Operators can remain successful but risk missing out on new revenue streams and being relegated to a less important role in the connectivity ecosystem if they don’t pursue key as-a-service offerings, a ServiceNow executive told Fierce.

On Tuesday, June 8, a panel of experts will delve into the challenges and opportunities around Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings during FierceTelecom’s free summer Blitz Week event. Ahead of the session, ServiceNow director of product management Tom Schnarr told Fierce telcos do have the option to pursue a pure connectivity play, but will lose out on an opportunity to own the end customer as the technology landscape shifts.

“There will always be a demand for network and connectivity services, so the telco industry will continue to provide that. But now there’s more and more competition in that telco industry,” he said, adding as-a-service offerings represent “an opportunity to make great new amounts of revenue but it’s also a risk in their footprint and to the current offerings they have.”

For those not in the know, Google Cloud senior director of outbound product management for telecom and edge Gabriele Di Piazza explained NaaS “is a model in which customers rent networking services from a third-party vendor instead of building their own network infrastructure.” Meanwhile, PaaS and IaaS are both cloud computing models, with the former allowing customers to run and manage cloud applications and the latter providing resources such as capacity on demand, he said.

Di Piazza told Fierce enterprises are adopting these service models “to keep up with changing business requirements, new application needs, security threats [and] increased complexity” and reap the benefits of “greater speed, agility, scale and reduced costs.”

In terms of whether telcos or cloud players should be the one to deliver them, Di Piazza said “there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach for providing these services.” He acknowledged there are benefits to telcos and cloud companies working together in some cases, noting a cloud network like Google’s can “pair very nicely” with that of a CSP to provide global reach and scale.

Schnarr had slightly different take, arguing telcos have an leg up in this space – at least for the time being. “The telcos have a critical asset, they own the network and the network is a critical part of this capability,” he said, but warned cloud players “are building their own networks and they can lease the spectrum.”

“That network and the ability to move the workload around is an advantage the telcos have that the cloud providers are going to be gaining as quickly as they can,” he stated.

In terms of where to start the as-a-service journey, Schnarr said it’s important for telcos to begin developing a service model and catalog. “It really starts with that, how do you describe your capabilities from a technical perspective so now there can be modularity built up into the offer we want to make available…It can then follow a consistent pattern,” he explained.

Schnarr added the process of deploying as-a-service offerings should be thought of as a marathon rather than a sprint. For example, he said, one Tier-1 operator ServiceNow works with started with just one product, which took about six weeks to model. Since then, it’s been able to onboard additional services at a pace of one about every four weeks. “It’s going to take us several years before we get all their services on board, but the snowball is quickly building and we’re able to increase the speed as momentum grows,” he concluded.

AvidThink Principal Analyst Roy Chua will kick off the FierceTelecom Summer Blitz virtual event next week with a presentation on the topic of cloud native.

It’s an important topic because practically every telco in the world is in the process of introducing cloud-native technologies in its network.

Some greenfield operators such as Rakuten and Dish are building their networks with cloud-native technology from the onset.

Dish recently announced that it will use Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud to host its core and radio access network (RAN) for 5G. Chua said, “Dish is actually betting their whole farm on AWS.”

One thing that the panelists will discuss next week is the definition of cloud native. Chua said it is rather ambiguously defined. “At the highest level it’s building your applications to use the cloud delivery model and provide services in the cloud. Inside that, the technologies that are usually part of it are containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, the use of automation and the use of continuous integration and continuous delivery.”

Cloud native offers the ability to develop apps faster and to scale them to much larger numbers than is possible with traditional applications. Cloud-native applications also lower operational costs and require less effort to manage.

However, cloud native has some of its own challenges.

It’s a collection of services that are spun up as needed, and they have to coordinate and talk amongst each other. Chua said trouble-shooting can be tricky because microservices are ephemeral. If there’s a problem, the microservices may go away before the problem is fixed.

And in a cloud-native architecture, everything is disaggregated. “Disaggregation is great, but you have to put things back together,” he said. “That’s where Kubernetes comes in. It gives you a relatively lean way of orchestrating and managing your cloud-native, containerized services.”

Verizon is doing cloud native

Miguel Carames, director of network and technology planning at Verizon, will be speaking on next week’s FierceTelecom panel. Of cloud native, he said, “It’s all about decoupling the app from the infrastructure and getting more common services provided by the infrastructure itself.”

He said cloud native is much more efficient because it eliminates a lot of duplication. Traditionally, each application had a lot of administrative functions, and those were replicated across all the applications. “Cloud native is: find these common functions and make sure this is provided by the platform,” said Carames. “The containers that are handling can access that information as needed, but they can go to these microservices where the state is stored as opposed to having to replicate. This is all built in our telco cloud.”

