Vodafone revolutionizes telco cloud with OpenShift, validated patterns, and GitOps

Vodafone revolutionizes telco cloud with OpenShift, validated patterns, and GitOps The challenge: Accelerating lifecycle operations in telco The solution: Validated patterns and GitOps GitOps: Automation and consistency Vodafone's custom pattern: A closer look Benefits and lessons learned Outlook and key takeaways Red Hat Learning Subscription | Product Trial About the author Alex Handy More like this Blog post Blog post Original podcast Original podcast Keep exploring Browse by channel Automation Artificial intelligence Open hybrid cloud Security Edge computing Infrastructure Applications Virtualization Share Vodafone is transforming its 5G telco cloud operations by embracing OpenShift, validated patterns, and GitOps to streamline its lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters. Tom Kivlin, Principal Cloud Architect at Vodafone, recently shared insights into their journey, highlighting the challenges overcome and the benefits realized through this strategic approach. He spoke at OpenShift Commons in London earlier this year. Traditional telecommunication service provider environments tend to operate at a slower pace compared to the rapid release cycles of Kubernetes, which sees three releases per year. Vodafone overcame hurdles in managing the lifecycle of their Kubernetes clusters, including: Faster pace of lifecycle operations : The adoption of containers and Kubernetes in its 5G network to necessitate quicker feature releases and software updates, demanding more frequent upgrades. Complex dependencies : Tackling inconsistencies resulting from intricate relationships between 5G software applications and the platform itself, often managed through spreadsheets. Complex dependencies are written in one single location, making them easier to discover. Manual management and human error : Improving manual lifecycle management of clusters which could lead to issues during pre-production testing and validation. This avoids using manual deployments and "quick & dirty" fixes. Time-consuming and high-risk deployments : Avoiding these time consuming and high-risk deployments by having everything well defined as code in a single, tracked and traced common repository made things smoother and faster. Using "validated patterns" reuses common components that have been shared and improved by the community “If you are managing the lifecycle of these clusters manually,” said Kivlin, “that can lead to problems that need fixing in pre-production as you're doing lifecycle operation testing and validation. We wish to avoid this to ensure deployments and upgrades are quick yet effective.