{"id":64496,"date":"2024-04-17T13:24:15","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T11:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intellias.com\/?post_type=blog&p=64496"},"modified":"2024-07-26T15:17:46","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T13:17:46","slug":"unlocking-efficiency-and-innovation-devops-in-telecom-explained","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/intellias.com\/devops-in-telecom-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"DevOps in Telecom Explained: Efficiency and Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the hectic telecommunications sector, it\u2019s vital to stay ahead of competitors and meet customers\u2019 ever-growing demands. DevOps for telecom has emerged as a game-changer for telecommunications companies, empowering them to overcome challenges, such as reducing operational expenditures (OpEx), minimizing risks, and accelerating the time to market. At the same time, DevOps in telecom revolutionizes service delivery and enables the industry to reach new heights.<\/p>\n

Discover how the power of DevOps in telecom can unlock a future of unprecedented efficiency and agility in the ever-evolving world of telecommunications.<\/p>\n

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Mastering Telecom Infrastructure<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
Cloud vs. Off-Cloud Strategies<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t Download now <\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a><\/div>\n

Understanding DevOps in the telecom industry<\/h2>\n

DevOps is a portmanteau of development<\/em> and operations, meaning an approach that emphasizes automation and integration<\/a> between the IT operations and software development departments.<\/p>\n

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DevOps in the telecom domain aims to streamline the operation, deployment, monitoring, and maintenance of telecommunications systems and services, such as network infrastructure, communication platforms, and software applications. In the telecom context, adopting DevOps can speed up development cycles, enhance overall efficiency, and improve service quality.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/span> <\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t<\/section>\n

Advantages of embracing DevOps in the telecom industry<\/h2>\n

Telecom DevOps adoption can lead to higher-quality services, enhanced agility, increased operational efficiency, and elevated customer satisfaction, enabling companies to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving industry. What does this mean for telecom operators in practice? Here are the key benefits of a typical DevOps telecom project:<\/p>\n

Reduced time to market<\/h3>\n

The DevOps approach speeds up the deployment and release cycle and avoids bottlenecks through automating processes and collaboration between the development and operations teams. Consequently, telecom firms can offer enhanced customer experiences and maintain a competitive edge.<\/p>\n

Increasing efficiency<\/h3>\n

DevOps practices automate repetitive tasks such as deployment, configuration, and monitoring, minimizing the risk of human error and reducing manual effort. By automating processes, efficiency is enhanced, operations are streamlined, and teams can dedicate their efforts to strategic and value-added endeavors.<\/p>\n

Moreover, DevOps emphasizes automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous monitoring, improving the quality and reliability of telecom systems and services. By catching and resolving issues early in the development cycle, DevOps helps prevent service disruptions and reduces downtime.<\/p>\n

Operational excellence<\/h3>\n

Telecom systems often must handle increasing workloads and scale quickly to meet changing demands. DevOps practices such as automated scaling and infrastructure as code enable telecom companies to promptly scale their systems up or down, ensuring they can efficiently adapt to evolving requirements.<\/p>\n

DevOps also promotes collaboration and communication among teams of specialists such as developers, operators, network engineers, and telecom DevOps engineers. Through dismantling silos and nurturing cross-functional collaboration, telecommunications companies can improve the alignment of collaboration and communication, accelerate decision-making, and strengthen teamwork.<\/p>\n

Cost optimization<\/h3>\n

DevOps practices can help optimize costs in telecom by reducing waste, minimizing manual interventions, and improving resource utilization. Companies can achieve cost savings through automation and efficient resource management while delivering high-quality services.<\/p>\n

Challenges telcos encounter while embracing DevOps transformation<\/h2>\n

\"DevOps<\/p>\n

Operators in the telecom industry may face several challenges when adopting DevOps practices. Common challenges include:<\/p>\n

Insufficient overview of infrastructure status<\/h3>\n

From our experience, many telcos need more insight into whether their company\u2019s infrastructure aligns with market standards and best practices to identify shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Cloud migration<\/h3>\n

Migrating to the cloud is quite a journey for everyone engaged, from the technology and finance department to operations and procurement managers. How scalable, reliable, and agile will the new environment be after migration? What will be the cost optimization in the long run? How will DevOps for telecom help move CapEx<\/a> (capital expenditure) to OpEx?<\/p>\n

Consequently, how can you increase transparency over operational costs and operational efficiency? How can you avoid a lack of data accessibility and data management to enable more cost-effective ways of working with data?<\/p>\n

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Telecom Cloud <\/p>\n

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Learn about the role of cloud computing in the telecom industry<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Learn more<\/span>\n\t\t <\/a><\/div>\n

Cost optimization (FinOps)<\/h3>\n

The challenge of cost optimization in telecom DevOps adoption also entails several subtasks. For example, telcos might need to see the scalability potential of their capacities and have a usage-based cost in terms of using cloud, or they might need more expertise related to internal cloud infrastructure. Also, telecom companies might need more transparency to predict and monitor current consumption to ensure they are within their budget.<\/p>\n

Performance efficiency and reliability<\/h3>\n

Performance issues range from unpredicted system crashes and the inability to cope with load spikes to a lack of application and environmental performance monitoring. As a result, telcos might lose revenue or suffer reputational risks associated with poor product performance. More severe challenges may include lost or damaged data due to system underperformance.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure governance<\/h3>\n

Telcos might need more infrastructure or application monitoring processes and, as a result, be unable to evaluate the current state of infrastructure operations. In turn, this leads to the need for a holistic view of the company\u2019s infrastructure and hurdles to obtaining real-time insights on current performance.<\/p>\n

Some cases of infrastructure governance include a lack of monitoring on both the development and production levels to plan application scaling and performance.<\/p>\n

Comparing telco and IT workloads<\/h2>\n

It is impossible to copy-paste a DevOps approach, since there are significant differences between typical telco and IT workloads. Telecom workloads require extensive infrastructure customization to meet functional and business requirements.<\/p>\n

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Unlike in IT, where lifecycle management is embedded within the software, telecom lifecycle management is managed separately from the workload. Moreover, telcos, especially mobile operators, primarily deal with software packages rather than tinkering with application code.<\/p>\n

Additionally, telcos operate within the dynamic network function virtualization (NFV) ecosystem, which entails multiple cloud management servers and frequent application versions or releases, making the workload environment more dynamic.<\/p>\n

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Cloud consulting services <\/p>\n

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Learn how to drive your telecom operations to new heights of efficiency and innovation and unlock the true potential of DevOps.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Learn more<\/span>\n\t\t <\/a><\/div>\n

Evolution of the network engineer\u2019s role in telecom DevOps adoption<\/h2>\n

Adopting DevOps in telecom profoundly transforms the work of network engineers, reshaping their responsibilities and emphasizing automation, cross-functional collaboration, and continuous improvement.<\/p>\n

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Network engineers are no longer confined to managing static network configurations. Instead, they are actively involved in developing and maintaining infrastructure as code (IaC) templates, enabling the setup of network resources and rapid provisioning. This shift empowers network engineers to respond quickly to changing business needs and efficiently scale network resources.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/span> <\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t<\/section>\n

Furthermore, network engineers are embracing a more holistic approach to service delivery, working closely with development and operations teams. Adopting DevOps practices also means that network engineers are more involved in continuously monitoring and analyzing network performance metrics. Network engineers of today leverage automation tools to optimize network configurations in real time and detect anomalies, providing a seamless user experience and minimizing downtime.<\/p>\n

In essence, DevOps in telecom is redefining the network engineer\u2019s role. Today\u2019s network engineers combine the functions of cloud engineer, release engineer, DevOps (or platform) engineer, build engineer, site reliability engineer, and DevSecOps engineer.<\/p>\n

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Suggested approach to DevOps integration<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s explore an optimal DevOps approach rooted in multi-stage environments tailored specifically for the telecom sector. Given the distinctive context of the telecom industry, we can divide DevOps into two primary categories:<\/p>\n