Cloud-Native Telco: Buzzword or Real Transformation?

(A conversation between me and 𝙏𝙚𝙘𝙝 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙧 📶)

𝙏𝙚𝙘𝙝 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙧 📶:
Mohamed, everyone keeps saying “cloud-native” in telecom…
But let’s be honest — is it real, or just another buzzword vendors throw around?

𝐌𝐞 (Mohamed):
I get where you’re coming from — the term “cloud-native” has been thrown into every presentation slide in the last 3 years.
But here’s the thing:
✅ It’s very real
✅ And absolutely necessary for telecom’s survival in a multi-service 5G/6G world
… if done right.

Let me explain what it actually means, and how I’ve seen it work — and fail — in the field.

🧱 What Does Cloud-Native Mean in Telecom?

It means building and deploying network functions the way hyperscalers build apps.
So instead of:
❌ Monolithic network elements (like a big IMS box)
We now have:
✅ Microservices — broken down into functional blocks (e.g., UE Auth, PDU mgmt)
✅ Containers — running on Kubernetes instead of VMs
✅ Stateless functions — that scale independently
✅ CI/CD pipelines — to test and deploy faster
✅ Observability — using telemetry, not SNMP traps

I supported a telco that moved their AMF/SMF from OpenStack VMs to containers — and reduced failure recovery time by 60%.

𝙏𝙚𝙘𝙝 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙧 📶:
Sounds good on paper. But where’s the catch?

𝐌𝐞 (Mohamed):
There are definitely challenges:

🔹 Cloud-native ≠ lift & shift
You can’t just take a legacy VNFC and wrap it in a container.

🔹 Kubernetes is not plug & play for telecom
You need Telco-grade K8s: with performance tuning, CPU pinning, NUMA awareness.

🔹 State management is hard
For functions like UPF, call session state, QoS — you need smart external state stores.

In one PoC I led, we had an issue with delayed bearer setup in a cloud-native SMF — root cause? The containerized DB wasn’t tuned for telco-grade latency.
After switching to shared memory-based state persistence, the performance aligned with expectations.

𝙏𝙚𝙘𝙝 𝙀𝙭𝙥𝙡𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙧 📶:
How far are most operators today?

𝐌𝐞 (Mohamed):
It varies by profile:

📍 Tier-1 operators
→ Many are in hybrid mode — cloud-native 5GC + VNFs for IMS
→ Some use multi-cloud (private + AWS, Azure) for elasticity

📍 Mid-size operators
→ Usually start with CNFs for greenfield projects or private 5G
→ Focus on observability and automation (CI/CD, GitOps)

📍 Private networks
→ Often go fully cloud-native from Day 1, using compact CNF bundles

In my experience, the key is not just technology — it’s the culture shift:
• Developers, network engineers, and DevOps must work as one agile team
• You need to monitor microservices differently
• And you must be ready to fail fast and fix faster

✅ Real Benefits When Done Right:

• 80% faster updates
• Zero-downtime upgrades
• Network slices deployed in seconds, not weeks
• Vendor interoperability improves (standardized APIs)

🎓 Check  our online recorded course to learn more about the technology.