Building a cloud

native infrastructure
AEricsson’s
guide todual-mode
deploying cloud
5G Core solution executive summary
native platforms for 5G

October 2020
2 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure

Introduction

5G Standalone (SA) drives a rapid introduction of

cloud native infrastructure.

The industry is evolving to the new
standardized 5G Core based on the cloud
native service-based architecture (SBA)
and New Radio (NR). This new 5G SA
network is needed to address multiple
vertical services for industries and
enterprises, and to open up new business
opportunities. The areas in focus are
manufacturing and automotive,
private and mission-critical networks,
and wireline access. 
Our industry – and the entire world
– has a big opportunity, enabled by low
latencies, high bandwidths, network
slicing, and programmable networks.
We also face two big growth challenges:
how to be more efficient and lower the
operational and capital expenditure
costs when data traffic keeps growing,
and how to deal with the increasing
network complexity in 5G. The complexity
growth is in two dimensions: firstly, the
number of layers and functions in the
stacks of hardware, virtualization layers,
applications and operations support
system and business support system
(OSS/BSS). The second is the number
of potential combinations within and
between the layers with products from
Figure 1: Ericsson cloud native design principles
Cloud native technology Ericsson cloud native design principles
Infrastructure
Microservices DevOps
agnostic
Orchestration Decomposed
and automation software
Cloud native
State
Application
CI/CD Containers optimized
residency
design
many vendors’ open source software. don’t fly, they can be phased out just
5G SBA is a paradigm shift for the core as easily. Simplified operations will
network architecture of mobile networks. also play a critical role in enabling new
The new 5G Core architecture will advanced 5G services as they will require
make mobile networks more efficient additional network capabilities that will
and easier to operate. It reduces time significantly increase the complexity in
to market for new services and makes it the network. The 5G Core architecture
easier to manage services with shorter and the cloud native/microservices
lifespan. It will, for instance, allow new implementations will reduce this
services to be launched quickly to test complexity while keeping operating
the market demand and, if the services expenses low.

Figure 2: Drivers for cloud native infrastructure

5G applications CNCF community is New 5G use cases Optimized infrastructure

designed using driving cloud native need distributed for cloud native
cloud native principles across industries cloud infrastucture telco applications
3 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure

The evolution to cloud native

builds on the network functions
virtualization (NFV) transformation

Since 2012, and the start of the virtualization of network

functions, the industry has worked hard to get working solutions,
and we now see live commercial systems that work well.

Some of the networks have a few
virtualized network functions (VNFs) on
smaller or node-based NFV infrastructure
(NFVI) platforms. Others have built larger
horizontal telco clouds, able to run multiple
VNFs from multi-tenants. The traffic
running on these VNFs is typically around
30 percent, ranging from 10–50 percent
depending on type of VNF. The uptake
among leaders is increasing fast.
We have seen Management and
Orchestration (MANO) solutions evolve
from basic VNF Manager (VNFM) to
more advanced, extended VNFM plus
cloud orchestration (NFVO) and we
also see early end-to-end service
orchestration deployments.
Communications service providers (CSPs)
are starting to change their operations
organizations and processes to manage
horizontal cloud platforms with multiple
functions and applications.
All this has created a platform
both in technology and learnings to
take on the next step of evolving the
telco cloud infrastructure to run cloud
native applications.
System-verified NFVI stack limit systems integration, and lower
has been a key success factor the cost of maintaining exclusive
The stability of telco cloud platforms stack combinations.
has been a challenge for the industry The benefits are mainly on the opex side:
in past years but has now reached a with more automated deployment and life
good maturity level. This has been cycle management, you get all the layers of
achieved by Ericsson customers with NFVI, VNFs and MANO to work together.
our introduction of pre-integrated and The benefits will continue to increase, as
system-verified solutions. This more parts of the full end-to-end system
could apply for all types of cloud work well together. Success is increased
infrastructures regardless if they are by using standardized solutions such as
Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM) OpenStack, Kubernetes or CNCF, and
based NFVI or bare metal. Notable by actively contributing to the key open
here are the recurring costs for life source projects to limit any forks and keep
cycle management of the stack where the maintenance costs down.
the open source software is upgraded
every quarter. This also enables solution
support of the entire cloud infrastructure
stack, through a single interface.
One trend has been to move
from totally disaggregated NFVI
stacks to more pre-integrated and
system-verified solutions from one
vendor, although the solution may be
both open source and multi-vendor.
It is key to limit complexity and strive
for pre-integrated configurations to

Figure 3: The NFV infrastructure is the foundation for 5G Core and 5G applications

Critical services and

Reliability/telco grade
infrastructure control

5G Core applications High performance

Sensor networks
and low latency

5G Core

Critical control of
Central management
remote devices NFVI

Smart vehicles, transport Distributed architecture

4 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure

5G implications in the
cloud infrastructure

When NFV started, before 5G was a concern, the focus was on

cost and vendor independence. 5G has changed the agenda.

