Cloud native networks give telcos operational “superpowers”

The transition to cloud native networks is not easy for telcos, but an often-cited reward for their effort is a new network operating model that is automated and more efficient. 

For Orange, achieving “automation in operations” is the “true reason” why it is pursuing its telco cloud transformation, according to Philippe Ensarguet, VP of Software Engineering at Orange. In an interview with TM Forum’s Inform, he described the operational benefits of cloud native as “superpowers” for telcos. 

“With cloud native, we get four superpowers: resiliency, self- and auto-healing capabilities, closed-loop reconciliation and drift management … With those four superpowers, [we’re] absolutely opening new ways of doing the operations,” he said. 

With resiliency and self-healing features, the infrastructure is continuously monitored and automatically relaunched if a desired state is “falling down”, he explained. 

Drift management protects the infrastructure by automatically detecting and fixing modifications that stray from the original implementation’s “source of trust.” With closed loop and drift management, Orange can “understand what’s happening once the infrastructure and the services are deployed,” he said. 

Altogether, running software functions in the cloud is “a totally new world” in the way CSPs operate networks.  

“If you add to this new operating model with data and generative AI, then you have the whole story. That’s why we need this software transformation – to have the right level of exposure to let the AI trigger appropriately the system that we are automating,” he said.

Orange started working towards this cloud native network vision two years ago and expects to start seeing it come to fruition in the 2025 to 2030 timeframe, initially to support the 5G Core. 

The operator is not alone as the industry is shifting to what Ensarguet described as a “horizontal model” – that is, moving away from physical and virtual network functions running on proprietary, vertical stacks from multiple vendors to cloud native functions (CNFs) that run on the same stack, which is more like IT and digital models. 

“If you ask any digital or IT CIO, ‘Are you okay to deploy one dedicated infrastructure for deploying one application?’ He will start by laughing and then ask why,” he said, showing just how incomprehensible such a model is for some in other sectors. 

Orange rides Sylva to telco cloud future

At the heart of the Orange telco cloud (OTC) program is the open source Sylva project hosted at the Linux Foundation Europe. The project was launched in November 2022 by Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone with the aim of creating a production-grade telco cloud stack to support core, radio access network (RAN) and edge use cases. 

The project is defining a cloud software framework for telco requirements, developing a reference implementation of the framework and validating network functions in a Sylva-based environment via two test centers provided by Orange and Telefonica. A third validation center is planned for this year as well. 

The first version of the stack was released earlier this year after just 10 months. The group now has 25 participating companies and has attracted engagement from other industrial sectors such aerospace and defence for the versatility it can offer in their own edge infrastructures. It also has access to more resources since The Linux Foundation Europe announced a funding initiative for the project in September 2023. 

Ensarguet said it was “mind blowing” how the project is taking off. “It illustrates the commitment of all the companies that are part of the project,” he said. 

Cloud foundations for 5G and beyond

Orange is one of the most vocal proponents of Sylva because it is an essential part of its telco cloud strategy. The operator leverages the Sylva “upstream common denominator” in its hardened OTC. The cloud infrastructure runs on bare metal and OpenStack, while Sylva runs on top of this as “the engine running the network functions,” he explained. 

The operator’s priority is support core network functions, followed by RAN while edge use cases are likely to run in parallel. 

“In the move from PNF to VNF to CNF, the things that are transforming the most are on the 5G Core … We are right now building what will enable us for the next generation of services,” he said.

Orange has two implementations based on Sylva in Belgium and Spain, but Ensarguet did not share details about the deployments.

Hybrid clouds on Sylva horizon

Most telco clouds are hosted in private environments. Not all telco workloads can run in public clouds, particularly certain network functions for regulatory or national security reasons. But an important step for the Sylva project this year is to work on support hybrid cloud environments – that is, both private and public. 

“If we are not able to span the infrastructure from private to edge to public cloud, we will fall down again [back to] to vertical approach…Now the challenge we have in front of us from a technical standpoint is the hybridization [of Sylva],” he said.