Tech Mahindra and Microsoft partner to bring cloud-native 5G SA core network to global telcos
India’s Tech Mahindra and Microsoft have announced a collaboration to enable cloud-powered 5G SA core network for telecom operators worldwide. As a part of the collaboration, Tech Mahindra will provide its expertise, comprehensive solutions, and managed services offerings to telecom operators for their 5G SA Core networks. Tech Mahindra will provide its expertise like “Network Cloudification as a Service” and AIOps to global telecom operators for their 5G Core networks. AIOps will help operators combine big data and machine learning to automate network operations processes, including anomaly detection, predicting fault and performance issues.
CP Gurnani, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Tech Mahindra said, “Today, it is critical to leverage next-gen technologies to build relevant and resilient services and solutions for customers across the globe. At Tech Mahindra, we are well-positioned to help telecom operators realize the full potential of their networks and provide innovative and agile services to their customers while also helping them meet their ESG commitments. Our collaboration with Microsoft will further strengthen our service portfolio by combining our deep expertise across the telecom industry with Microsoft Cloud. Further to this collaboration, Tech Mahindra and Microsoft will work together to help telecom operators simplify and transform their operations in order to build green and secure networks by leveraging the power of cloud technologies. At Tech Mahindra, we are well-positioned to help telecom operators realize the full potential of their networks and provide innovative and agile services to their customers while also helping them meet their ESG commitments.”
Tech Mahindra believes the 5G core network will enable use cases such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), IoT (Internet of Things, and edge computing. Of course, 5G URLLC performance requirements, especially ultra low latency, in the RAN and core network must be met first, which they are not at this time. The company will leverage the Microsoft Azure cloud for its sustainability solution iSustain to measure and monitor KPIs across all three aspects of E, S & G. iSustain will help operators address the challenge of measuring and reducing carbon emissions from the networks while meeting demands of the countless energy intense digital technologies, from AR/ VR to IoT.
Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India said, “Harnessing the power of Microsoft Azure, telecom operators can provide more flexibility and scalability, save infrastructure cost, use AI to automate operations, and differentiate their customer offerings. The collaboration between Tech Mahindra and Microsoft will help our customers build green and secured networks with seamless experiences across the Microsoft cloud and the operator’s network. Azure provides operators with cloud solutions that enable them to create new revenue generating services and move existing services to the cloud. Through our collaboration with Tech Mahindra, Microsoft will further help telcos overcome challenges, drive innovation and build green and secured networks that provide seamless experiences by leveraging the power of Microsoft Cloud for Operators.”
The partnership is in line with Tech Mahindra’s NXT.NOWTM framework, which aims to enhance the ‘Human Centric Experience’, Tech Mahindra focuses on investing in emerging technologies and solutions that enable digital transformation and meet the evolving needs of the customer.
About Tech Mahindra:
Tech Mahindra offers innovative and customer-centric digital experiences, enabling enterprises, associates and the society to Rise. We are a USD 6 billion organization with 163,000+ professionals across 90 countries helping 1279 global customers, including Fortune 500 companies. We are focused on leveraging next-generation technologies including 5G, Blockchain, Metaverse, Quantum Computing, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, and more, to enable end-to-end digital transformation for global customers. Tech Mahindra is the only Indian company in the world to receive the HRH The Prince of Wales’ Terra Carta Seal for its commitment to creating a sustainable future. We are the fastest growing brand in ‘brand strength’ and amongst the top 7 IT brands globally. With the NXT.NOWTM framework, Tech Mahindra aims to enhance ‘Human Centric Experience’ for our ecosystem and drive collaborative disruption with synergies arising from a robust portfolio of companies. Tech Mahindra aims at delivering tomorrow’s experiences today and believes that the ‘Future is Now.’
References:
Tech Mahindra: “We can build and run an entire 4G and 5G or any enterprise network”
Tech Mahindra: India Needs to Begin 5G Spectrum Auction Now!
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From Light Reading:
A new white paper (likely sponsored by Microsoft) written by Analysys Mason, a market research and consulting firm neatly summarize the chief DIY issue for telcos transferring software functions to clouds:
“They have accumulated multiple network cloud silos using various tightly integrated xNFs and clouds, and have built specific automations that are not transferrable to other clouds.” A recommendation that conveniently ignores concern about hyperscaler dependency is to extend Azure – well established as an option for standard IT workloads – to other cloud domains, including the “existing network cloud silos.”
Strictly speaking, there are some network domains that should forever be off-limits to the public cloud. Parts of the radio access network (RAN), in particular, have such demanding performance requirements to do with latency (a measure of the roundtrip time for a data signal on the network) that hosting them in a public cloud facility – a long way from many radio sites – would simply not work. Even Microsoft has acknowledged this shortcoming.
“Hyperscalers are not yet able to go to the far edge and host a real-time radio application,” said Paul Miller, Wind River’s chief technology officer, during an interview with Light Reading last year.
Red Hat and VMware can also be seen as potential solutions to the problem of public cloud lock-in. The basic theory is that a telco running software on their platforms inside a public cloud would retain the option of moving these platforms to another cloud. “You can very much think of it as an abstraction layer or point of consistency for things to run on independently of the underlying infrastructure,” said Chris Wright, Red Hat’s chief technology officer.
It is hard to imagine a Microsoft pitch along these lines, allowing a telco to use some of its systems within a broader AWS or Google Cloud framework. The risk previously identified by James Crawshaw, a principal analyst at Omdia (a sister company to Light Reading), is that Wright’s so-called “abstraction layer” simply becomes a different source of dependency. If telcos arrive at this conclusion, they might just decide it is safer and more economical to rely solely on a behemoth like Microsoft – with its $1.9 trillion valuation and array of services –than involve a relative minnow and one-trick pony such as VMware, currently worth about $51 billion on the New York Stock Exchange.
Not all telco executives are convinced the public cloud is necessarily cheaper than the alternatives. “I don’t think it is proven yet,” said Howard Watson, BT’s chief security and networks officer. “They are running these cloud environments at enormous scale … but the economics don’t yet reflect that.” Outside the telecom sector, others have insisted the economic attractions of the public cloud diminish as a customer grows and its IT usage becomes more predictable.
https://www.lightreading.com/service-provider-cloud/telcos-risk-paying-heavy-price-for-cloud/d/d-id/783646