As network vendors like Mellanox describe, there has quickly become an industry-wide recognition around the Telco sector that the key to an SDN/NFV strategy is to embrace the ‘Cloud Native’ trend.
“By the way, the same revolution is happening in the application space, as applications are moving to be cloud-native to support agile innovations. Being cloud-native means that applications become micro-services oriented, container packaged, and dynamically managed,”
Applying the trend to the specifics of the Telco industry they define a next-generation architecture for networking infrastructure that is open and can be constructed flexibly from basic components:
- Network disaggregation (into modular components).
- Open and unified abstraction interface between these components.
- Automated composition and orchestration, with efficient middleware that can pool these abstracted resources, and orchestrate them on demand.
This a seismic shift for the sector, an ‘inflection point’ of the largest order, as the combined entity of the Telco OSS platforms and the ISV supplier community will undergo the same ‘Monolith to Microservices’ transformation that the enterprise applications sector is also currently experiencing, inspired by the digital natives like Netflix.
In short Microservices and Cloud are transforming the very nature of software development itself, in terms of how all enterprise software scenarios are conceived and approached, and this trend is now encompassing the Telco sector and acting as an accelerant for NFV architectures.
Cloud Native Disruption
The details of the Cloud Native model itself for this scenario is also very effectively described by enterprise vendor Gigaspaces, who have tailored their Cloudify platform for the sector.
In recent marketing materials they describe the ‘Road to Cloud Native’. A presentation and a white paper describe how vendors like Ruckus Wireless have re-engineered their core product to be Cloud Native, not only transforming the software itself but also their core business model.
The ‘Cloud Native Disruption’ they describe refers to the fact that virtualizing traditional software is only the first step, that achieving a full Cloud Native design requires further adaptation in critical areas including:
- Built-in Cloud support
- Container packaging
- Multi-tenant architecture
- XaaS Licencing Model
Therefore for network function vendors their journey is one mainly characterized by these aspects of product re-engineering, the Road to Cloud Native.
Cloud Native Marketplaces
It’s probably the best product investment they’d ever make, especially for early adopter fast movers. As industry news highlights the Telco community is currently undertaking an industry-wide effort to build NFV marketplaces, such as AT&T announcing that they are looking for a marketplace of Cloud Native ready VNF suppliers.
Given the above engineering efforts it’s easy to see that the industry is still in its earliest infancy, and so there are still missing build blocks, not just the vendor liquidity but also basics like widespread XaaS licencing. Gigaspaces repeat a key dynamic identified by Orange, that vendor software licencing models still have to catch up.
Hence why standards initiatives like VNF On Boarding are essential, they are stipulating the first building blocks and these industry efforts will coalesce into actual marketplaces – ‘NFV Ecosystems’ of many vendors like Ruckus, who have also made the smart move of transforming their software so that it can be distributed through these new channels.
As network vendors like Mellanox describe, there has quickly become an industry-wide recognition around the Telco sector that the key to an SDN/NFV strategy is to embrace the ‘Cloud Native’ trend.
“By the way, the same revolution is happening in the application space, as applications are moving to be cloud-native to support agile innovations. Being cloud-native means that applications become micro-services oriented, container packaged, and dynamically managed,”
Applying the trend to the specifics of the Telco industry they define a next-generation architecture for networking infrastructure that is open and can be constructed flexibly from basic components:
- Network disaggregation (into modular components).
- Open and unified abstraction interface between these components.
- Automated composition and orchestration, with efficient middleware that can pool these abstracted resources, and orchestrate them on demand.
This a seismic shift for the sector, an ‘inflection point’ of the largest order, as the combined entity of the Telco OSS platforms and the ISV supplier community will undergo the same ‘Monolith to Microservices’ transformation that the enterprise applications sector is also currently experiencing, inspired by the digital natives like Netflix.
In short Microservices and Cloud are transforming the very nature of software development itself, in terms of how all enterprise software scenarios are conceived and approached, and this trend is now encompassing the Telco sector and acting as an accelerant for NFV architectures.
Cloud Native Disruption
The details of the Cloud Native model itself for this scenario is also very effectively described by enterprise vendor Gigaspaces, who have tailored their Cloudify platform for the sector.
In recent marketing materials they describe the ‘Road to Cloud Native’. A presentation and a white paper describe how vendors like Ruckus Wireless have re-engineered their core product to be Cloud Native, not only transforming the software itself but also their core business model.
The ‘Cloud Native Disruption’ they describe refers to the fact that virtualizing traditional software is only the first step, that achieving a full Cloud Native design requires further adaptation in critical areas including:
- Built-in Cloud support
- Container packaging
- Multi-tenant architecture
- XaaS Licencing Model
Therefore for network function vendors their journey is one mainly characterized by these aspects of product re-engineering, the Road to Cloud Native.
Cloud Native Marketplaces
It’s probably the best product investment they’d ever make, especially for early adopter fast movers. As industry news highlights the Telco community is currently undertaking an industry-wide effort to build NFV marketplaces, such as AT&T announcing that they are looking for a marketplace of Cloud Native ready VNF suppliers.
Given the above engineering efforts it’s easy to see that the industry is still in its earliest infancy, and so there are still missing build blocks, not just the vendor liquidity but also basics like widespread XaaS licencing. Gigaspaces repeat a key dynamic identified by Orange, that vendor software licencing models still have to catch up.
Hence why standards initiatives like VNF On Boarding are essential, they are stipulating the first building blocks and these industry efforts will coalesce into actual marketplaces – ‘NFV Ecosystems’ of many vendors like Ruckus, who have also made the smart move of transforming their software so that it can be distributed through these new channels.
