Ericsson is seeking to dramatically speed up the availability of new software on network nodes from months to days with the launch of a new solution.
The vendor’s Continuous Delivery and Deployment product claims to reduce operational spending by up to 50 percent, thanks to its smaller and more frequent deployment of software.
Packet Core is one of the first offerings in the new solution. Ericsson said instead of nodes receiving software updates every six to 12 months, they will get them every four weeks. It added new software can be deployed on a network in two days of general availability, compared to the regular rollout time of six to nine weeks.
Michał Sewera, Head of EPC Shared Service Center, Deutsche Telekom, said: “From our perspective as an operator, continuous deployment will become an essential part of the entire network function lifecycle management process.
“It’s not just about the frequency of the software delivery by the supplier. It will also be about the ecosystem of tools and interactions which enable the possibility to deliver new features and functionalities into the production network, with the same quality and security we have today with traditional methods.”
Orange is another operator that is using the tech. Emmanuel Bidet, the France-based company’s Vice President, Convergent Networks Control, said: “Updates that used to be taken yearly are now taken much more frequently, in a better-automated manner, enabling us to activate features in an agile way. This increases our competitiveness and will help to simplify our operational processes.”
Other Ericsson services that can benefit from the new solution are its network manager, IP multimedia subsystem and User Data Consolidation.
Jason Hoffman, Head of Technology, Business Area Digital Services, Ericsson, said: “Continuous Delivery and Deployment and regular, timely feedback from network operators contributes to the development of software that is better focused on customer needs and updated more frequently to introduce cutting-edge functionality. The benefits are well proven and early adopters will have a competitive advantage.”