Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:12):
Hello, you're watching the Cloud Native Telco Summit, part of our year-round DSP Leaders Coverage. I'm Guy Daniels and for this year's summit we are focusing on transformation roadmaps and operational excellence, discussing the critical business drivers and how to scale teams and processes. Well, joining me now is Philippe Ensarguet, who is VP of Software engineering at Orange. Hello, Philippe, really good to see you again. Thanks so much for coming on the program. It's been a while since we last spoke. I'd like to ask you, first of all, how would you rate the overall progress of the telecoms industry with regards to its use of cloud native?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (00:53):
Oh, it's a very good question to start with Guy. So for me, basically being Cloud-native is around three things, perhaps more, but there are three things that are super important. We need to have a cloud native runtime, we need to have an automated lifecycle deployment management and also having truly cloud-native network function. What we can observe, I would say, is that the maturity level is not equal around, I would say all these three blocks that are absolutely measured. My global feeling is that over the past years, I could say perhaps four to five years, how telecom industry has made notable strides in adapting cloud native technologies and in particular with the rollout of the 5G core standalone. And today, while I would say most of our peers in the industry are transitioning to a true cloud native architecture, I would say that the shift is still incomplete even if the 5G core is definitively the spot where things are happening right now.

(02:02):
So the adoption peak for me has not still been rich and the same on the same level. I would say that we have a growing recognition of the necessity for cloud-native solution because it's about scalability, elasticity, efficiency, demand, and it's exactly where a cloud native interest is rising up. And it's, there is something also super important to keep in mind related to this adoption pick. It's to consider the breakdown of the whole network function deployment that we got right now and what we could target whether we like it or not. We still have a lot of tremendous volume of, I would say, physical and virtual network that are live. And it's only under the push of modernization or new feature like the 5G. And in few years with the six G that I hope that we could have a most important shift. Something that is super important, and we already talk about this guy, is that when we are talking about cloud-native network function, the C is not standing for container but truly for cloud-native.

(03:19):
So okay, we have today a defacto adoption of the continent technology by most of our network function vendors. But to be cloud-native is much, much more than I would say embracing container. It's a full transition that will require, I would say, different dimension from technological process people and cultural changes. And I would say that on this field we have a different level of maturity if we are very focusing about the network vendor ecosystem. But here there is something that perhaps to end with your first question, it's super important is just to outline the tremendous contribution that has been made by the NGMN with I would say the cloud native manifesto that have been part of the writing. This one, and honestly it's for me super important because it's a pledge from the executive of most of the telecom, I would say operator, the biggest one, the most important one, the most in influential role that we truly need to have this shift. And what we drive in intent into this manifesto has been in particular, I would say deep dive into a best practice white paper that have been released within the Linux Foundation networking, CNTI, the cloud native telecom initiatives.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (04:52):
Philippe, thanks very much indeed. That's great. And it's an important point you made there, isn't it? That cloud native is a full transformation for telcos, not just about containerization. Well, we looked at the overall industry there and the great work that various bodies are doing, including NGMN. But in terms of Orange, your own organization, how do you rate your own adoption? How is cloud-native improving your key business objectives?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (05:19):
Guy, on this one, I would love to start by quoting something that is coming from you because we really love the report that have been released on last May, if I'm right, that's called the DSP Cloud-Native Telco Market Perception report. And according to what we read there, we were perceived as number three in the cloud native telco trailblazer. And you cannot imagine how much we were proud of this rating, and you cannot imagine how much it gave us energy to continue pushing forward the transformation. So while I'm quoting this, it means that trailblazer, I think that at Orange, orange we try really to be a trailblazer and with other peers to push forward into this direction of the cloud native. So you know that within range, we are strongly advocating with what we are calling the horizontal model. The horizontal model for us is to get out the very close, narrow and siloed vertical model that is most of the time pushed by the vendor who want to hold the full stack.

(06:36):
But when you are a tier one operator like orange, and where you are covering so much countries with so much customers, you need to find I would say mutualization reuse and best practice at corporate scale. And that's why we are pushing so much about this horizontal model that is covering the infrastructure, the lifecycle management, but also the operation. And this horizontal model is core to our strategic roadmap. And to be very concrete, you know that we are since D zero with few of the peers highly committed into the silver project that is open source project under the Linux Foundation, Europe umbrella if I may say. And with silver, it's an industry open source move that is targeting three things, defining a framework, defining and implementing a reference implementation. And super important as third point to also integrate in the scope of the project, basically the validation center because at the end of the day, it's nice to have an infrastructure, but it's even better if we are able to validate a network function from our partners and vendors causing different, I would say configuration.

