[Shenzhen, China, February 25, 2017] China Unicom Guangdong Branch (hereby referred to as Guangdong Unicom) launched its commercial SD-UTN (Software Defined Unified Transport Network) smart government and enterprise leased line service in collaboration with Huawei today in Guangzhou. This commercial trial marks the first successful demonstration of Guangdong Unicom's efforts to provide differentiated leased line products and proactive services, increase operational efficiency, and implement network traffic operations. As the key supporting technological solution behind the trial, Huawei's innovative CloudMetro architecture has helped Guangdong Unicom provide government and enterprise users with superior leased line experience, greatly shortening service rollout time and decreasing O&M costs. More than 300 representatives from the China Unicom Group, China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute, Guangdong Unicom, and Huawei, business partners of Guangdong Unicom, as well as key enterprise customers from all over Guangdong were present at the launch event.

With the emergence of 4K/VR, enterprise cloud connect, 5G, and other new services and the diversification of services and business models, future metro networks must satisfy requirements for service agility, efficient operations, and network openness. Huawei's CloudMetro architecture introduces cloud technology into the metro network using a unified and cloudified architecture, to cloudify network functions, automate network management, and pool network resources, enabling carriers to continuously increase the value of their networks. Through network management automation, which allows for on-demand service provisioning, the CloudMetro architecture is able to effectively solve the problems with traditional leased line services for enterprise customers, such as offline service subscription, slow service provisioning, and lack of service customization.

Guangdong Unicom is one of the first carriers to adopt the CloudMetro solution, which has enabled it to cloudify its resources, automate its services, and open up its network capabilities, allowing for rapid network transformation and leased line service innovation. The CloudMetro solution relies on IP RAN access, aggregation devices, existing fiber networks, Huawei's next-generation infrastructure enabling system CloudOpera IES, and the Agile Controller 3.0 universal controller, and open northbound APIs to support many types of service apps and network orchestration and controlling to realize flexible service innovation and super fast service provisioning. This enables the rapid provisioning, real-time activation, and automated O&M of leased line services, helping to unleash the full potential of networks and provide a new internet-like leased line experience for customers.

"The SD-UTN smart leased line launched today is China's first enterprise leased line to rely on the IP RAN and SD-UTN smart leased line technology to provide flexible, customizable, on-demand, and cloudified enterprise ICT solutions. It will make it much more convenient for enterprises to provision new services or make adjustments to them, as well as increasing the resource utilization. The launch of the SD-UTN smart leased line also adds another building block to China's Internet+ strategy," remarked He Biao, General Manager of Guangdong Unicom.

"Guangdong Unicom has proven itself to be a leading member of the China Unicom family by working closely with Huawei and others to deploy China Unicom's first industrial Internet-oriented SD-UTN network and the innovative leased service product Zhixiangzhuanche, which will serve as the first step to the incremental proliferation of industrial Internet throughout the entire country," said Li Tong, Director of China Unicom's Internet and Data Network Office of the Network Construction Department.

"Under the direction of the China Unicom Group, the China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute formed a technological partnership with Huawei in the field of SDN/NFV, focusing primarily on B2B markets, cloudified data center interconnect, financial high-quality networks, and integrated metro bearer networks. Today's launch of the SD-UTN network is an important practical and innovative step in the field of integrated metro bearer networks, and also provides support for the successful implementation of Guangdong Unicom's industrial Internet strategy," said Zhang Mao Xiang of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute.

"Guangdong Unicom partnered with Huawei to create an SD-UTN smart leased line in response to enterprise user demands and their pain points. This was an important cooperative effort for the two companies in the industrial Internet field, and also an important application of the innovative CloudMetro architecture in the leased line field. In the future, we will use an all-cloud-based network solution featuring overall planning and design of the network architecture layer to help China Unicom to deep dive for opportunities in the field of industrial Internet services, taking hold of opportunities brought about by the digitalization of the industry," remarked Zeng Xingyun, Vice President of Huawei's Network Product Line.

To date, the SD-UTN smart leased line solution has already completed commercial trials in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shaoguan, where it was used by the National Health and Family Planning Commission and other government and enterprise customers, providing an online shopping-like purchasing experience with automated service provisioning in a matter of minutes, and a flexible, on-demand, and secure leased line service.

The 2017 Mobile World Congress will be held in Barcelona, Spain, from February 27 to March 2. Huawei exhibition areas are located at #1J50 in Hall 1, #3I30 in Hall 3, and Innovation City in Hall 4, Fira Gran Via, Barcelona.