Skip to main content

OpenStack Gains Momentum within the Telecom Sector

Informed telecommunications service providers have reduced their infrastructure cost and improved their development agility by adopting open source software.  According to findings from a recent survey, 85.8 percent of telecom industry respondents consider OpenStack to be essential or important to their success.

The survey, commissioned by the OpenStack Foundation, explores current usage and adoption plans of telecom service providers -- particularly with respect to Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), 5G cellular communications, Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise cloud computing.

Facing unprecedented traffic and rapidly evolving customer expectations, telecom providers worldwide are accelerating their adoption of NFV to increase network agility and mitigate costs, and OpenStack has emerged as the NFV infrastructure platform of choice.

OpenStack Market Development Results

The OpenStack survey included 113 responses from representatives of telecom companies around the world: 54 percent from the U.S. market, 14.2 percent from Europe, 11.5 percent from the Asia Pacific region, 8.9 percent each from Central or South America and Canada; and 2.7 percent from the Middle East.

Highly Valued: 85.8 percent consider OpenStack to be essential or important to their success.

Rapid Adoption: Telecoms are already using or currently testing new use cases with OpenStack for:
  • NFV: 60.3 percent using or testing; 37.8 percent considering (total 98.1percent)
  • IoT: 41.3 percent using or testing; 49.5 percent considering (total 90.8 percent)
  • 5G: 30.6 percent using or testing; 49.1 percent considering (total 79.7 percent)

Multiple Benefits: In popularity order, the benefits cited most often are:
  • Offer new services more quickly (This was by far the most-cited benefit, outpacing the next by 24 percent)
  • More rapid virtualization of the data center
  • Reduced operational cost
  • Reduced software cost

Strong Community Engagement: 73.5 percent of respondents are engaged with OpenStack, primarily by contributing to the software, contributing requirements and use cases, and attending OpenStack Summits and OpenStack Days community events. Neutron is the OpenStack project most contributed to, followed closely by Nova.

OpenStack Neutron Plug-in Popularity: The survey revealed that telecoms are using a mix of open source and commercial OpenStack Neutron plug-ins for Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and virtual switching. The variety of plug-ins selected in the survey validate OpenStack's strategy of providing user choice.

Containers on the Rise: 99 percent of respondents are considering containers for both VNFs and business applications. 68.4 percent will definitely use containers for VNFs, and almost all others are considering them (30.6 percent). This is slightly higher than using containers for business apps (63.6 percent definitely or likely, 35.5 percent potentially).

“The flexibility and versatility of OpenStack as a cloud and NFV platform allows telecom companies to combine business and communications IT under a single technology,” said Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation.

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year

Global Digital Business and IT Consulting Outlook

Across the globe, CEOs and their leadership teams continue to seek information and guidance about planned Digital Transformation initiatives and the most effective enterprise organization change management practices. Worldwide IT and Business Services revenue will grow from $1.13 trillion in 2022 to $1.2 trillion in 2023 -- that's a 5.7 percent year-over-year growth, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). The mid-term to long-term outlook for the market has also increased -- the five-year CAGR is forecast at 5.2 percent, compared to the previous 4.9 percent. Digital Sevices & Consulting Market Development IDC has raised the growth projection despite a weak economic outlook, because of vendor performances across 2022, growth indicators from adjacent markets, increased government funding, and inflation impacts. The actual 2022 market growth was 6.7 percent (in constant currency), which was 87 basis points higher than forecast last year, alth