The open-source Kubernetes effort from The Linux Foundation and Google Cloud now has dozens of stakeholders, including telcos
The Linux Foundation’s Nephio project recently announced that it has added more supporters including Verizon, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and many others — 28 new organizations are now part of the initiative, bringing the total to more than 50. Together, they’re working to build a cloud-native and carrier-grade network automation platform based on Kubernetes, the increasingly ubiquitous microservices cloud app container orchestration system. The goal of the project is to unify automation control planes abstracted from infrastructure, to help make multivendor cloud deployment and management easier and more performant, through intent automation and automation templates.
“Nephio enables faster onboarding of network functions to production including provisioning of underlying cloud infrastructure with a true cloud native approach, and reduces costs of adoption of cloud and network infrastructure,” explains the project’s managers.
It is Kubernetes’ “configuration as data” paradigm which makes it an essential cornerstone of the Nephio project, according to the developers.
“Configuration-as-Data, or CaD, is a methodology for configuration management that rigorously enforces well-structured declarative configurations, and separates those configurations from the code that operates on them. This makes the configurations amenable to manipulation by well tested, reusable code, and enables robust, semantically aware merges of edits made by humans, bulk editing tools, and automations,” they wrote.
Reducing Kubernetes complexity for telcos
Nephio was first announced in April by the Linux Foundation and Google Cloud. Nephio’s initial announcement in April attracted a host of companies throwing in supporting, including Nokia, Mavenir, VMware, Bell Canada, Orange, and others. The new orgs now on board Nephio include A5G Networks, Alicon Sweden, Amdocs, Argela, Capgemini Technology, CIMI Corporation, Cohere Technologies, Coredge.io, CPQD, Deutsche Telekom, HPE, Keysight Technologies, KT, Kubermatic, Kydea, MantisNet, Matrixx, Minsait, Nabstract, Prodapt, Sandvine, SigScale, Spirent Communications, Telefónica, Tata Elxsi, TechMahidra, Verizon, Vodafone, Wind River and Wipro.
“Building, managing and deploying scalable 5G networks across multiple edge locations is complex. The Telco industry needs true cloud-native automation to be faster, simpler and easier, while achieving agility and optimization in cloud based deployments,” said the Linux Foundation in a statement at the time of the announcement.
Kubernetes’ suitability for telco is also a focus of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), a subsidiary of the Linux Foundation. KubeCon and Cloud NativeCon Europe 2022 took place in Valencia, Spain, in May. There, the CNCF announced efforts to improve the usability of Kubernetes service mesh systems for telco and a new certification program to help telcos assess the suitability of Network Equipment Providers (NEPs), which purport to offer cloud-native solutions.
Regarding service mesh, Envoy Gateway is a new CNCF effort to make Envoy, the open-source edge and service proxy, easier to use. Envoy helps wrangle load balancing and other networking complexities specific to cloud app microservice management. Envoy enables cloud developers and network operators to more easily observe and tune overall cloud app performance.
