Has virtualization become obsolete in 5G?

Sat Aug 1 21:11:21 UTC 2020

Containerization and k8s aren't so much a shift away from virtualization
(horizontally), but a shift up from virtualization (vertically). It is a broader
theme than 5G - initially gaining traction with SaaS companies, and recently
appearing in NFV scenarios.

Under the hood, k8s relies on an operating system which in turn typically runs
inside a VM on a physical compute resource. Virtualization, thus, isn't obsolete
- but its implementation specifics lose importance.

The operator describes her desired configuration state once in the form of k8s
objects, and is ready to deploy a service to any k8s platform instance. This can
be an A-list k8s-as-a-service provider such as Amazon EKS, Google GKE, or Azure
AKS. It can also be an in-house VMWare Tanzu or Mirantis Cloud Platform
deployment that runs on the operator's own bare metal in their own data center.

This additional abstraction, however, is only magical when someone else gets
paid to deal with the detail. For an operator's in-house IT team, introducing
k8s can be a net increase in complexity. Now, not only do they have to deal with
all traditional IT challenges up to and including virtualization (life-cycle of
hardware, physical network, storage, virtualization, operating system,
licensing, backups, ...) - but also must map the k8s platform instance to these
underlying elements and ensure the correct functioning of the k8s platform itself.

Solutions are emerging (e.g. Amazon AWS Outposts, which allow an operator to
bring a micro Amazon region in-house), but we'll likely continue to see NFV
vendors supporting both VM-targetted and k8s-targetted deployment scenarios for
some time.

--
Sincerely,

David Monosov

On 01/08/2020 11:23, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> Over the past few weeks, I've attended webinars and watched videos organized by
> Intel. 
> These activities have centred on 5G and examined applications (like "visual
> cloud" and "gaming"), 
> as well as segment-oriented aspects (like edge networks, 5G RAN and 5G Core).
> 
> I am stunned (no hyperbole) by the emphasis on Kubernetes in particular,
> and cloud-native computing in general. 
> Equally stunning (for me), public telecommunications networks have been portrayed 
> as having a history that moved from integrated software and hardware, 
> to virtualization and now to cloud-native computing. 
> See, for example Alex Quach, here
> <https://www.telecomtv.com/content/intel-vsummit-5g-ran-5g-core/the-5g-core-is-vital-to-deliver-the-promise-of-5g-39164/> @10:30).
> I reason that Intel's implication is that virtualization is becoming obsolete.
> 
> Would anyone care to let me know his thoughts on this prediction?
> 
> 
> Cheers all,
> 
> Etienne
> 
> -- 
> Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
> Assistant Lecturer
> Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
> Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
> University of Malta
> Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasqualeI 