March 7, 2023
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In 2011, Marc Andreessen declared that “software is eating the world.” Today, that software is cloud native and it’s hungry for space—specifically satellite communications.
For those who have been watching the telecommunication industry’s cloud transition, the trend has been moving from geographically fixed, proprietary hardware environments to distributed, virtual networks and industry standards. This has implications for satellite network operators seeking to do business with telcos, particularly in the 5G era and beyond.
“What transpired in the telecom industry is a precursor to what should be happening in the satellite industry,” said Keith Basil, General Manager of Edge at SUSE, who has helped terrestrial and satellite providers deploy cloud native solutions.
He urged satcom providers not to ignore the evolution to virtual and cloud native architectures that is taking place among terrestrial connectivity providers. “At the end of the day, it’s really a competitive advantage,” Basil noted. “It’s also about being relevant to the end customers in terms of the satellite communication capabilities they need to offer.”
The Telco Cloud Journey
Like today’s satcom systems, the previous generation of telecommunications services was dominated by purpose-built, proprietary machines.
Software-defined networking (SDN) proved to be an effective architecture for managing the exponential growth of connected devices and supporting services otherwise requiring manual configuration. It was also a way to reduce dependence on costly, proprietary hardware used to deliver and expand core services.
SDN is about disaggregating the hardware and software layer of the network. Virtualization, or using software to replicate physical hardware functions and performance, is both at the heart of SDN and one of the infrastructure pillars of 5G.
“5G changed everything because 5G is cloud native-based,” explained Luc-Yves Pagal Vinette, a market and technology strategist and product marketing director at Amdocs Networks E2E Solutions. “MNOs [mobile network operators] didn’t have a choice. If they wanted to tap into the opportunity of 5G they needed to evolve quickly, they needed to evolve by yesterday to cloud native.”
Read the full article: https://www.kratosdefense.com/constellations/articles/is-cloud-native-make-or-break-for-satellite-5g