With 5G, the idea is to build a single

infrastructure for all types of IoT and
enhanced mobile broadband services,
ranging from gaming or highly demanding
automated manufacturing, to low traffic
sensors. The solution to this is a shared
infrastructure with orchestrated network
slices to efficiently deploy all the services.
This now means that a working telco cloud
infrastructure is a prerequisite to run a lot
of the new and upcoming 5G services and
future innovative applications.
To have services set up using network
slices will require a service orchestrator The arrival of 5G is changing all industries, including the approach to cloud infrastructure
that can tie VNFs or cloud native network
functions (CNFs) together. Long term, Edge computing and distributed Management of the 5G
this can be automated and connected to cloud native infrastructure cloud infrastructure
business support systems. In the 5G context, edge computing Life cycle management will be more
This means that a competitive cloud has been discussed as a means to important as we move to cloud native
infrastructure for 5G services needs to provide capabilities like low latency and use more open source software. With
be stable and able to onboard VNFs and or device offloading for new services physical nodes, hardware upgrades are
CNFs from a broad ecosystem of suppliers, or dedicated enterprise networks. years apart, and software upgrades just
and these must be possible to orchestrate We foresee that the same type of telco once or twice per year. With continuous
based on exposure APIs. cloud, based on ETSI NFV, will also be integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD)
For the cloud infrastructure, this used in the evolution to cloud native. around the corner, we are foreseeing
means that it will be key to have a Most important, however, is that weekly or daily upgrades. This means that
horizontal NFVI platform capable of the entire distributed cloud can be management is quickly becoming one of the
running multi-tenant VNFs and CNFs, orchestrated by the same service most important factors to consider when
and to have those orchestrated. orchestration domain. implementing a cloud native infrastructure.

Figure 4: Automated and optimized workload placement across distributed

data centers in a multi-domain, multi-technology and multi-vendor environment

MANO and service orchestration

slices

App App CNF CNF VNF VNF

App App CNF VNF CNF CNF VNF VNF VNF CNF

CNF VNF CNF VNF CNF CNF VNF CNF

VNF VNF
PNF PNF
Caas Caas Caas
Iaas Iaas Iaas

Access cloud/Edge Central office Central data center Public cloud

~1–5ms RTT latency ~5–20ms RTT ~20–50ms RTT latency

Note: This figure refers to physical network functions (PNF), virtual network functions (VNF) and cloud native network functions (CNF)
5 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure

Evolution to
cloud native

Evolving network functions to cloud native isn’t

a one-step process; it is a multi-year journey.

A key learning from the virtualization Figure 5: Multi VNF NFVI infrastructure with CaaS platform
journey with our NFVI solution is that
system-verified solutions work best MANO
and are the most efficient, and that
customer-unique and best-of-breed VNF VNF CNF CNF CNF
NFVI stacks come with additional work,
costs and a longer time to market. Kubernetes (CaaS) CNI + CSI
The VNFs for some parts of the
ecosystem will continue to be in use for
several more years and those still need Virtualization (IaaS) Hypervisor + VM +SDN
to be supported.
We see two main scenarios for service
providers evolving the network towards
cloud native. Hardware management Compute Network Storage

Option 1: add a container

platform on the NFVI
For CSPs with existing NFVI platforms, an
easy way to start with cloud native-based
applications or CNFs is to add a container
as a service (CaaS) platform on top of the
existing VIM (see Figure 5).
This means that the industry standard,
CNCF-certified Kubernetes will be
deployed in virtual machines over an
Openstack-based infrastructure as a
service (IaaS).
This is attractive for those with stable
working horizontal cloud platforms with
many VNFs. This solution offers:
• Easy evolution from 5G Evolved
Packet Core to 5G Core on existing
NFVI virtual infrastructure
• Virtualized and cloud native in the
same infrastructure
• MANO orchestration fully working
from day one
• NFV multi-tenancy
• Multi-vendor VNFs and CNFs
• Security
• Automated operation
• Simplified secondary networking handling
Option 2: deploy a new bare metal These solutions will start to come out during
infrastructure without VIM late 2020 for a limited set of CNFs, like the
An alternate deployment option is 5G Core, to some leading CSPs.
to deploy CNFs over a bare metal In the early days it has fewer features
infrastructure to leverage the full benefits than today’s NFVI, but this will pick up in
of cloud native transformation. This the next few years.
solution has no VIM and instead the Today, this solution will already be
Kubernetes-based, CaaS platform runs attractive for CSPs who seek to move
directly on the underlaying hardware. first towards a bare metal platform for
We believe this will be the long-term their cloud native applications. It may
solution, as it simplifies the architecture also be an alternative for those that still
and uses the underlaying hardware more don’t have a unified virtualized core to
efficiently, with significant TCO savings. expand upon.
Figure 6: CNFs on bare metal infrastructure
MANO
CNF CNF CNF CNF CNF
Kubernetes (CaaS) CNI + CSI

