Huawei's emerging virtualization solutions for emerging markets, but not exclusively

Not only is Huawei a Gold Member of the OpenStack Foundation, it is one of the up-and-coming virtualization and cloud computing companies that's making significant technology inroads in emerging markets with its Fusion line of products: FusionSphere, FusionCube, FusionStorage, FusionNetwork, and FusionCloud.

FusionSphere

FusionSphere is Huawei's Cloud OS in its 5th major release. It integrates the FusionCompute virtualization platform and the FusionManager cloud management software. FusionSphere includes the Xen-based hypervisor plus additional extended I/O, availability, and recovery products. Its product is based on Xen/KVM hypervisors, but is fully developed in-house and includes many enhancements for optimal performance.

FusionCube

FusionCube is a converged infrastructure (cloud-in-a-box) that contains a single plug-and-play hardware package that integrates compute, storage, software, and networking. The purpose of this converged architecture is to eliminate I/O bottlenecks between compute and storage.
According to Huawei, its FusionCube compared to other converged solutions can lower TCO by 50 percent, is more cost-effective by four times, and has twice the overall performance.

FusionStorage

FusionStorage is data center storage for virtualized infrastructure. It is mainly used for storage-as-a-service capability. It enables users to consolidate various SAN and NAS storage offerings under a unified logical storage pool.

FusionNetwork

FusionNetwork based on software-defined networking (SDN) architecture is composed of user plane packet forwarding using vSwitch software and VXLAN gateways for protocol encapsulation and decapsulation within each host system. FusionNetwork can also dynamically adjust bandwidth and routing policies based on demand that can dramatically lower bandwidth costs.

FusionCloud

Included in Huawei's FusionCloud are FusionSphere, FusionCube, and FusionAccess. FusionAccess is the cloud access software solution that supplies client-side cloud access to devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Huawei claims FusionAccess is secure and reliable for communicating between end user devices and cloud data and systems over encrypted channels.

Huawei is one of those rare (these days) companies that has its hands in everything: servers, telco equipment, broadband access, video surveillance, video conferencing, switches, security, storage, routers, unified communications, and more including cloud computing and virtualization. It is sort of the EMC of the East, but possibly even more diversified in its offerings.

So far, as Gartner points out in its Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure 2015 report, Huawei's "market base is stronger in Brazil, Russia, India and (primarily) China, and it mainly targets telcos and emerging markets".

For Huawei to enter more mature markets, it first must overcome any geopolitical issues it might face from potential customers. It also needs to create strategic partnerships with companies in the US and Europe. If it does so, it will be a formidable competitor with market leaders Microsoft and VMware. Huawei has the resources to be a third major competitor in x86 server virtualization because of its deep integration into the carrier and hardware markets in Asia. If it can bring about the same adoption rates in these more mature markets, Huawei's status and recognition as global leader in the cloud computing and virtualization spaces won't be far behind.