The telco cloud supports a CSP's virtualized network functions, internal IT applications and external cloud services. Rather than operating each cloud as a separate silo, the aim is to use shared resources albeit with segmentation for security and quality control.

The workloads for NFV, IT and enterprise services are very different. NFV workloads generally require high throughput, low latency and high availability. In contrast, IT workloads generally have high disk space requirements and need high input/output operations per second. This panel will examine how network and IT operations teams coexist on the same platform.

One of the things that the industry must do to capitalize on virtualization and 5G is embrace the public cloud, leveraging those assets to complement private cloud resources and to help the migration away from legacy systems. The use of public cloud to host OSS and BSS is today typically restricted to new entrants including new brands that existing MNOs launch for market segmentation purposes.

However, according to a recent TM Forum CTIO survey, the majority of CSPs have less than 10% of their OSS and BSS in the cloud (private or public). What is holding operators back? This series of lightning talks will address the challenges to implementing public cloud to host OSS/BSS such as privacy and security concerns, performance reliability, costs, lack of skills, and general resistance to change. In addition, presenters will discuss how to overcome these challenges in order to achieve the potential cost savings of public cloud as well as the agility and software development capabilities offered.

The 5G network brings a new radio and a new core. It includes a new transport network architecture, and new technologies such as network slicing and mobile access edge computing—which increase network complexity and introduce new challenges for operations. The traditional approach of bolting on manual workflows will not be economical. Testing and service assurance activities have historically been very manual, reactive and time-consuming.

This panel will address how automating these workflows can represent a quick win for operations. In addition, this panelists will discuss how automated active testing and service assurance can deliver immediate benefits for existing, hardware-based 4G networks and help prepare for the operation of new virtualized and cloud-native 5G networks.

The telecom industry has barely gotten to grips with virtualization but the cool kids have already moved on to containerization.

• Does that require monolithic VNFs and OSS to be re-written as microservices?
• Or can operators benefit from running existing applications in containers and orchestrating them with Kubernetes?
• How will applications perform in this environment?

Some operators believe that containers represent the only viable route to building and scaling 5G networks. Using containers, operators could reboot systems far more speedily than with virtual machines. Others are skeptical about the security and complexity of such an approach. This panel examines both sides of the coin.

The conference will close with a highly interactive session, giving delegates the opportunity to join the discussion and draw together the day's key themes and most important conversations.

Join a group of peers and a service provider to hear about their real-world experiences. In addition, get a chance to discuss it with them over a glass of wine, beer or a soft drink. Moderators will help direct the discussion and post key themes to white boards available in the room. At the end of the session, we'll regroup to share what was discussed at each break-out group.

Topics for discussion will include:

• Challenges of Moving Toward Containerization
• Developing an Internal DevOps culture
• Extending Network Visibility into the Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud: what is the right balance of Public & Private?