Verizon’s telco cloud is known as the Verizon Cloud Platform (VCP). It has different flavors with different capabilities depending on where it is deployed in the network, whether core, edge or RAN.

“When we started this virtualization journey, containers were not mature enough to trust for telco workloads,” said Carames. Instead, Verizon built its VCP using OpenStack software. But its new 5G standalone core is being built with cloud-native software. “Things that are already in OpenStack we will leverage them because we already made the investment, we’ll have that in the network,” he said. “But as we get to end-of-life considerations on hardware, we will be moving legacy to cloud native as well. Everything that is new will be deployed in cloud native.”

Of the challenges to moving to cloud native, Carames cited people and culture. “We need to train all the teams, even the planning role. You need operations and planning to be a lot more aware and understand how apps interact.”

He said the other challenge relates to working with Verizon’s vendors. “In many ways our vendors provide something, but we provide the platform, and we have to share our specs so they can come and integrate. The network vendors need to know the architecture.”

Speaking of vendors, Ericsson VP of Core, IT & Cloud Technology Ravi Vaidyanathan will also be participating on the Fierce panel next week. His group at Ericsson is helping operators on their cloud-native journey. “We have our cloud infrastructure offering — a telco-grade, container-as-a-service platform based on open source Kubernetes,” said Vaidyanathan. “We’re working on the bare metal versions of cloud native.”

He said when it comes to applications, Ericsson has used 5G as a key transition technology to build a 5G portfolio from the ground up as cloud native.

Similar to Carames, he said one of the big benefits of a cloud-native architecture is that common features don’t have to be replicated myriad times. “I can focus on my network functions,” said Vaidyanathan. “I don’t need to focus on something like logging.”

Another benefit of cloud native is streamlined operations and the rapid pace of introducing new features. “Amazon launches dozens of services every day,” said Vaidyanathan. “Telcos are aspirational at looking to match that pace.”

While Ericsson has been helping telcos on their cloud-native journey, the vendor decided to also adopt cloud-native processes for it own internal software development.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the acquisition of ReFirm Labs, a provider of security solutions for organizations using Internet of Things (IoT) and network edge devices.

Fulton, Md.-based ReFirm Labs was founded by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) hackers in 2017, producing security products for large enterprises and small-to-medium businesses. Its inception started earlier, in 2010, with the Binwalk Open Source project, designed to help security analysts extract firmware images from devices, according to a ReFirm Labs announcement.

ReFirm’s Web site is fairly upfront about its team coming from the NSA, per a company blurb:

Our team is composed of former offensive cyber professionals from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), where we specialized in the weaponization of device vulnerabilities. When IoT adoption exploded across the commercial sector, we knew that more businesses than ever were exposing themselves to attacks — so we turned our offensive cyber innovations into proactive tools for corporate leaders.

Microsoft is buying ReFirm Labs “to enrich our firmware analysis and security capabilities across devices that form the intelligent edge, from servers to IoT,” according to David Weston, Microsoft’s director of enterprise and OS security, in the announcement. To that end, it’s adding ReFirm Lab’s Centrifuge firmware platform, he added.

Centrifuge was replaced with Binwalk Enterprise, an analysis product designed for use by larger organizations such as telcos and device manufacturers, according to a January ReFirm Labs announcement. Binwalk Teams is the company’s other product for small and midsize organizations. The product differences have to do with things like the availability of policy and compliance reporting capabilities, and more, as described in this product comparison sheet (PDF).

It’s not clear from the company announcements whether ReFirm Labs’ products will continue to be sold. Microsoft’s announcement suggested they will be folded into Microsoft products. The deal’s terms weren’t described.

Weston described the ReFirm Labs acquisition as being synergistic to Microsoft’s earlier acquisition a year ago of CyberX, which built security solutions for both IoT devices and the operational technology used in industrial systems. Microsoft was a partner with CyberX before acquiring the company, and CyberX’s technology was later added to Microsoft’s Azure Defender for IoT security solution.

The ReFirm Labs acquisition will be used to help both builders of IoT and Edge devices and their customers, Microsoft contended. It offered the following illustration to that effect:

Microsoft explained in a video that IoT device builders are unintentionally shipping devices with software exposed to “known threats” that then get sold to businesses. Those businesses also are unaware of the flaws, mostly because it’s difficult to detect vulnerabilities at the firmware level. The ReFirm Labs addition will bolster Azure Defender for IoT to detect the problems, adding “firmware protection, certificates and device updates” capabilities. Device builders can address vulnerabilities early on by uploading their firmware for analysis in Microsoft’s cloud.

