Telefónica highlights the importance of multi-cluster management to support a multicloud architecture

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Summary

Omdia recently spoke with Luis Velarde, Head of Cloud and Infrastructure for Telefónica Group’s CTIO office, on the progress of the company’s telco cloud implementation. This article summarizes the operator’s approach to a multicloud architecture and the challenges it faces in implementing it. Telefónica emphasizes the need to develop multi-cluster management (MCM) tools to cope with complex multicloud environments. Compared to application deployment (which is typically delivered through Open-Source MANO (OSM) and several other commercial tools), management of the virtualization stack has not received as much attention from the industry. Arguably, more work needs to be done by standardization organizations such as ETSI. While ETSI NFV has introduced a multi-cluster manager, it does not address the full scope of a telco’s complex environment yet. There are not many commercial solutions in the market either. Telefónica is working with different technology providers to build an MCM pilot that can be used as a reference for the capabilities needed.    

Introduction

Telefónica Group is one of the largest providers of telecommunications services globally. The group is organized into multiple business units. Telefónica Tech, a business created in 2019, focuses on digital services for the business-to-business (B2B) sector in areas such as cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, big data, AI, and blockchain. It provides fixed and mobile telephony and broadband services across multiple geographies in Europe and the Americas. In 2023, the group’s capex (for fixed and mobile communications) was around $5.8bn. It serves over 388 million customers across different markets, generating annual revenue of around $42.5bn.