DevOps is the strategy of bringing together development and operations teams to collaborate to automate the network lifecycle; CI/CD is the execution of this strategy
Vertically integrated, monolithic systems are reliable, but slow to evolve. By decomposing functions into microservices, deployable across distributed environments, cloud-native architecture introduces a modularity that demands an automated, iterative approach to development and operations, which is where continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment (CI/CD) and DevOps come in.
DevOps refers to a set of practices, cultural philosophies and tooling that bring software development (Dev) and IT/network operations (Ops) teams together to enable rapid, reliable and scalable delivery of telecom services. It’s about reshaping how networks are built, deployed and operated in a dynamic, software-defined and service-centric environment.
Key telecom DevOps principles include:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Managing infrastructure through versioned code to ensure repeatability and reduce configuration drift.
- Observability and monitoring: Enabling real-time insights into system performance, vital for meeting SLAs and detecting anomalies.
- Feedback loops: Incorporating monitoring data and user metrics back into development to improve services iteratively.
DevOps is the strategy of bringing together development and operations teams to collaborate more closely to automate the network lifecycle.
CI/CD is the execution of this strategy. It is a core set of practices and tools that enables DevOps to work in practice — by introducing automation into the entire lifecycle of software or application development, from testing to deployment. The automatic and continuous nature of CI/CD allows organizations to get software more quickly, efficiently and reliably into production and then out into the market. More specifically, continuous integration merges all validated working code into a shared mainline code several times a day, while continuous delivery refers to the practice of producing reliable software in short cycles that can be released — or delivered — at any time. The other “D” (deployment) comes into play here, because once the software is delivered, it can then be deployed. CD results in more predictable and on-demand software deployments.
“Telecoms CI/CD is about the automation of the telecom software lifecycle,” explained Gareth Price, a member of Ericsson Consulting’s leadership team, in a blog post. “We can add network capabilities much more often without making the engineering or operational support more complicated with automation. We can choose how much of the network to change, allowing us to gradually migrate to new software while reducing the risk of change.”
In cloud-native telecom environments, specifically, network functions such as 5G Core, Open RAN and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) require frequent updates to keep up with evolving standards, security patches and performance improvements. “Operators have always talked about needing to automate everything,” admitted Spirent Communications’ Principal Product Manager of Cloud-Native 5G Deployment Validation Bill Clark.
So, what’s changed in the cloud-native era? They now want everything to be plugged directly into a pipeline. “Nothing is manual — everything has to be in a pipeline,” Clark continued. “Things are changing so fast, this idea of doing things in a DevOps or CI/CD way, I think it’s always been a driving requirement, but now I don’t think it’s an option. You really need to move into this idea of constantly testing and constantly integrating because of the scale and that things are just moving so fast.”
Unlike in a traditional network where changes generally involve some sort of physical interaction — moving some cables, adding some hardware, etc. — a cloud-native environment means everything is software.
For Boost Mobile, this means that the operator can change and improve “on an hourly and a daily basis,” according to the company’s CTO Eben Albertyn. He explained that one of the biggest advantages cloud-native architecture has given the company is that its entire network — along with the services that sit on top of it — “behaves like an advanced software CI/CD pipeline.”
He continued: “Our hardware network is actually just one big piece of software. And so it behaves like software, which means it is integrated into CI/CD pipelines.”
And this difference, Albertyn said, equates to speed — everything Boost Mobile builds within the CI/CD pipeline gets tested, integrated, deployed and monitored — automatically, he explained. Because no physical intervention is needed, the velocity at which Boost can deliver change is extremely high. “We can innovate at the speed of the cloud… We can effect change reliably very quickly and that means that our responsiveness to customers is high, which means we can be more competitive,” he said.
In modern telecom networks, CI/CD and DevOps are no longer optional — they are foundational. CI/CD provides the automation backbone that enables faster, safer and more reliable software deployments in cloud-native environments. DevOps brings the cultural and operational shift necessary to continuously iterate, innovate and optimize.
Together, they represent a new way of thinking about telecom: one where speed, flexibility and software-defined intelligence drive the network forward.
