Telecom Networks Moving to the Cloud, but Challenges Remain

Telecom network operations worldwide are moving to the cloud, though not without challenges, experts said Wednesday during a TelecomTV webinar. “We’re seeing ... momentum,” said Mark Longwell, Redhat director-telco and edge alliances: “It’s real. It’s happening. Is it moving as fast as everyone wanted? Probably not.”

Redhat has worked with carriers, including Verizon, as they move from virtualized to cloud-native operations, Longwell said. “We’re seeing that [move] with other customers,” including Vodafone and Spark New Zealand, he said. Carriers are “on a journey” and what it means to be cloud native continues to evolve.

Lightstorm, a new Indian provider, was cloud native on day one, said Majit Gupta, group CEO. Based on Lightstorm’s work with software suppliers and system integrators, “it’s not an easy experience,” he said. Building the business and operations systems a provider needs is “not so easy at all -- there starts a fairly basic problem.”

Going cloud native “is not an objective by itself,” Gupta added. Transforming carriers into the “revenue machines, which they used to be, is really the end objective.” Aligning business objectives with what cloud technologies are able to do “is still a very difficult task.”

Lightstorm was offered “one-size-fits all” systems from some well-known technology vendors and system integrators, Gupta said. The company had to combine what the bigger firm offered, then work with small startups “to integrate” everything and get the systems it needed.

Among the new carrier deployments his company is seeing, said Balaji Subramaniam, director-product line management at software provider Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, about 80% are completely cloud based. Subramaniam cited Dish Network’s 5G deployment, which is “completely cloud native and … running on a public cloud.” Blue Planet is also working with providers across Europe, he said.

Cloud-native deployments are “real” and “achievable” and can cut operational costs, noted Mehran Hadipour, vice president-global business development and alliances at Rakuten Symphony. Hadipour noted that 70% of carrier costs are tied to operations, and they can be lowered significantly through automation.

One challenge is that not every network will be cloud native, and that has been “an impediment to some extent,” Hadipour said. But carriers are finding that they can build a platform that supports cloud native and virtual native functions “concurrently,” he said. Carriers don’t have to wait for “everything to be containerized” (see 2409170056).

The size of network deployments can make a cloud transition difficult, Hadipour said. “You have thousands of nodes and clusters deployed in a broad geographic area with very limited IT support” and often usually outdoors.

Subramaniam said he hears more questions about the role of “GitOps,” which integrates and automates software development and network operations. “With a cloud-native approach, GitOps goes hand in hand,” he said. Providers also want to automate end-to-end network testing.

Longwell gets questions from customers about automation and GitOps, but also about integrating AI and machine learning (ML) into cloud applications. Carriers' use of AI and ML is just starting, though “obviously it has picked up steam in the last 12 months -- it’s on everyone’s mind,” he said.

Carriers are becoming “very practical” in their approach to the cloud, said consultant Juan Carlos Garcia. They’re not looking to adopt all the features that are possible but only what they need for their specific operations, Garcia said.

The experts agreed that finding new “talent” to operate cloud-based networks hasn’t been a problem so far, but retraining current staff can be difficult.

Redhat hasn’t had problems hiring employees with the right training, though retraining always takes time, Longwell said. Larger carriers like Verizon may have the “in-house talent” they need to move to and thrive in the cloud, but smaller providers may have to lean on system integrators or other outside help, he said.

Speakers also noted the importance of network security, which BT Group Chief Digital and Innovation Officer Harmeen Mehta said is the responsibility of everybody at a company, not just software engineers. “Security has to be embedded into our design and into our architecture … and embedded in our code as well.”

Bad actors “are also getting smarter,” Mehta noted. Distributed denial-of-service attacks aren’t the only threat. Carriers must worry about “every single micro-vulnerability that could inadvertently be created,” she said. “This is a massive education exercise, and we’ve been doing it for quite a few years.” BT is moving toward becoming a cloud-native provider, but “we’re not fully there yet.” New platforms are all in the cloud, she said.