The acquisition adds to Microsoft’s general efforts to address security issues at the firmware level. Other efforts along those lines, according to the announcement, include Microsoft’s Pluton security processor, Secured-core PCs and Microsoft’s emerging Windows Server 2022 Secured-core server approach.

Telefónica on Friday said it reached a clear milestone for cloud-native 5G plans in Brazil, validating Amazon Web Services (AWS) Outposts as “an effective infrastructure option” to deploy core technology for standalone (SA) services in the country.

Telefónica is looking to increase automation and drive new revenues with cloud-based SA 5G platforms. In Brazil, the work with AWS means the operator’s Vivo brand has a way to build out 5G more quickly and introduce new network processes – with Telefónica calling out Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Continuous Testing (CI/CD/CT).

“Thanks to this project, Telefónica has reached a clear milestone in its 5G plans in Brazil and also for its deployment strategy in the group, where cloud native 5G platforms allow a wide range of private and public infrastructure options,” said Cayetano Carbajo, director of Core, Transport and Service Platforms for Telefónica’s global CTIO team, in a statement.

Testing by Telefónica’s Vivo brand demonstrated functionality, onboarding and spinning up network functions over AWS, in both the AWS South America Region and on-prem data centers via AWS Outposts.

A trio of vendors provided SA 5G core software, with network functions from Mavenir, Nokia and Oracle. Spirent Communications helped validate the end-to-end system, using its core network testing product to verify control plane functionality and high-load testing for user plane performance running in AWS South America Region and on AWS Outputs.

The tests showed that Telefónica’s Vivo can build its 5G core on AWS going forward, as one of the latest operators looking at cloud infrastructure for standalone 5G.

In the U.S. Dish Network is building out a brand-new SA 5G network with open radio access network (open RAN) architecture and using AWS to host, the first major telco to do so. Mavenir, Nokia and Oracle are suppliers for its 5G core.

Fabio Cerone, managing director of EMEA Telco for AWS, in a statement expressed excitement that Telefónica’s Vivo validated AWS Outposts “as one of their best options” for deploying a 5G core network.

“With the option to build their 5G Core on AWS, Telefónica is opening the door to leveraging AWS’s breadth and depth of cloud services across their on-premises locations,” Cerone continued. “With AWS, Telefónica can fully automate their network and dynamically scale and allocate their 5G network capacity to meet the needs of their business and consumer customers.”

Mavenir just disclosed tighter integration with AWS, collaborating to offer cloud-based network functions to telcos on AWS computing infrastructure.

The suite of cloud-based 5G products delivered on AWS include containerized and micro-serviced converged 4G/5G packet core, IMS, messaging, orchestration, AI, telco analytics and open RAN products.

Verizon also is working with AWS in the U.S., tapping the cloud player for mobile edge compute efforts.

Speaking earlier this week at a J.P. Morgan investor conference, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg talked about the partnership with Amazon and how the carrier is creating applications for customers seeking super low latency and ultra-high throughput – both with public and private 5G MEC.

“There are other companies that are thinking about offloading their software, their radio technology and being run on a cloud infrastructure. That’s a different way,” Vestberg said, according to transcript. “We are virtualizing our networks as well. But we’re not doing it on standard cloud infrastructure.”

That’s one of the big differences, he said, between Amazon’s efforts with Verizon versus with Dish

5G is clearly a new revolution which supports various new technologies – autonomous cars, augmented and virtual reality – by providing low latency and higher bandwidth on the network. For the first time, with 5G, telecom network workloads are shifted to cloud and becoming the service-based architecture (SBA) where network will be used to push services to subscribers. Additionally, edge clouds are being introduced which further extends 5G capabilities and delivers faster, reliable services by physically putting processing and storage capacity closer to the end user.

It is seen that telcos and hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are looking to make the most of opportunities which arise with 5G cloud and edge cloud. The concept of cloud-based 5G is completely new for telcos who are experienced in proving the last mile connectivity at every part of the continent or country. Hyperscalers are good at providing the agility, availability and innovation applications and have smooth operations globally. To tap the opportunities in edge, hyperscalers came up with new solutions – Outposts and Wavelength, Azure Edge Zones, Google Anthos – to stay in the hunt to deliver services from cloud to edges.

Additionally, the Open RAN movement, not just the edge, opens the door for telcos and hyperscalers to strategise the revenue model as it will involve more vendors participating in RAN innovation.

