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My friend: Hi Ibrahim, I have a question for you.
- Me: Please, go ahead.
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My friend: I was wondering if we are going to deploy telco-cloud for a 5G network, so what is the best choice we can use for the telco-cloud? Is it private, public, or hybrid?
- Me: Actually, each type of these cloud solutions has its own merits and disadvantages. And let’s start with the private cloud solution where the MNO is deploying its cloud solution in its own premises, and we have many advantages here such as security as all critical information of subscribers are stored in servers located at the MNO premises which ensure data privacy. Also, latency is lower as all data processing is done inside the organization which will provide good performance specially for latency-sensitive services. But the top drawback of private cloud is the inherent costs required to procure, configure, maintain, and upgrade HW and SW. Training expenses for your employees to be able to run and administer this private network can be another major bottom-line impact for private cloud deployments. Many companies provide private cloud solutions such as VMware and Red Hat.
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My friend: So, what about the public cloud?
- Me: Here, the MNO is going to a third party and rent its cloud infrastructure to use and there are many companies provide the public cloud solution such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google. One of the advantages of using public cloud is that no CAPEX is paid, and your costs will be transferred to be OPEX, but you should take care of it as maybe on the long run, it’ll cost you more. Also, there is high scalability and flexibility to upgrade resources in peak hours when high demand exists without any prior capacity planning. Also, the headache of managing the cloud will be moved into the cloud service provider and so the MNO will focus mainly on the business-related topics. But the security is a big concern here as this cloud infrastructure is a multi-tenancy model which means other companies can use the same resources. Also, sometimes the public cloud doesn’t meet the regulatory and compliance requirements in specific countries.
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My friend: Then what about the hybrid cloud?
- Me: As the name implies, it is a combination of the private and public cloud. So, the MNO can go for this solution to use the public cloud and get its advantages by moving insensitive data there and keeping the most critical data in the private cloud to meet the security and privacy concerns and also meeting the regulatory and compliance requirements as well. The latency-sensitive services can be kept in private networks to assure that performance is not degraded. But take care as managing the hybrid cloud is more complex and can be more costly as well.
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My friend: Thank you so much. You made it very clear.
- Me: You are most welcome.
LinkedIn: Ibrahim Sayed, PMP on LinkedIn: #5g #telcocloud #openran #5gnr #oran