Re: Has virtualization become obsolete in 5G?

[Mark Tinka <mark.tinka () seacom com>]

On 1/Aug/20 11:23, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:
> Over the past few weeks, I've attended webinars and watched videos
> organized by Intel. 
> These activities have centred on 5G and examined applications (like
> "visual cloud" and "gaming"), 
> as well as segment-oriented aspects (like edge networks, 5G RAN and 5G
> Core).
>
> I am stunned (no hyperbole) by the emphasis on Kubernetes in particular,
> and cloud-native computing in general. 
> Equally stunning (for me), public telecommunications networks have
> been portrayed 
> as having a history that moved from integrated software and hardware, 
> to virtualization and now to cloud-native computing. 
> See, for example Alex Quach, here
> <https://www.telecomtv.com/content/intel-vsummit-5g-ran-5g-core/the-5g-core-is-vital-to-deliver-the-promise-of-5g-39164/>
>  @10:30).
> I reason that Intel's implication is that virtualization is becoming
> obsolete.
>
> Would anyone care to let me know his thoughts on this prediction?

In the early dawn of SDN, where it was cool to have the RP's in Beirut
and the line cards in Lagos, the industry quickly realized that was not
entirely feasible.

If you are looking at over-the-top services, so-called cloud-native
computing makes sense in order to deliver that value accordingly, and
with agility. But as it pertains to actual network transport, I'm not
yet sure the industry is at the stage where we are confident enough to
decompose packet forwarding through a cloud.

Network operators are more likely to keep using kit that integrates
forwarding hardware as well as a NOS, as no amount of cloud architecting
is going to rival a 100Gbps purpose-built port, for example.

Suffice it to say, there was a time when folk were considering running
their critical infrastructure (such as your route reflectors) in AWS or
similar. I'm not quite sure public clouds are at that level of
confidence yet. So if some kind of cloud-native infrastructure is to be
considered for critical infrastructure, I highly suspect it will be
in-house.

On the other hand, for any new budding entrepreneurs that want to get
into the mobile game with as little cost as possible, there is a huge
opportunity to do so by building all that infrastructure in an on-prem
cloud-native architecture, and offer packet forwarding using
general-purpose hardware provided they don't exceed their expectations.
This way, they wouldn't have to deal with the high costs traditional
vendors (Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, Siemens, ZTE, e.t.c.) impose. Granted,
it would be small scale, but maybe that is the business model. And in an
industry where capex is fast out-pacing revenue, it would be the mobile
network equivalent of low-cost carrier airlines.

I very well could be talking out the side of my neck, but my prediction
is mobile operators will be optimistic but cautious. I reckon a healthy
mix between cloud-native and tried & tested practices.

Mark.