Cases where telcos and hyperscalers will work together
Despite having vast experience in managing services and operations of huge networks, due to cloud adoption for 5G, telecom networks cannot explode the network requirements like various upgrades of software component, network equipment and purpose-built hardware resources. Telecom networks need to build and strengthen the cloud-based platform and orchestrate the network function effectively to deliver agility in application deployments. Hyperscalers can help in this case to quickly roll out the infrastructure and platforms to monitor those components and scale or upgrade when needed.

The main reason for having edge cloud closer is for the end user to process and deliver data as swiftly as possible. This process also holds the state of data which is important for applications deployed at the edge. Telcos will need hyperscalers in this case so that it is possible to manage and distribute the data across various edges and towards end users.

It will continue to be time consuming for telcos to push NFV infrastructures which form the edge cloud that will be deployed at various data centre locations and further interconnection will be required to manage and orchestrate from a single pane of glass. Hyperscalers can help in this case to provide services around containers and orchestration platforms like Kubernetes to streamline service operations at NFV infrastructure level. Wavelength Zones and Azure Zones for instance can help in this case. This way hyperscalers get more control on the applications and services part of the network but it resolves the issues of faster deployment along with better control.

Recent innovations in telecom networks are capabilities such as zero touch operations and network-as-a-service which brings more power to extend the key forte of operators to manage vast networks. But with this ‘cloudification’, it is important to take into account the 5G services to be offered to customers and customised services offered through edge cloud. Various vendors are going to be involved in edge cloud to deploy their applications in various regions, such as startups, OTT providers, and established software vendors.

As per a KPMG report (pdf), by 2023, with a growth in the adoption of 5G and edge computing, the five target industries (industrial manufacturing, connected healthcare, intelligent transportation, gaming, and environmental monitoring) are forecast to generate US$500 billion in annual revenue into the entire ecosystem, including connectivity, hardware, software and services.

Considering this, it becomes important for both telcos and hyperscalers to join hands considering the proliferation of edge-based services. This will open up new revenue streams for both.

Furthermore, hyperscalers are powerful in terms of finances and capabilities around software applications (automation, reliability, security). But to stay in the 5G and edge game, hyperscalers lack the penetration in last-mile connectivity, and would like to use the extensive and vast network connectivity strength of telcos. Telcos are evolving to software-based nature at various stages – from cloud to edge and far edge – and hyperscalers will help them provide customers of desirable application with low latency.

Telcos also have the upper hand in terms of buying a spectrum from local governments to deploy their networks and procure the necessary licenses and approval to provide telecom services. By partnering with telcos, hyperscalers can theoretically bypass the need for having those licenses to deliver the cloud services.

Conclusion
Hyperscalers and telcos have their own strengths and weaknesses to deliver high performance 5G. Telcos are now advanced due to network automation and network-as-a-service capabilities, while hyperscalers are strong with data analytics, AI/ML, security and lifecycle management of software components and services. But both have their own limitations for 5G. At the customer end, after a spike in internet usage due to Covid-19 last year it is surely necessary that both should collaborate and evolve further to overcome future challenges in delivering services.

Software and automation specialists VMware and Accenture have announced the signing of an extended partnership that will see the pair launch a dedicated business group that will help organisations adopt a ‘cloud first’ strategy.

The new business unit will help enterprises and businesses accelerate their digital transformation efforts by streamlining their migration to the cloud, building modern apps more rapidly, and using the cloud as a fulcrum for innovation and new business models.

The new business group will form part of Accenture Cloud First, which Accenture launched in 2020 with a $3 billion investment to help businesses move and operate their businesses in the cloud.

Cloud is the single most powerful tool for mastering change,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer, Accenture.

“As organisations accelerate their move to the cloud and edge over the next few years, the Accenture VMware Business Group will help deliver the speed, scale and security they need to fundamentally reinvent their businesses and create more value.”

The Accenture VMware Business Group represents a new multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment from the two companies, and builds on over 20 years of collaboration between the two firms. The new business unit will be supported by approximately 2,000 Accenture cloud professionals trained in VMware products and services.

The two firms will develop a range of pre-engineered vertical industry solutions, including a platform to help telcos accelerate the rollout of 5G and edge computing services.

“To meet the demands of today’s unprecedented business environment, organisations must employ a multi-cloud strategy – more rapidly than ever before,” said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware.

“Increasingly, customers are running their applications on one or more clouds, datacenters and the edge and the Accenture VMware Business Group will bring together the world-class teams and expertise required, with the speed, agility, and resilience that organisations demand, today and tomorrow.”

