Huang Shuzhan: Collaborate with Huawei to create SASE solution, achieving 'self built parachute jumps'
May.30.2025
In 2003, Huang Shuzhan established Guanglian Century, located in Dongguan. In the early stages of China's internet development, there was no established business positioning for MSP (Management Service Provider). However, for Guanglian Century, which has always been committed to "serving customers for 20-30 years as long as delivery is done well," it is already the first generation MSP in China.
Ten years later, the Yellow Book Fair moved its company headquarters to Shenzhen - hoping to replicate the Dongguan model throughout China. As for the reason, Huang Shibou said, "The large enterprises that Dongguan can count on have already become customers of Guanglian Century. Looking towards the future, Guanglian needs greater challenges," said Huang Shibou, founder and CEO of Guanglian Century.
In the blink of an eye, it has been four years again. In 2017, Guanglian Century once again faced a choice, which may be a fundamental technological transformation that has only occurred in thirty or forty years. Huang Shuzhan vaguely felt that traditional router networking would be replaced by SD-WAN (software defined wide area network). "Guanglian Century needs to choose a new brand for cooperation," Huang Shuzhan said, "and Guanglian Century only cooperates with the 'first brand'
The values from foreign investment to Huawei align the two companies
Who is the 'first brand' of SD-WAN?
Reflect on the market landscape of that year. The early SD-WAN market is being divided among established companies seeking to update their network mix. Later on, foreign-funded enterprises with different technological backgrounds also began to make efforts in the SD-WAN market.
Here, although it's hard to say who the "first brand" is, at least Guanglian Century had a lot of room for choice at that time. We tested 13 mainstream SD-WAN brands in the market. ”During the testing phase, Huawei's features were still being improved, but in the end, Guanglian Century chose Huawei.
Huawei told me that they would give us another year, "Huang Shibe said." Although in the past we only cooperated with the "first brand" in various segmented fields, even though Huawei was not the "first brand" at that time, I still believed in Huawei's technological capabilities in the communication field
Huang Shuzhan believes that after Huawei's efforts, it will definitely lead the SD-WAN field towards a new development journey. Furthermore, Huawei has always adhered to the principle of 'customer centricity' and positioned itself as an MSP in the era of optical connectivity, believing in 'customer centricity'. ”The shared values have brought the two companies together.
Establishing SD-WAN's Three Key Abilities from 'Frequent Loss' to' Continuous Win '
The journey of cooperation is not smooth sailing
In the following two years, Guanglian and Huawei also lost many projects. Fortunately, at that time, most of the projects were still in the testing phase and had not yet entered the substantive procurement stage; Fortunately, the traditional business of Time Union Century has always remained stable. But there were also highlights during this period.
In 2018, Guanglian Century and Huawei jointly launched the "Huawei SD-WAN+Guanglian Integrated Service". By integrating Huawei products and Guanglian services, the two sides launched the first "dual network, dual machine, dual application" intelligent networking product in the industry. At this moment, the Huang Book Fair realized that the main function of SD-WAN is "product+service".
Subsequently, during the Huawei Connect Conference 2018, Guanglian Century, as the only SD-WAN service provider at that time, attended the Huawei SD-WAN launch event. This has also driven the brand influence of Guanglian Century to increase, "said Huang Shuibi.
The real change occurred in 2020.
At that time, Huawei brought nearly ten engineers from Guanglian Century to the Southern Research Institute to benchmark one function at a time, solve one pain point at a time, "Huang Shuibi recalled." Within two weeks, Guanglian and Huawei jointly determined the development sequence of all functions. Two months later, the first batch of functions were launched and applied
Since then, Guanglian Century has "always won" and its business scope has expanded from private enterprises to the central state-owned enterprise market. During this process, Guanglian Century further proposed that the three key elements for enterprises to choose SD-WAN services are technical service capabilities, resource management capabilities, and 365 day operation and maintenance capabilities.
The reason behind this is that SD-WAN solutions consist of hardware, software, and networks, with the network requiring additional services. So Huawei and Guanglian are natural partners, and most SD-WAN solutions in the market lack network services, let alone partners like Guanglian Century.