(08:02):
And right now around the silver ecosystem, we are running more than five different validation centers. So it's a huge, huge success and a super driver to help us, I would say push forward and support the transformation. And why I'm talking about silver, because silver is the open source upstream project we are using to implement our very own orange telco cloud. That is the downstream project from the silver one. So Orange Telco cloud today has been designed harden and secure according to the orange ecosystem today to run the cloud native infrastructure and to support the cloud native network function. And right now mainly focusing on the 5G core, if I want to be very honest with you. So at range we are also very imply to support and working with our vendors and with our partners because if you remember my first point of your first question being cloud-native is the runtime is the lifecycle management and operation, but it's also having truly cloud native network function. So we can't transform, I would say, and have the full benefits of this transformation if we are not supporting and working closely with vendors and partners to support their transition and explain the requirement and all that we need to become truly, I would say cloud native.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (09:42):
Well, that is really great progress, which I guess explains why so many of your industry peers voted for you in our market perception report and voted pushed you up to such a high position there. Let me move on and cover one of the main themes of this year's summit, which is creating roadmaps for cloud-native transformation. Can I ask you, which business drivers do you think have proven to be most critical in securing the all important board level commitment for this cloud-native journey?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (10:14):
I love this question and for me, cloud-native is not only a tech shift, we need to understand that it's a strategic, clever to evolve the business model, improve the resilience, and stay relevant in a hyper competitive digital ecosystem. So regarding your question for me, I may say that there are three different areas that could be a commitment from board level. The first one is related for me to growth and innovation. For me, cloud-native is the foundation for monetizing the 5G, the API, the A iot. It allows to move beyond the connectivity into platform API ecosystem basically, if I may say looking B two, B two X model where we can co-create value with enterprise and partners moving out of our only pipe dealer, if I may say, and agility, it brings mean that we can launch services much more faster, not months, not years. Certainly more in weeks and capturing opportunity much more faster than our competition.

(11:35):
So first is growth and innovation. The second one, that is a tricky one, but I think it's important to spot on, it's about financial resilience. I truly think that cloud native may shift us from AV CapEx looking toward, I would say software defined lasting economics mainly. If we succeed to reach a more, I would say cloud-native network function representative here, automation could really drive significant opex saving. And at the end of the day, it really contribute to make us more resilient in face of, I would say a very volatile demand and market uncertainty. And the third and last one, if I may say, is really related to resilience, security, and sustainability because you know that cloud-native architecture by design ends the reliability onboard, the self filling onboard the drift management enabled automated security and that container basically, or the best computation form factor we may have on the hardware. So it's also something that could really help us to align with our ESG commitment by reducing the energy consumption or to use the right energy consumption regarding the right need of or scale up or scale down. Of course, integrating, I would say smarter and more efficient operations.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (13:18):
Thanks Philippe. Yeah, all very, very important areas there. Well, the other key theme we're doing this year is all around operational excellence. So can I ask you what challenges you think telcos face when they come to scale their teams and processes as their cloud native operations start to mature?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (13:36):
Okay, so I would say the starting answering about this question is very related to the last one. For me, operational excellence, incl native is not also just technical, it's much more, it's about people, process, culture, and scaling requires investment in talent automation, open standards to achieve the reliability and the security and efficiency that our telco grade services is requiring. So for me definitively, and when I'm talking with my peers, the very, very big first challenge is related to talent. And we are really moving from traditional network engineering to cloud native. If I may say, even if a network function remains a network function from a three GPP definition and standardization standpoint, all that is surrounding the functional. I would say scope has totally shift its software, its DevOps, GitHubs, it's automation, it's content base, it's microservices implementation, it's resiliency by design. So what I'm trying just to share here is that we have a new engineering paradigm, a cloud native DevOps, SRE skills I would say are really on the table and require a major upskilling and the market for this profile, even outside perhaps the telecom industry is super, super, super tight.