The new business group will also launch a specialised VMware Cloud Migration Factory, which will allow customers to migrate their computing workloads to the cloud rapidly, more securely and confidently, using highly automated processes.

The VMware Cloud Migration Factory will give clients access to a controlled environment and dedicated resources to plan, test, migrate and modernise applications at scale to their preferred public, private and/or hybrid cloud.

“The pandemic brought about a new ‘next normal’ for organisations, one where they need to accelerate their use of cloud to modernise the business and serve as a foundation for innovation,” said Rick Villars, group vice president of worldwide research, IDC. “They recognise that public, private and hybrid cloud all play a critical role in this transition and they require technology cloud partners and service providers who are able to execute the strategies and provide the skills needed to drive this transformation faster than ever before.”

Optus has teamed up with VMware to offer the latter’s software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology to Australian enterprises as it expands its 5G network footprint across the country.

The telco said enterprises can make use of VMware’s SD-WAN technology, which works across fixed and wireless networks, to tap 5G as their primary connection to speed up IT deployment with lower latency.

Deon Liebenberg, vice-president of product innovation at Optus Enterprise, said the partnership with VMware was part of a broader strategy to provide enterprises with a greater choice of digital networking solutions.

In particular, he singled out VMware’s dynamic multipath optimisation, an SD-WAN feature that lets enterprises measure live network conditions and maximise network performance.

“The service will also enhance user experiences across common business tools, such as Microsoft 365 and Amazon Web Services-delivered cloud services. By combining Optus’s 4G and 5G networks with VMware SD-WAN, we look forward to enabling transformative cloud access and mobile experience, particularly for branch and home users,” said Liebenberg.

Ron Longo, VMware’s vice-president for worldwide service provider sales, added that the relationship with Optus would help to “reduce network complexity and give IT teams more time to focus on other business challenges and drive innovation and strategic outcomes across their business”.

SD-WAN has taken off faster in Australia than other markets, partly due to the migration of last-mile access to the country’s national broadband network.

According to technology research firm GlobalData, nearly 60% of enterprises with more than 200 employees have already deployed SD-WAN and one in three are considering implementing it in the next 12 months.

“While cost-saving has been part of the motivation to adopt SD-WAN, better security and network management is also a key benefit,” said Siow Meng Soh, senior technology analyst at GlobalData.

Australia’s SD-WAN market is highly fragmented, however. GlobalData’s research shows that Cisco and VMware are ahead of the pack, but Aryaka, Silver Peak and Fortinet are also popular, with each having over 10% of market share in Australia.

Soh said SD-WAN vendors were trying to gain market share by working with different channel partners, including systems integrators, resellers and local providers such as telcos.

According to GlobalData, nearly 10% of enterprises were interested in buying SD-WAN directly from vendors and nearly 20% indicated telcos as their preferred option.

As more businesses move to the cloud, SD-WAN will play an increasingly important role in providing users with access to applications and data.

“SD-WAN has a bigger role to play as businesses look to simplify branch networking, increase the use of cloud-based services and adopt remote working,” said Soh. “As a result, companies need to also have a long-term network strategy instead of treating SD-WAN as a standalone solution which delivers quick fixes.”

Google’s Monday outage lasted just 45 minutes, barely enough time for online chitchat about a Chinese cyberattack to circulate. But for some people the planet might as well have been hit by a solar flare

Email systems used by millions were inaccessible, Google Docs was sealed off and even YouTube’s exabytes of video narcissism simply disappeared. Housebound workers brewed coffee as they pondered life after the public cloud – a return to ox-driven plows and slate-based records, perhaps.

The economic cost of this 45-minute outage is likely to matter. A temporary Internet shutdown reportedly costs the British economy about $141 million a day. This was not so bad, and yet an Internet without Google is a shuttered office block for those reliant on its suite of digital services. Extrapolate this globally – millions temporarily barred from entering the workplace – and the damage becomes clear.

Thankfully, Google’s engineers had the systems back up while the coffee was still warm. But imagine if the outage had lasted several hours, or a day? That alone should make companies stop and think before they park their IT systems in the public cloud. And yet there is little sign of caution. Wary executives are pilloried as dim-witted Luddites. Organizations laud tie-ups with public cloud providers as if they are no-risk deals.

Telecom firms are buying in. Giffgaff, a UK mobile virtual network operator owned by Spain’s Telefónica, yesterday became an AWS tenant in worrisome news for the IT employees who currently manage Giffgaff’s systems. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom announced a similar relationship with Microsoft Azure last week. Both those deals came after Nokia, a Finnish maker of telecom equipment, picked Google as its public cloud partner in November.

