Telco Cloud: Sky Level Communication
Telco cloud is a cloud tailored for specific needs of the telecommunication field to manage vast amounts of data and constantly changing workload volumes. Besides standard cloud computing tools and technologies, building a Telco cloud requires specialized industry knowledge and expertise to meet all the rules and regulations on security, sovereignty and data privacy.
How the Telco cloud started
In the early days, Telco clouds applied virtualization concepts from the data center into the network. Through the years, the way networks were built, run and managed changed significantly. Early Telco clouds deployed Network Functions Virtualization but realized that NFVs delivered in vertically integrated stacks only didn’t deliver the expected benefits of agility and lower costs. Operators began to leverage the same technology but in a horizontal and more open approach, leading to enhanced agility, more efficiency, and reduced total cost of ownership. The next step was software-based network services, guided by economic benefits thanks to better utilization of resources in cloud environments. With the advent of 5G and new technologies like cloud computing, AI, IoT and machine learning, old and new ways have to coexist in the transitional period.
Today telecom is a fastly growing industry. To stay among the market leaders, telecommunication companies have to heavily invest in new cutting-edge technologies and be among the first to implement and test them. There is no time for telecom operators to doubt. Every day they need to run faster and invest more just not to stay behind their competitors. As a result, we observe the rapid digital transformation of the industry. The clouds in Telco transform into highly secure, dynamic, agile and efficient environments with unique capabilities to scale.
Conceptually different
A reason why Telco cloud is different is mainly related to the workloads it needs to manage. We usually don’t care or ask ourselves how we get an Internet connection; the only requirement — it should be stable and fast. Well, if you ever wonder, there’s a huge infrastructure that provides us with a connection. Thousands of interconnected services, firewalls, base transceiver stations form the framework for delivering Internet connection.
When talking about the telecommunication field, the usual cloud concept does not apply. The Telco cloud environment is quite different from cloud computing for hosting NFVs of the systems not employed in enterprise clouds. While enterprise clouds perform an internal, administrative function and can be delivered in public, private or a hybrid mix of both solutions, telco clouds are typically private, very stringent on secured traffic flow and latency requirements. Instead of Internet access, telecommunication companies prefer using dedicated service provider links to deliver cloud services to their customers.
Rely on Benefits
Recent cloud technologies in Telco bring many improvements to the industry: better customer satisfaction, greater business agility, cost reduction, and lower CapEx and OpEx. It allows telecom companies to add services more quickly, respond faster to changes in demand, and centrally manage their resources more efficiently.
Today, fast-developing cloud computing tools help telecommunications deliver better services to their customers and successfully compete and rapidly adjust to a constantly changing market. There are some more benefits that cloud technologies offer for Telco:
- Security and sovereignty. Telecommunication is a specifically delicate industry. Lots of sensitive data is ready for exchange every minute. No debate is needed to prove private cloud supremacy for playing this secure role. And when it comes to conforming to the sovereignty requirements in a specific country, the private cloud is the number one solution to assure full compliance with data sovereignty rules.
- Fast time-to-market. With cloud computing, telecom companies can deliver their products and services faster since they no longer have to procure individual pieces of hardware for each function in the network. Accelerate the deployment of new networking services to respond to market changes, conquer new shares and improve return on investment of new services.
- Build new opportunities with 5G. Today 5G is a strategic imperative for all the leading mobile operators. Effectively monetizing the 5G network requires the new core and edge network capabilities that Telco cloud provides.
- Use that data! Cloud providers enable telco operators to process and gain valuable insights from the massive amount of data generated in this industry. Thanks to AI, data science and data analytics operations can be improved and deliver better service; operators can make strategic decisions based on information obtained from the data.
- Networking automation. Cloud enables the automation of daily manual processes, thanks to continuous integration, testing and deployment. Modern networks can analyze their performance and solve issues in real-time, which boosts overall customer satisfaction.
Why cloud privacy matters
Telco cloud is typically private and not by chance; there are quite a few reasons why. The network has different requirements for latency, security and resiliency and requires a dedicated cloud. Private cloud provides telco with on-demand resources and scalability, reliability and cost-efficiency. Telco cloud needs high data availability and enhanced control to support applications with specific demands for low latency, colossal storage volumes, specialized compute resources, such as virtualized network functions, radio area networks, and edge apps and services.
Moreover, private clouds might be the only choice in order to comply with industry or government sovereignty regulations. Private cloud is also best suited for applications and services with consistent operational demand and 24×7 technical support necessity, like IPTV and live streaming video. Such sorts of workloads could result in enormous consumption costs on public clouds.
Nowadays, discussions around the right choice of cloud technologies for telecommunications are heated by debates on the hybrid cloud approach, its benefits, and the risks that should be considered. At first glance, the hybrid cloud seems to be a good choice, but we can notice essential details that can be risky for the telecom operator or Internet provider and their customers.
Relying a vast part of a company’s computing on hyper scalers, major cloud giants and absolute market share leaders, and using their services for data processing and storage for sure allow you to build a huge “empire”, as in the case of Netflix, a well-known video stream company. However, it also means that the company is not in control over the data and workload anymore. The corporation is now totally dependent on its famous hyper-scale cloud provider. The Netflix executives are soundly worried about the situation when any disputable questions with their hyper-scale cloud partner occur. In such a case, the influential cloud provider can significantly impact Netflix operations and threaten the business processes and reputation.
There is an unpleasant paradox that due to its extreme growth and success Netflix faces a real problem that is very complex to solve. The reason is a powerful and influential cloud partner that promised to support but now wants to bite the cake. It is hard to get an organization-wide solution relying on a public cloud provider. One day its volumes and power can turn into a problem. Moreover, most public cloud technologies compete with each other. They are incompatible, and switching from one provider to another is not easy at all.
Get the most out of the cloud with OpenStack
Thanks to the versatility of OpenStack and Kubernetes private cloud environments, Telcos can increase network agility and lower cloud costs. However, a comprehensive life-cycle cloud management solution is needed to deploy a flexible, reliable and highly scalable computing environment.
FishOS addresses all these challenges. Firstly, FishOS offers a complete HCI OpenStack solution that lets enterprises quickly implement an efficient and scalable cloud platform. Secondly, the cloud solution comes with a zero-downtime upgrade for traditional enterprise workloads and next-gen applications.
Radcom Network Intelligence is a leading expert in cloud-native, container-based network intelligence solutions for telecom operators transitioning to NFVs and 5G. The company has chosen the FishOS platform with the primary goal to benefit from a highly scalable Software-Defined Data Center solution that can easily enable a flexible and agile computing environment to meet the dynamic and rapidly growing workload. With FishOS, Radcom saves costs from the first day of the system implementation and ensures optimal TCO and resource utilization.
Miko David, VP of R&D at RADCOM, said:
“FishOS solution enabled RADCOM to reduce the time of system deployment from weeks to hours. Adding their advanced FishOS features like flexible and on-demand deployment, efficient and scalable operations, and zero-downtime upgrade empowered us to achieve the essential workloads and fast development of RADCOM market-leading Network Intelligence product.”
OpenStack is a reasonable choice for Telco cloud; it avoids any vendor lock-in situations while delivering the benefits of fast innovation and constant improvement. OpenStack has become the standard of open source NFV infrastructure, and Sardina’s FishOS brings it to the next level. FishOS allows vendors and operators to create optimal private cloud environments and run telecom workloads securely and efficiently.