All in all, this will give a fast time to market Hardware management Compute Network Storage
for 5G enterprise and IoT services.
6 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure
Figure 7: Cloud native transformation journey and deployment options
Current
VNFs Prioritizing benefit and
minimizing impact
MANO
Open stack API
CEE (IaaS)
SDI
The cloud native infrastructure
transformation journey
We can foresee a journey starting with
a smaller virtulization with few VNFs,
which is expanded to a multi-VNF
horizontal NFVI with MANO for
multi-vendor VNFs. This platform is then
expanded with a CaaS layer to support
5G Core and other CNFs. Figure 7 is
schematic and will also apply for the
distributed cloud and edge computing.
Next
Cloud
VNFs + native Evolved MANO and
apps bare metal CaaS
MANO
Open stack API K8s Helm API
CCD (CaaS)
CEE (IaaS)
SDI
Cloud
native
apps
MANO
K8s Helm API
CCD (CaaS)
SDI
Long-term benefits of a bare
metal cloud infrastructure
Some may ask why we should move
to cloud native, as well as a bare metal
infrastructure, now that we have just
got our OpenStack-based NFVI platforms
to work. So, what are the long-term
benefits of Kubernetes (CaaS) over
a bare metal infrastructure?
• Network deployment and operations
are simplified through easier life
cycle management of the cloud
infrastructure. Since the virtualization
layer is not part of the cloud stack,
fewer teams are involved, thereby
streamlining management and
operations. The reduced complexity
also results in faster fault isolation
and troubleshooting.
• With the elimination of the
virtualization layer, the infrastructure
overhead is drastically reduced.
More compute and storage resources
are now available for application
deployments thereby increasing
hardware efficiency. This is especially
important for edge computing, which
often have resource constraints in
remote sites.
• Another big advantage is that no
software license fees are needed for
the virtualization software, resulting in
substantial TCO savings for CSPs.
Future
Cloud
VNFs + native
apps
MANO
Open stack API K8s Helm API
CEE (IaaS) CCD (CaaS)
SDI
• Application performance is better
and more deterministic on bare metal
deployments since bottlenecks like
the guest operating system and
virtual switches are removed with the
virtualization layer.
• Automated life cycle management and
the seamless introduction of CI/CD are
crucial benefits of a bare metal cloud
infrastructure. These functionalities
are challenging to introduce in a cloud
stack with many dependencies, but
with a simplified solution using fewer
layers, automation will be easier to
achieve end-to-end.
• Another advantage is that the
introduction of new hardware
acceleration technologies, like smart
network interface cards and support for
graphics processing units, needed for very
demanding applications become easier
for new 5G use cases.
Open source is also
important for bare metal
With dedicated teams of top developers,
we are actively making upstream
contributions in some of the key telco
relevant open source projects, such as
Metal3-io, cluster-API, Redfish, kubeadm
and Kubernetes IPv6 dual stack. These are
critical for making an industrialized, telco
grade and production-ready, bare metal
CaaS infrastructure.
7 Ericsson  |  Building a cloud native infrastructure

5G Core and cloud native open up new, potentially revenue-generating use cases

Figure 8: Ericsson’s end-to-end solution support Summary

The introduction of 5G Core opens up the
Customer potential for new revenue-generating
services in the IoT and enterprise spaces,
Single point of contact based on network slices. This imposes a
paradigm shift as the core network
now needs to support CNFs and
Ericsson Dynamic Orchestration container-based software.
This is done by introducing a
VNF VNF CNF CNF CNCF certified CaaS platform based
E2E support

E VNFM
IaaS VIM
cloud execution environment
Central sites
3PP
Solution support for cloud infrastructure
Multi-vendor and multi-layer virtualized
stacks always come with the question of
who takes the end-to-end responsibility;
who invests in the competence needed to
support the solution and secure stability
and performance?
A system-verified cloud stack brings
the possibility to provide CSPs with a
single point of accountability for solution
support tasks, including ecosystem fault
CaaS, Cloud Container Distribution
SDI
Central sites
Ericsson 3PP
isolation, issue and emergency recovery
services, root cause analysis, management
of the integrity of customers’ solutions and
vendor coordination.
Enhanced by automation, engineered
intelligence assets, and reproduction
across the multi-layer solution levels
using reference test configurations, a
combination of local and proven global
expertise in comprehensive customer
support services can be offered.
on Kubernetes.
Key characteristics include efficient
automation of CI/CD loops and automated
life cycle management operations of
CNFs over a managed software-defined
infrastructure (SDI).
We see two alternatives for the
evolution of the cloud infrastructure:
• The existing NFVI is complemented with a
CaaS platform. This allows for a possibility
to run VM-based applications in parallel.
This will be beneficial if the current NFVI
is a stable multi-VNF telco cloud.
• A new bare metal infrastructure without
a virtualization layer is introduced
alongside the current virtualization
platform or platforms. This solution will
have a simpler stack and make better use
of the underlaying hardware. It enables
more efficient CI/CD capabilities, and
will provide the long-term type of
architecture for the telco cloud. This will
start to be introduced during 2021 in
some operators’ networks.

Ericsson
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Telephone +46 10 719 0000
www.ericsson.com
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