Evangelists preach about efficiency. Running IT systems from the public cloud is much cheaper than maintaining on-premises or private cloud equipment and staff. Three, the smallest of the UK’s four mobile network operators, last year said it would cut IT expenses by a third, and jobs by 15%, thanks to its own arrangements with Microsoft Azure. Squeezed service providers see a way to juice profits.

Hyperscale oligopoly

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the public cloud. Complaining about any use of it would be ludicrous when the Internet underpins so much economic activity. The problem is that so few companies qualify as public cloud providers. Ignore the Chinese, and the only genuine “hyperscale” firms are AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Their collective muscle makes it virtually impossible for anyone else to compete. And that means companies are dependent on just three US giants for some of their most critical systems.

CAST AI says its new software is being used by telcos, payment platforms and fintech companies to enable them to use multi-cloud environments more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The Miami-based startup has just closed its $7.7 million seed funding round. This first tranche of money has been raised by DNX Ventures, Florida Funders, as well as Ukrainian venture capital firm TA Ventures, and other angel investors. The startup was founded in October 2019 by employees from Oracle, Zenedge and various other companies.

Laurent Gil, co-founder and chief product officer at CAST AI, says that the startup’s multi-cloud platform allows users to mix and match public cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle.

“The company was born out of the realization that we wanted to give freedom back to the developer to deploy applications in a multi-cloud environment,” said Gil. Previous experience in a company that was “completely locked-in on AWS,” leading to a billing situation that was “out-of-control” motivated the startup to develop software that streamlines costs and maintains a robust multi-cloud environment.

The CAST AI platform can help set up multi-cloud Kubernetes with just a few clicks and can enable users to connect to several cloud accounts at once. The software can determine the best combination of price, compute power, and even location. “CAST is giving the developer the tool so they can let [the platform] decide on behalf of the developer what these machines should be, and where they should be located,” Gil said.

The software can also help protect firms against costly cloud outages, such as the prolonged AWS outage that occurred on November 25, 2020. The platform can automatically switch to other cloud service providers if an outage — or other technical difficulties — occur. According to Gil, “if there is a cloud failure, it doesn’t become a disaster.”

The CAST AI system can help companies quickly optimize clusters, scaling up or down, depending on need, in minutes. “You want to fit and only use what you strictly need, but no less, and no more,” Gil said.

The startup already has customers that are using its platform. Gil can’t name these customers yet, but says that the types of businesses that are using CAST typically require a lot of compute power and include cyber-security firms, fintech companies, payment platforms and North American telcos.

The increasing network of computers paved the way to numerous development in computing technologies like cloud computing. And with each advancement, there has been a seismic shift in trends that drive IT functions and operations. Even cloud trends are influenced by changes brought by the introduction of new disruptive technologies and evolving IT requirements. For instance, while Cloud 1.0 was a euphemism for hosted services, Cloud 2.0 brought us web-optimized apps, now Cloud 3.0 is leading with hybrid-cloud and hybrid multi-cloud services. However, while most of the IT companies have a hybrid cloud strategy in place, the IT departments are often struggling with it. Enter Distributed Cloud.

In technical parlance, distributed cloud is distribution of public cloud computing services to geographically dispersed infrastructure. This enables user to run public cloud infrastructure in multiple locations. So one can operate its public cloud infrastructure and also other cloud providers’ data centers, in third-party data centers or colocation centers – and manage everything from a single control plane. Here the responsibility for operation, governance, updates, lifecycle control, security, reliability and evolution of the services falls on the originating public cloud provider. Distributed cloud minimizes latency, network congestion, and risk of data loss, while bringing us closer to the end-user as a decentralized cloud system. According to Gartner’s report, this represents a significant shift from the centralized model of most public cloud services and will usher a new era in cloud computing.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to tremendous changes in economic conditions. Cloud providers had to expand their footprints to keep up evolving customer requirements, thus underwriting a new era of cloud services. Though existing hybrid cloud attempted enabling unified cloud strategy, enterprises have been struggling as private cloud and public cloud are two different implementations that need to be managed separately. With the customer-managed private cloud resources, the cloud providers managed public cloud resources; thus creating a bifurcated system.

Distributed cloud extends the cloud provider’s centralized services including offloading operations and governance to geographically distributed micro-cloud satellites and private cloud. It ensures that computation, storage, and networking are in a micro-cloud located outside the centralized cloud. Since this architecture involves adding cost-effective microprocessors it provides a better price/performance ratio when compared to a centralized computer which relies predominantly on mainframes. Also it provides greater visibility and management to existing hybrid cloud platforms, from one console, with a single set of tools.

