BT Group has announced a brand-new international network, allowing business customers to innovate at pace.
The new network will enable businesses to benefit from the newest wave of digital automation and AI by connecting the various clouds businesses use for their applications and data with users, such as clients and employees.
Global Fabric, as the new network will be known, represents a generational shift in technology, based on a network-as-a-service (NaaS) technical and commercial model. It is designed to be adaptable, scalable, and resilient in terms of connectivity quality and the convenience of pay-as-you-go use, just like the cloud itself. Customers can optimize application performance, user experience and cost by combining the power of the cloud and networks.
They will have the ability to select the best form of connectivity for their workloads and applications and to actively manage the routes these take as they move across the network. With this control, customers can achieve the best application performance, manage costs and meet growing regulatory requirements for data in transit.
The new high-capacity, fully programmable network is built with cutting-edge technology to improve efficiency, sustainability and resilience. BT claims that when the Global Fabric network is fully operational, it will use 79% less electricity than its current global networks.
Customers can "shop" for connectivity using its e-commerce-like interface and digital orchestration. Global Fabric will be pre-integrated with over 630 digital service providers and over 700 data centers. This includes the largest private cloud providers, public cloud providers, network, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and secure access service edge (SASE) solutions, all readily available.
According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BT Business, Bas Burger, "Global Fabric will future proof customers’ connectivity by providing flexibility to ensure they’re always connected so they can always be productive. They’re facing a new wave of digital revolution with AI, IoT, and automation driving demand for simplicity and better multi-cloud connectivity. Customers can achieve better total costs, boost app performance and user experience, all while complying with regulations and mitigating cyber threats. Global Fabric means multi-cloud works better on BT."
