VMware Telco Cloud includes three main layers that span the edge network, radio access network, private network, and core network:
Infrastructure
Automation
Operations
These layers form a complete telco stack that empowers you to deploy, automate, operate, and protect network services on a consistent horizontal infrastructure.
Virtual Infrastructure Tier:
The infrastructure layer supplies infrastructure as a service using VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure™, which combines virtualization technologies such as VMware vSphere®, VMware NSX®, and (optional) VMware vSAN™.
With VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure, security is intrinsic, programmable, automated, adaptive, and context-aware. Intrinsic security improves visibility, reduces complexity, and focuses your defenses by enabling you to apply and automate adaptive security measures such as micro-segmentation in the correct place.
VMware Telco Cloud Platform 5G Edition combines VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure and VMware Telco Cloud Automation™. VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure is an evolution of VMware vCloud® NFV™. VMware Telco Cloud Automation contains multi-domain orchestration and automation capability. VMware Telco Cloud Platform also embeds Tanzu Kubernetes Grid that allows CSPs to build, manage, and run containerized workloads across private, telco, edge, and public clouds.
Management and Automation Tier:
The Management and Automation tier in the VMware Telco Cloud Stack is a critical component that enables efficient management and automation of the cloud infrastructure.
VMware Telco Cloud Automation is a solution designed specifically for communications service providers (CSPs) to automate the deployment and management of virtualized network functions (VNFs) and services in their telco cloud environments improving service delivery, reduces operational costs, and increases agility.
It integrates with Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM) and Kubernetes to build a robust multi-tenant environment for securely managing the application layer.
Operations Tier:
The operations layer provides analytics, network intelligence, and assurance with VMware Telco Cloud Service Assurance and optional components such as VMware Aria Operations™ for Logs (formerly VMware vRealize® Log Insight™), VMware Aria Operations™ (formerly VMware vRealize® Operations™), and VMware Aria Operations™ for Networks (formerly vRealize® Network Insight™).
VMware Telco Cloud Service Assurance provides an integrated service monitoring and network management solution. It correlates physical devices such as hosts, switches, and routers with virtual environments such as NFV, VMs, SDN, and SD-WAN, providing CSP operations teams with rapid insight and automated actions.
To help CSPs who implement 5G or transition to 5G by establishing a mixed non-standalone 5G and 4G network, VMware provides different bundles to support various telco requirements. You can choose the VIM that suits your requirements. A telco-grade Kubernetes distribution from VMware helps you to build, run, and manage CNFs and 5G services.