This is why with distributed cloud, the physical location of where those data centers are located becomes increasingly important to reduce latency. Also since distributed cloud doesn’t require the energy-hungry cooling systems used for server racks, it is therefore, a much greener storage solution. In case a cloud platform goes down, users still have the app in another, implying distributed cloud yields better availability for each application. This also means, lower network failure risk because the cloud services can reside in local or semi-local subnets, allowing them to operate intermittently untethered.

Gartner anticipates two phases of distributed cloud computing. Phase I will involve like-for-like hybrid, where enterprise customers would buy cloud substations to replicate the promise of hybrid cloud and avoid latency-based problems. And in Phase II, which is also referred to as next-gen cloud, would comprise of utilities, universities, city governments and telcos, among others, buying cloud substations and opening them for use by near neighbors. Apart from these, it is also possible that third parties will participate in delivering a subset of centralized cloud services of major cloud providers.

In gist the distributed cloud improves the user experience of a network, thanks to its more computational power and geographical scalability. It also enhances security by surmounting the bottlenecks of regulatory compliance with specific data privacy regulations. Further, as data is split into small subsets and spread across a peer-to-peer network, it warrants that files are 100% private and accessible to user as they have been safely stored across the network. Simultaneously, with rising importance of Internet of Things (IoT) and other data-intensive systems, distributed cloud enables efficient end-to-end management for the optimal distribution of data, computing, and network connectivity.

Mobile service providers are spending billions of dollars building out nationwide 5G networks and are touting the benefits of the new services in TV and internet ads, but according to Accenture’s Communications & Media Industry Lead for North America Andrew Walker, those service providers are unlikely to see a rate of return when it comes to consumer subscriptions.

“It will be interesting to see whether they can raise prices,” he told RCR Wireless News, adding that they probably won’t be able to. “There’s no incremental revenue that they’re getting that they weren’t getting from 4G. It seems like a colossal waste of shareholder value.”

So, where is 5G going? Where is the value for telcos? For Accenture, the answer is cloud computing.

“We see 5G becoming the edge to enable cloud computing,” stated Walker. “There is a lot of focus around 5G as a transformative technology for businesses. Think about the image of dystopian movies like The Terminator, where the machines are making machines. 5G and the use cases we’re seeing right now [are about]how to make IoT work and achieve giant steps in thinks like productivity and worker safety.”

“If you have wicked fast speeds, now you’re able to do all of those analytics and super-fast computing in real time without having to plug in cables,” he continued.

The potential snag for operators is that cloud industry giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are emerging as huge competitors in this space.

“If you look at their capex spend and the undersea cables they’ve laid over the past few years,” began Walker, “essentially what they’ve built is a giant telecommunications network with processing and crazy speed ’round the globe.”

Naturally, this can be viewed as a major threat to telcos. But, that’s not the whole story.

According to Walker, what these tech giants are building — corporate date centers being transformed by the cloud — are “nice” and “neat,” but that without that last-mile connection being delivered by the telco— without fast connectivity speeds being delivered to the company, its employees and its machines—these cloud services “don’t deliver the value.”

“The telcos can deliver the edge cases and the connectivity and the speeds that make cloud far more impactful to businesses,” finished Walker.

A recent example is the July announcement that Accenture is working with AT&T to outfit Phillips 66, a 2,000-acre refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, with a private cellular network solution that will lay the foundation for potential future 5G use cases.

Walker provider further insight into the project: “We are working with AT&T to kind of overlay the network across the entire space and then start to look out how people are doing their jobs and how machines are interrelating. And all of this goes back to the cloud to look at safety, throughput, where there are leaks and spills. Now all of the sensors on the machines can immediately report back to whatever cloud provider they’re using and run all of the analytics.”

“Cloud is really cool,” he added, “but without the advanced network across these 2,000 acres, it doesn’t help the company a lot.”

BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — 5G Americas, the wireless industry trade consortium and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the election of VMware to its Board of Governors. VMware will join the wireless industry’s leading operators and manufacturers who are crucial to the deployment of 5G and beyond throughout the Americas region.

“VMware’s experience in disruptive technologies like edge computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning, Kubernetes orchestration and more– is defining the digital foundation that will accelerate the next wave of innovation,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas. “We are ecstatic to announce that VMware is joining the 5G Americas Board of Governors as we work towards a transformative connected 5G society.”

