The role of telco cloud
As the telco transformation journey continues, it becomes obvious that not all established strategies are fit for purpose and telcos need to rethink their approach in order to retain their position in the market. Big 5G will explore the challenges and opportunities for telcos that are undergoing cloud transformation. From a more strategic level of building partnerships with hyperscalers and moving processes to the public cloud to more technical areas of the programmable network, multi-cloud migration, security and service assurance solutions.
Telco Cloud at Big 5G
Public and multi-cloud
Programmable network
Partnerships with hyperscalers
Sustainability
Automation and AI
API implementation
Service assurance
Security
What you'll hear...
How are telcos migrating? What are the benefits and pitfalls of this migration, process questions and more at Big 5G 2023
Telco network cloud stack for 2022–27 ($m)
A major driver of the demand for telco network cloud will be the softwarization of the mobile core. Running 4G core functions in VMs is relatively mature, and operators are now getting to grips with running 5G core functions as containerized workloads. This was also reflected in Omdia’s Telco Cloud Evolution Survey – 2022, in which over 60% of the survey respondents said they would need to package 5G core network functions in containers.
What are the biggest barriers to running network functions on a public and/or private cloud?
Omdia asked the market to identify their top concerns with using public and/or private clouds to run network functions. The most common responses were security concerns (69%) and lack of skills internally (53%).
For some time, telcos have cited security concerns arising thanks to multitenancy on public cloud infrastructure. The recent interest can be tied to securing containers that are considered more vulnerable compared with virtualized network function (VNF) deployments. Many telcos face challenges integrating modern security approaches such as DevSecOps while transforming internal operations.
The telco network cloud market: Public cloud IaaS and CaaS
Omdia’s Hyperscaler Telco-Workload Tracker – 2022 report found that announcements regarding hosting core network functions in the public cloud were limited and mainly relate to 5G core. Virtualized RAN functions (e.g., DU and CU) are currently less prevalent, as are announcements related to 4G core. The challenges of running mobile core functions in the public cloud include traffic costs associated with elements such as the User Plane Function (UPF) and specific technical challenges, such as network tapping and load balancing.
Who is Speaking?
Supporting Resources
2023 Trends to Watch: Telco Cloud and Network Automation
2023 Trends to Watch: Service Provider Operations and IT
Telco Network Cloud Market Forecast Report 2022 - 2027
Upcoming Digital Events Include
- The transition to cloud native computing and its benefits, webinar – 21 February
- Edge Computing Digital Symposium, digital symposium – 21 March
- Telco cloud evolution and operations transformation, webinar – 14 April
- The Programmable Telco, Digital symposium – 10 May
- The Role of Open Source in the Cloud, webinar – 27 June
- Intelligent automation and OSS/BSS transformation, webinar – 21 September
- Cloud monetisation, webinar – 10 October
- Enterprise Edge services: Opportunities and challenges for telcos, MSPs and IT service providers, webinar – 19 October
- Making hybrid & multi-cloud a strategic cloud architecture, webinar – 7 November
- Partnering at the edge: strengthening telcos beyond connectivity and the role of hyperscalers, digital symposium – 22 November