We have encountered competitors competing for half price in the market before, but after trying it out for several months, users still chose Huawei, "said Huang Shibou." Because they ignored the service and service partners, "Huang Shibou said.
Along the way, Guanglian Century has been both a resource management service provider, a technology service provider, and an operations and maintenance management service provider. At present, the optical backbone network has built 219 PoP nodes worldwide, covering major markets worldwide and over 300 major cities in China. Meanwhile, over a hundred technical engineers from Guanglian Century can provide users with 24/7 service. The operation and maintenance center located in Dongguan is the backbone of all services.
Building a "moat" of differentiated advantages from products to services
Huang Shushu mentioned that Guanglian Century is both a partner and a customer of Huawei. Its business model is to collaborate with technologically advanced products, achieve the goal of "making parachutes and jumping on their own", and transform products into service levers to deliver the best service to users. As the Huang Book Fair said, "Guanglian Century not only collaborates with the 'first brand', but also aims to become the top tier brand itself
In 2020, Guanglian Century emerged in the market. At that time, more than one brand approached us for cooperation, and even users requested that Guanglian Century provide services for other brands, "Huang Shuzhan said." But we all refused. "In Huang Shuzhan's view, focusing on Huawei was a strategic decision. Only by thoroughly developing products and elevating the cooperation between both parties from marketing to deeper joint research and development, can Guanglian create a bigger world.
In 2022, Guanglian Century became a Huawei CSP Five Diamond (Data&Security) certified service provider, which is already the highest level of Huawei service certification. Because Guanglian Century is committed to providing long-term services to customers, "Huang Shuibi emphasized the importance of" long-term service ".
When Huawei develops SD-WAN service providers, it also needs to leverage the power of Wi Fi Century. Even these SD-WAN service providers may have a competitive relationship with Guanglian Century. But every time he attends such an event, Huang Shuzhan says, "It's okay, because Huawei product managers often tell me that Guanglian Century's explanations of Huawei products are more convincing, and Guanglian Century understands customers' application scenarios better
From SD-WAN to SASE, create your own parachute and jump on your own
In the journey of joint research and development, Guanglian Century encountered data communication security products. Huang Shushu recalled that when faced with this opportunity for cooperation, he was initially hesitant. There are nearly 600 security companies in China, ranging from thousands to tens of people, and the market is too complex. This has also made Guanglian Century hesitant to truly engage with the security industry. But in 2023, another opportunity lies before Guanglian Century.
After SD-WAN gradually replaced traditional router networking, the communication industry has ushered in another technological revolution, with network and security becoming increasingly integrated. A typical solution is the gradual integration of SD-WAN and SSE (Secure Service Edge) to form SASE (Secure Access Service Edge). This further enhances the cooperation between Guanglian and Huawei.
At the beginning, Huawei only hoped to add network services beyond the 'line+gateway', "Huang Shuzhan said." Later, Huawei and Guanglian hope to standardize the solution and replicate it on a large scale
In 2024, both parties signed a security strategic cooperation agreement; In 2025, Huawei and Guanglian jointly promoted the comprehensive upgrade of security for the Huawei Galaxy AI integrated SASE solution. In March, at the Huawei China Partner Conference, Huawei's data communication product line teamed up with Guanglian Century to jointly release a new Huawei Galaxy AI integrated SASE solution for industries such as MSP, government, education, and finance, helping enterprises build end-to-end network security systems and achieve business win-win outcomes. During this period, both parties jointly conducted scenario research and development, and all new features need to be tested and optimized at the Guanglian Century Dongguan Research Center before going live. The SASE solution is a parachute that Guanglian and Huawei built and jumped together. ”
Therefore, whether at the company headquarters, branch offices, or cloud centers, SASE solutions for complete application scenarios can be quickly formed. During this process, Guanglian Century focuses on scene development and provides network resources, while Huawei focuses on the development of core product functions.
A broader market is thus opened up. As for the future of cooperation between the two parties, Huang Shuzhan said, "Guanglian Century hopes that users will not only trust our network service capabilities, but also trust our security services. Guanglian Century hopes to achieve business globalization through cooperation with Huawei, and will provide more efficient network and security services for this purpose.
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