The Inevitability of Cloud-Native
Despite the initial perception that cloud-native networks may not suit telcos due to their complexity, the reality is that cloud-native is becoming the backbone of 5G networks—especially 5G Standalone (SA) and Cloud/OpenRAN architectures. The shift to cloud-native is inevitable, and failing to adapt will have significant consequences. In the long term, cloud-native is not something CSPs can afford to opt out of.
However, there remains a risk that telcos may fail to fully embrace the opportunities cloud-native offers. Attempting to force-fit today’s operational environments—built around traditional hardware-based networks—onto cloud-native infrastructures can lead to increased complexity without delivering the intended benefits. This approach risks creating networks that inherit the complexities of the cloud without reaping the rewards of agility and scalability.
Some of the consequences of this are already evident in the limited success of virtualized networks based on VNFs. Physical networks were replaced by virtualized equivalents of these functions, introducing a layer of virtualization complexity but with limited gains in terms of innovation, agility and underlying infrastructure cost.
Second Order Benefits
Cloud-native networks go one stage further in terms of benefits, with the potential to completely disaggregate the network from the underlying infrastructure. This delivers networks that are more agile, flexible, and scalable, enabling higher-value connectivity services. Cloud-native networks offer telcos significant benefits:
- Infrastructure Cost. Cloud-native infrastructure diversity avoids infrastructure lock-in, resulting in potential infrastructure savings.
- Infrastructure Scale. Cloud-native also provides scale on demand, resulting in investment in infrastructure following network demand and growth, rather than requiring upfront investment to meet a projected future.
- Vendor diversity. This is an important procurement requirement in most telcos to avoid vendor lock-in. Initiatives such as Open RAN have at their heart the desire of telcos to break away from a shrinking pool of equipment vendors.
- Innovation. With software, there is a huge opportunity to innovate in the network beyond the traditional network generations. Many of the new 5G use cases, as well as new industry use cases, are enabled by cloud-native networks.
- Capturing the Long Tail. Today’s telco is largely defined by a limited number of mass market services with well-bounded infrastructure requirements. Cloud-native networks potentially allow a telco to deliver more personalized, dynamic, on-demand, higher-value services.
However, this is only the case if the increased operational complexity of cloud-native networks can be managed effectively, both in terms of the testing and verification of the complexity of a cloud-native network (network functions and cloud infrastructure) and the ongoing lifecycle and operational management of the network. This is a concept that can be best described as “Lab-to-Live.”
“Lab-to-Live”
The Lab-to-live approach is being enabled by Spirent Landslide CNF Resiliency Testing Solution, which provides:
- Agile testing delivering ongoing validation of cloud-native network updates
- Validation of cloud-native network resiliency
- A comprehensive simulation of real-world impairments including network contention, infrastructure failures, and resource constraints
- Proactive testing to validate potential vulnerabilities and improve the ability to withstand real-world failures
- Identification and modelling of operational KPIs and data observability requirements
- Providing NOC assurance organizations with the operational KPIs and metrics to allow them to operationally manage every cloud-native network release
Spirent advocates a stepwise transformation rather than a disruptive overhaul, beginning with applying testing into production environments, followed by creating a continuous feedback loop from operations back to test, and enabling gradual and efficient network evolution. Importantly, Spirent’s approach to Lab-to-Live is to match the new needs of cloud-native networks with existing operational environments.
Learn more in Appledore Research’s paper on “Lab-to-Live: Delivering Resilient and Secure Cloud-Native Networks”.
Francis Haysom – Principal Analyst at Appledore Research