With the emergence of 5G, telcos have an opportunity to reinvent themselves, develop new business models, and engage with the larger innovation ecosystem to deliver new services that are more germane in the digital world. This transformation can require a virtualized and containerized telco cloud architecture to modernize legacy networks. VMware focuses on delivering the cost, agility, and scalability benefits of a cloud, tailored to communications service provider (CSP) needs including Telco Cloud Infrastructure, Telco Cloud Automation and Telco Cloud Operations. The company counts more than 100 communications service providers globally as customers serving millions of subscribers.

“As the CSPs scale out their systems with 5G, significant opportunities remain untapped,” said Kaniz Mahdi, Vice President, Advanced Technologies, Telco Edge and Cloud, VMware. “We are thrilled to join the 5G Americas Board of Governors and look forward to bridging the wireless and cloud industries for the digital transformation of our society with fusion of 5G, AI and Cloud.”

The addition of VMware to the association brings added expertise in the growing 5G technology wireless ecosystem, including areas such as those highlighted in 5G Americas white papers involving 5G and the Cloud and 5G at the Edge.

About 5G Americas: The Voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas

5G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization’s mission is to facilitate and advocate for the advancement and transformation of LTE, 5G and beyond throughout the Americas. 5G Americas is invested in developing a connected wireless community while leading 5G development for all the Americas. 5G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. More information is available at 5G Americas website and Twitter.

Samsung and VMWare are to collaborate on an extended 5G partnership, which will help telcos accelerate the rollout of their 5G networks across the globe.

The partnership will see VMWare optimise Samsung’s portfolio of products from Core to Edge to RAN for both containerised network functions (CNFs) and virtualised network functions (VNFs), using VMware Telco Cloud Platform.

“With innovative and open 5G networks beginning to transform the landscape, Samsung sees the value in delivering carrier-grade solutions with VMware that help CSPs easily embrace cloud native technology and efficiently deliver our network functions and services across their 5G networks with automation,” said Wonil Roh, senior vice president and head of Product Strategy and Networks Business at Samsung Electronics

The extended partnership represents a continuation of the pairs existing working relationship.

As part of the partnership, the companies have been working together at Samsung’s lab to optimise and accelerate the readiness of Samsung’s various VNFs and CNFs, such as vRAN, 5G Core, MEC, Management, and Analytics, with the VMware Telco Cloud Platform.

“The infrastructure supporting 5G will depend on virtualised and containerised network functions delivered from software-defined telco and edge cloud platforms,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware.

“We are thrilled to be working with Samsung to deliver carrier-grade solutions that leverage the VMware Telco Cloud portfolio to help CSPs seize this 5G moment and transform themselves into leading technology innovators.”

Microsoft has joined the MEF, a nonprofit industry association that aims to standardize various software-defined networking (SDN) technologies used by service providers and enterprises.

The MEF lays claim to having 200 member companies, with its board heavily representing telco and Internet service providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Ericsson, Orange and Verizon. Microsoft now joins the MEF, which in turn has appointed Shawn Hakl, a Microsoft partner executive on 5G strategy, as an MEF advisory director.

“Microsoft’s decision to join MEF aligns with key goals of our Microsoft Azure for Operators initiative to bring the power of the cloud to the network, unlock the potential of 5G, and drive down costs and create new services and business models,” Hakl said in a released statement.

Hakl formerly served as a senior vice president for business products at Verizon with a focus on edge computing and 5G services before joining Microsoft in March.

Microsoft’s MEF membership follows its somewhat recent moves into the carrier and service provider markets, offering edge computing and SDN technologies to telcos. For instance, its Azure datacenter compute and storage capabilities were recently touted as a “carrier-grade platform.”

To that end, Microsoft this year acquired Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch Networks. Both companies specialized in SDN support for carriers, especially as they upgrade mobile networks and add 5G wireless services.

The MEF is currently focused on nine projects covering software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and secure access service edge (SASE) efforts. It has efforts on developing specs for SD-WAN service attributes, application security, performance monitoring and testing, as well as “universal” edge networking aspects, for instance.

There’s also a project on standardizing SASE services and attributes. MEF’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration framework aims to accelerate automation between service provider networks and enterprise networks via standardization.

MEF lays claim to having published “the industry’s first global standard defining an SD-WAN service and its service attributes” back in July 2019, according to an “MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Services” FAQ document. The combination of SD-WAN use with standardization will make it easier for ” a wide range of ecosystem stakeholders to use the same terminology when buying, selling, assessing, deploying, and delivering SD-WAN services,” the FAQ contended.

Microsoft is expected to contribute specifically to the “MEF 3.0 SD-WAN and SASE standards,” per MEF’s announcement.