without any cost. For every case we have consultants to develop the solution and related POC in our cloud environment integrated with the security and connectivity service. Once the POC is done along with the UAT, the solution is ready to deploy. This rapid prototyping eliminates a lot of traditional processes required for solution implementation.”

Business Results & Benefits 

Since launching its cloud computing solutions in 2011, CITIC Telecom CPC has deployed seven SmartCLOUD™ service centres across Asia Pacific. Customers who pay for their services on a monthly basis are gaining significant cash-flow advantages, while having the control to dynamically allocate resources to address evolving business requirements. Mr Kwong says, “While we initially marketed our cloud services to existing customers, we found that within the first year we were gaining many new customers in areas such as logistics and mobile apps. In using infrastructure-asa-service these companies tend to grow very fast, and some have increased their SmartCLOUD™ subscription by 10-fold within a year. It provides strong evidence that there is a huge demand for cloud services in the region.”

CITIC Telecom CPC became one of the first service providers in Asia Pacific to bring enterprise-class cloud services to its customers through VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP). Mr Kwong says, “Many customers in Asia Pacific involved in industries such as manufacturing and logistics have very customised software that cannot be managed through a standard public cloud. Due to the flexibility of the vCloud platform and our certified professional team, our SmartCLOUD™ solution series enables customers to run complex applications such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server in a hybrid cloud environment.”

The steel manufacturing giant, Ryerson China, migrated over 90 percent of their applications to SmartCLOUD™ by August 2013. Similarly in 2012, a web application developer in Hong Kong, Four Directions, migrated 90 percent of their services to SmartCLOUD™ Compute and saw a sevenfold improvement in resource utilisation.

In 2013, CITIC Telecom CPC saw strong demand for its network connectivity services, datacentre services, and managed services. Mr Kwong says, “The impact on the revenue growth of the company from our cloud services extends beyond the cloud because the cloud architecture provided by VMware enables us to provision complete sets of softwaredefined services, which integrates with our networking connectivity and managed security services. This means that every dollar a customer spends on the cloud platform is also spent on security and connectivity. In the last two years due to the SmartCLOUD™ solution our security services product group has almost doubled its business.” 

Looking Ahead 

CITIC Telecom CPC has plans to extend its offering from infrastructure-as-a-service to further cloud computing solutions, such as storage-as-a-service. “With the vCloud architecture in place and the flexibility to group customers into virtual datacentres and isolate their resources, we have the opportunity to use this existing platform to expand our cloud service offerings. Based on the uptake of our SmartCLOUD™ solution series we expect strong growth in the coming years,” concludes Mr Kwong.