Webinar Review: Microservices are everywhere what can CSPs learn from IT?

Communications service providers (CSPs) are in a critical period of transformation as they move from being traditional providers of connectivity to become providers of a new portfolio of higher value services across the digital value chain. Omnipresent connectivity is driving new disruptive business models and further driving up demands on the networks and virtualisation of appliances and systems is seen as a necessary step to enable the agility required to meet the increasing and evolving service demands.

As vendors and CSPs are faced with building these virtualised systems, it’s imperative to look at the software engineering methodologies that the IT industry has successfully applied to similar challenges at comparable scale to those facing CSPs.

Microservices architecture has emerged over the last few years as a way to address these large-scale engineering challenges. Already adopted by large web organisations such as Google, Amazon and Netflix, microservices provide an agile and cost-effective way for CSPs to build their services quicker and keep them running longer.

With this in mind, VanillaPlus assembled a panel of speakers composed of John Abraham, a senior analyst at Analysys Mason, and Seeta Somagani, a solutions architect at VoltDB, to demystify microservices and their future role within the telecoms industry.

Our webinar, which is available for playback here, began with a presentation from Abraham which addressed the misconceptions that surround microservices. He said that, while the FANG companies – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google – have pioneered cloud network computing to drive efficiencies, resilience and speed when delivering software in the cloud, CSPs need to achieve similar key performance indicators (KPIs) if they’re to truly become software-powered companies that are capable of competing with FANGs.

Abraham then explored the ‘extreme automation’ enabled by microservices, emphasising that the way in which microservices have been designed in independent combinations allows for a greater degree of automation of systems and process. “It’s obviously going to be a long term journey but the benefits can be tremendous,” he said.

He then moved on to focus on how CSPs are approaching microservices, identifying sceptics, hybrids and true believers as the three classes of CSP engaging – or not – with microservices. Today, only a small proportion of the true believers are currently working on microservices but Abraham projected that adopters will extend through to the hybrid layer as the technology and approaches become clearer.

“Not all operators will want or need to embrace the cloud native model,” he acknowledged, pointing out that microservices deployment is a complex, strategic goal. “This journey can be quite a complex one and it’s essential that operators make the right choices of vendors partners and even the approaches they take if they want to take this forward.”

This set the scene for Somagani from VoltDB to explore microservices challenges and opportunities further. Somagani detailed three dimensions of microservices deployment that CSPs need to address: what components to select, how to structure teams and what the system boundaries are. He cited Conway’s Law that: ‘An organisation designing a system will inevitably produce a design who’s structure is a copy of the organisations’ communications structure’, as a warning that microservices should not replicate existing structures and approaches if they are to deliver maximised value.

He advocated splitting the workforce into microservices teams so productivity can remain high while experts work in what is an extremely complex environment. “Identifying how to divide teams composed of experts from all the different areas is important because there are challenges that are both new and complex – microservices aren’t easy,” he said.

Somagani then shared a microservices use case of how VoltDB is working with its partner Nokia which has implemented VoltDB and expanded it into the evolved packet core and its Cloud Mobile Manager and Cloud Mobile Gateway. “They see this as an integral part of 5G and NFV strategy and VoltDB is suitable because of its performance and scalability and because it is built to be cloud-ready with millisecond-nanosecond latency with near linear scalability,” he explained.

The presentations closed with Abraham predicting that mainstream adoption of microservices by CSPs remains at least five years away but that mainstream will involve not only today’s pioneering true believers but also the bulk of the current hybrid sector of the CSP community.

The floor was then opened to a vibrant Q&A session in which members of the audience had the opportunity to ask questions to all the panellists, but if you want to know what was asked you’ll need to listen to the webinar here!

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