The telecommunications sector is pursuing digital transformation like never before. From 5G innovation, to network automation, to overhauling traditional systems of working, the telco industry of the future is well underway. And that includes DevOps.
DevOps combines development and operations through automation, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), powerful cloud technologies, and Agile ways of working to more effectively and efficiently deliver applications and services. Core pillars of DevOps also include close team collaboration and constant monitoring and feedback.
In the dynamic telecommunications market, telco providers are able to meet growing customer expectations and stay ahead of competitors thanks to DevOps practices. It’s no surprise that the value of the global DevOps market is expected to grow from $10.9 billion in 2023 to $63.4 billion in 2032 – a CAGR of 21%.
This innovative approach to development speeds up delivery, enhances product quality, and increases the flexibility, reliability, and scalability of systems and services.
Leveraging DevOps drives efficiencies in the delivery of telco products and services, helping teams overcome the traditionally cumbersome delivery processes. With DevOps, teams can automate repetitive tasks like deployment, configuration, and monitoring, freeing up developers to focus on more strategic efforts and minimizing the risk of human error.
CI/CD as part of automation also creates efficiencies as teams are always testing and deploying the latest version of the code, allowing for quick interim releases. At intive, we work according to a sprint model – with all team members working toward delivering a new version of the product at the end of each sprint.
With DevOps, efficiencies are also borne out of close collaboration and communication between the various team members – from developers, to network engineers, to QA. DevOps allows for cross-functional cooperation and breaking down silos, facilitating better communication and more efficient and informed decision-making.
DevOps also supports increased product quality, ultimately driving better customer experience for end users. Automation, a key tenet of DevOps practices, allows for the latest additions to the product to be automatically deployed and tested before being integrated into the next release, which helps to ensure bugs or issues are found and fixed before they reach end users.
What’s more, leveraging an Agile approach means that improvements and changes to the product are swiftly implemented, allowing teams to quickly react to user feedback to improve the service.
DevOps also allows for more reliable and scalable systems. Teams can prevent disasters from slowing down development or blocking the release through monitoring tools. These solutions forewarn about impending issues and prevent a disaster before it happens, thanks to alerting and metrics visualization which allows for automated notifications and continuous monitoring of system health. At intive, we integrate these tools into real-time monitoring dashboards to support the system reliability of our telco clients.
Moreover, using Kubernetes clusters as the infrastructure enables automated self-healing procedures in the event of unexpected application crashes or temporary system errors. New pods are automatically and immediately generated when a failure occurs, minimizing service downtime.
DevOps also supports heightened scalability for telco providers, as containerization technologies allow teams to quickly scale cluster deployments up or down as necessary. This means that there is no excessive expenditure when the demand is low, and the system can accommodate surges in network demand – a crucial feature for systems adjusting to constantly changing requirements.
Implementing DevOps in an organization holds a lot of promise – but there’s no guarantee that teams will see success if not done mindfully. For example, if telco teams try to implement too much change too quickly, they run the risk of alienating or overwhelming developers. These teams can try an incremental Agile approach to adopting DevOps tools and practices. Changes can be rolled out piecemeal, gradually implementing test automation, closer collaboration between teams to break down silos, and CI/CD.
It’s important to encourage a cultural shift toward DevOps by highlighting the advantages of the approach. This will encourage developers to be more receptive to the changes required as they’re well-informed on the why. Also, by gradually implementing DevOps, they will be able to see the benefits in real time.
Furthermore, telcos can collaborate with a trusted tech partner to help them create these cultural shifts, implement new technologies and practices, and build a strategy for DevOps success.
While the initial hardware outlay and team training can be a hurdle for telcos at the start of their DevOps journey, a trusted partner can help them navigate this strategically and ensure they don’t waste resources down the line.
A tech partner should have experience in Agile ways of working and other modern methodologies, and be invested in using cloud tools for version control, monitoring, containerization, CI/CD, artifact storage, and security, amongst others. They should also be receptive to using 3PP cloud technologies and leverage these efficiencies. And crucially, they should be committed to close collaboration and continuous improvement at every step of the journey.
Choosing intive as a trusted development partner can help telcos turn complicated software architecture into a business advantage.
intive’s team has extensive experience leveraging DevOps practices and building and maintaining a CI/CD solution that supports efficiency and innovation for a leading telco company. The product enhances the CI/CD flow for the organization’s end users and provides more efficient delivery of large-scale systems with many components.
intive’s automated pipelines deploy and test the latest iteration of products and significantly reduce the time taken to deliver new features and improvements. Continuous integration of new changes into the end product along with three-week release cycles and automated end-to-end testing on the latest version ensure that the product is stable and well-tested before release.
What’s more, our cross-functional teams ensure all required skills to improve and maintain the product are covered, whether that be development, operations, QA, release management, or documentation.
We offer decades of experience working in an Agile way, and our teams are committed to close collaboration with telco customers, supporting them at every step in their DevOps journey – from taking the first steps towards DevOps to system maintenance and improvement.
DevOps is here to power telcos toward digital transformation, and providers who don’t leverage it now put at risk their position in an increasingly complex and dynamic industry. Interested in hearing more about how intive can support DevOps success in your business? Get in touch today.
And if you’re planning to attend Connected Britain 2024, we’d love to hear from you and explore the future of telco together. Schedule a consultation with a member of our team today.