Can VMware’s container service create cohesion out of chaos?
UK cable company turned telco Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has asked VMware to orchestrate its eclectic range of IT systems in a bid to prepare for a 5G rollout.
Surveys by UK regulator Ofcom have shown that Virgin Media O2 runs the most complained about service in the UK. Part of the problem, according to systems integrator sources, is that the telco originally grew by acquisition of small cable companies and inherited systems that were incompatible with each other.
VMware has worked with Virgin Media for the past 16 months in preparation for its 5G launch. However the telco is now using VMware’s Telco Cloud Infrastructure to hurriedly design, build and implement virtualised network functions, according to a release. The software vendor has been appointed to help the telco ‘boost innovation across the network and improve the speed of delivery of new services’.
Virgin Media O2 will use automated application moderniser VMware Tanzu for Telcos which is a ‘Kubernetes cluster’ (a type of sealed off system) in order to build a proficiency in offering ‘Containers as a Service (CaaS)’. CaaS, in layman’s terms, allows developer to bundle entire systems up into one virtual container (or silo), with software partitions defining its perimeters.
The Container strategy will help Virgin Media O2 to add more virtual network functions to its service, said VMware. It will also help the telco maintain the network more efficiently and support multi-vendor systems. Adding functions and creating cohesion between different vendors is essential in quick installations and VMware’s system should help Virgin Media O2 add new functions incrementally, according to Sanjay Uppal, VMware’s general manager of service providers and edge computing.
“As the rollout of 5G networks comes close to completion, service providers need to modernise their network infrastructure quickly,” said Upal. But it needs to be simple and cheap too, Upplal said. “The best way to do this is through a single platform that can automate and streamline delivery of multi-vendor network functions,” said Uppal.
VMware’s Telco Cloud Infrastructure, it claims, delivers a single horizontal platform that Virgin Media O2 can use to simplify, scale and protect its core cloud networks. Operating a reliable, agile network that can be efficiently upgraded to maintain quality of coverage is fundamental to the success of VMO2’s 5G network, said VMware’ statement . “Particularly in highly regulated and competitive markets,” it said. VMO2 has been fined by Ofcom on several occasions for breaking consumer protection rules.
Working with VMware is VMO2’s best chance of getting a network infrastructure cohesive enough to support the roll out of its 5G services without limitations, according to Uppal. It needs to “harness the agility, flexibility and consistency of a common platform,” said Uppal.
Chris Buggie, VMo2’s director of infrastructure, cloud engineering and delivery, said that virtualising and modernising VMoO2’s network is essential. A consistent system of network functions created within a ‘cloud-native’ platform for provisioning and managing and workloads and network functions, would help MO2 “reinvest into the network”, said Buggie, who claimed that VMO2 is to “to cement our position as the leading telco provider across UK and EU.”