Taking the Next Transformation Step With Telco Cloud
Dan Teichman
Director, Solutions Marketing, Ribbon
With communications evolving at a dizzying pace, service providers of all stripes are challenged to adopt the latest technologies and reshape their businesses for the new world. Telco Cloud, an area Ribbon is deeply focused on, is one of the key components in helping operators transform successfully.
Cloud Native Networks
Adopting cloud native technologies leads to a software-defined, highly resilient infrastructure enabling providers to add services more quickly, respond to changes in demand more nimbly, and manage their resources more efficiently. A key attribute of this is increased automation at the management layer.
Container-based cloud native network functions offer telcos new deployment options, increasing their ability to flexibly extend the geographic reach for their services and meet new service performance requirements. In our view, cloud native technology and operations processes provide the new core and edge network capabilities that enable mobile operators to build new 5G revenue streams.
Telco Cloud
Embracing the Telco Cloud enables providers to quickly and economically bring highly customized enterprise-oriented solutions to market by making it easy to co-create with enterprise partners using public/private/hybrid cloud services offers with anytime, anywhere, any device access.
These benefits, however, do not occur instantaneously, especially for existing networks -- transforming mobile and fixed networks to cloud native architectures and service delivery is a multi-step process. In addition to the network infrastructure, network functions software used for service delivery and other operations must be updated and transformed in order to realize full web-scale, cloud-based services.
Ribbon’s Telco Cloud portfolio consists of an extensive set of network functions, operational processes and an automation solution. Cloud native network functions include session border controllers, policy control & routing, VoIP application server and call controllers, media resource processing, IMS for 4G & 5G voice, application management, and analytics for network and service operations, network planning, and fraud prevention. The portfolio can be deployed on various cloud environments and infrastructure platforms.
We work with our service provider partners at all stages of their network transformation journey, delivering backward-compatible solutions that share common feature software and cost-efficient automated operations processes. With Ribbon, our customers can optimally manage their network transformation journey, while knowing they will continue to deliver secure voice communications.
Cloud Native CI/CD
Ribbon has adopted cloud native Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practices, both internally for our hosted services offers, and to align with our customers’ practices and processes. Frequent software releases and tightly integrated continuous testing enhance speed to market, reduce deployment issues, and enable rapid problem resolution. Once a product or service is deployed, the customer’s operations and orchestration platforms fit into the CI/CD cycle with continuous monitoring and a feedback loop for planning. Adopting cloud native operations also offers the benefits that can be gained through process automation. Ribbon’s cloud native Automation solution is designed to automate software delivery, software testing and configuration, as well as integrate lifecycle management through Kubernetes. Ribbon Automation easily integrates into any automation environment such as CI/CD pipeline, Services Orchestrator or even script execution based on a single command.
Looking ahead with Telco Cloud
With the increasing number of 5G announcements and commitments being made, telecom providers must keep up technologically to remain competitive and profitable. Ribbon’s Telco Cloud software and portfolio helps them do just that, easily and efficiently.
