The main objective of DevOps is to shorten development cycles, increase the frequency of deployment, improve dependable releases in accordance with business objectives & has been popular in IT industry in the past few years. But recently telecom operators are showing huge interest in this technology for achieving huge network & operational efficiencies by mixing software development as well as IT systems across their telecom work environment. The market size for DevOps globally is projected to reach USD 14969 by 2026.

Key challenges in the telecom industry

Owing to continuous deployment of networks in several regions, Release cycle is very long and it needs continuous network testing before making available to all users. Furthermore, there is no support given for executing numerous test scenarios with lesser downtime since engineers should visit cell tower sites, conduct tests that are quite time-consuming. The inability to publish the changes in product data in several downstream systems, performing regression testing all the time whenever there is either a RF software change or upgradation is a herculean task. Also, low-security with scanning executed manually & no governance for forcing scan prior release – such kinds of application security makes it highly difficult to establish accountability for every network component embedded in a network.

Adoption of DevOps in the telecom industry

It is exciting to learn that the adoption rate of DevOps in the telecom sector is higher than what is believed making them the leaders in the business ecosystem. According to facts, a total of eighty eight per cent of telecoms are already using it or they intend to, when compared to an aggregate of 66 percent. And being one of the most competitive industries drives pressure on them to deliver new products as well as services rigorously. And with the implementation of DevOps, they can obtain benefits like increased velocity in delivery, that is the highly obvious reason for telecoms to move ahead aggressively with this new-age practice.

Surge in demand for DevOps in telecom industry

The implementation of DevOps in telecom industry is becoming common these days since a telco can achieve the level of success based on the quality of tools that is applied & it renders a boost to sales pitches on 5G DevOps-focused services since new offerings of products to its prospective as well as current clientele. Furthermore, keeping this in mind, organizational variables such as leadership, support, culture will still be a important part as, deploying a wrong DevOps tool can harm workflows significantly & delay in projects for both the parties that is telcos and their clients.

Right set of DevOps tools for telecom industry

Workflow & testing automation tools

5G DevOps is mainly based on automation which enables personnel with fast delivery speeds for taking on new workloads as well as objectives & it should get deeper into the whole DevOps setup, which supports the entire process of integration, testing & deployment. Also, automated scripts augment the process of quality assurance testing since it helps engineers to conduct intensive testing & completely review code assessing the development of software at every development stage.

Configuration Management

Network performance will be having a severe impact when all the components of network system is not configured correctly & it can be said that telecom IT surroundings are intricated. However, deploying 5G DevOps process into these telecom operations can only be advantageous in presence of configuration management solutions in order to make sure that applications are appropriately configured for their environments. These kinds of tools assist engineers in getting program-based configuration files, that can then be implemented at runtime or deployment for matching the particular conditions.

Monitoring of network & health check

Newer opportunities come with 5G DevOps in order to release software very quickly to end users, in order to accumulate feedback as well as implement it to build better versions/applications & it is highly crucial for telcos for checking for presence of either major bug/error in a build which can be tested & improved before rollout to users & this makes network health checkup a crucial task for engineers as well as the role for network & health checkup tools for assessing & making improvements as and when needed to render users better network services.

Building smarter & agile networks

5G is developed around three main principles such as SDN, NFV & VNF where telecom operators should rent public cloud computing resources for connecting the main network servers in the cloud with edge DevOps and here edge computing nodes are installed wherever it is required & this is where DevOps serves as a key technology for building smart & agile networks.

The road ahead

In the NFV environment, implementation of virtual network functions as well as continuous delivery of new services are called to be routine processes for developers. Therefore, operations is challenged for assisting in making changes while keeping the network stability & telecom operators can closely collaborate with these two disparate groups in a more synchronized way in incorporating 5G DevOps approach. Lastly, in real-deployments of networks such as 5G DevOps structure coupled with measurable KPIs are known as critically important.