(15:15):
So this is as much as a cultural shift, if I may say as a technical one. So first challenge for me is talent. The second one is complexity because we must keep in mind that we are operating in a hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Okay, cloud-native is the last trendy and flashy topic, but it's at best five to 10% of what we are today in our network. So it means that we have, let's say 80% remaining. So we may have a coexistence of, I would say, old legacy system that are still in play where the result is it on BSS or on the OSS. So scaling operation, I would say mean, mastering all this automation, observability, lifecycle management across total new architecture, microservices design that is far, far more dynamic than our legacy telcos stack. And on this complexity topic, and even if the scope of the cloud native network function today is I would say perhaps narrow, I'm still so surprised by how much time it's still required for having network function, integration, validation and certification while we embrace this cloud native paradigm.

(16:41):
And also the price that it costs varies a total shift between the reality of cloud, what cloud native could really scale up in our operational model and what perhaps we got on our daily basis life. So first, talent complexity is the second. The third one for me is really about governance and security. Cognitive must remain carrier grid, we must be compliant. And at some point in time there is this sovereignty topic. So it means that we have another option than on embedding security and regulatory rea alignment into every process we are covering from D zero to D two from the think to the operation. And the last one is definitively about change management. We are really having this question of breaking down the silos between IT network, moving toward cross-functional teams standardization around open platform that is extremely critical. And in particular for us at ranch, you just keep in mind what I share with you to achieve, I would say repeatable and efficient operation. So as a wrap up for me here, the real challenge is not with the cloud-native works, trust me guy. It does. The challenge is scaling the organizational muscular around it. Basically. I truly think that the one who will succeed will unlock faster innovation, higher resilience, and certainly a true telco to TECO transformation. And it's something that is really important to my art.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (18:26):
Absolutely, and we've discussed this before and it goes back to your very first point. This is a full complete transformation for the telco. It evolves every aspect of telco's business. That's great. Philippe, I'd like to tie these two themes together if I can. How does a telco then feedback and incorporate AI-driven insights into their long-term operational roadmaps?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (18:52):
So my conviction on this one is that AI is definitively, I would say, the connective material between the cognitive transformation and the operational excellence. For me, the true meaning of AI here is to turn raw data into foresight and helping us to enable basically moving from reactive firefighting to proactive and predicting operation. I truly think that the real value comes when insight flow back into the roadmap. So it's a lot of question we need to crack here, how we design our pipeline, CICD, and GitHub pipeline, how we plan the capacity, how we secure the network, how we shape the customer experiences. So in the long term, I think that AI driven feedback loops are something that is super important for the telcos to evolve toward autonomous network. So networks that are able to scale, heal, and optimize themselves. It's not just about efficiency, it's reinforcing the resiliency topic.

(20:06):
And here it's also another opportunity perhaps to link how much today at Orange React Committee to the TMF autonomous Network framework. And we are still on our journey moving to level four to drive our transformation. So it's very, very important. And perhaps just to end with this, what is interesting also in our cognitive transformation is that with cloud native, if it's the booster stage of a rocket, while AI is the space shift, you won't reach the moon of mass without the booster. So what is super important, and my true and deep conviction on this one as telecom operator, we cannot be successful in AI if we are not successful on cloud because it's the same foundation. cloud-native is the foundation for cloud-native telco, but also for AI and AI driven in the topic that you highlighted into, I would say AI driven insight for I would say operational topics.

(21:24):
So yes, I think that this one is super important and I would love perhaps also to mention on this topic that within the NGMN we open the cloud native next chapter that is targeting operating models with Gene I. And basically it's an ongoing chapter where we are focusing on how to close the gap between cloud-native and AI covering the skills, the process, but also trying to address the gene AI driven architecture and how the DevOps and the GitHubs evolution could take the full benefits of what we got with ai. Perhaps a short quote on this one to end is I'm truly convinced that without AI cloud-native scale becomes at certain in time complexity. I truly believe that with AI it becomes intelligent. So it's all just to highlight how much the two topic are very, very linked and tied together according to me.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (22:43):
Great. Thanks Philippe. It's a fascinating area that NGMN is developing there. We look forward to hearing more in the months and years ahead. A final question to you then. We saw you and spoke to you recently, the first cloud native Telco Day, day zero event at KU Con in London. Are we starting finally to see growing community interest in cloud native telco?

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (23:09):
Oh, it's a very good question Guy here. So yes, you're right to spot the last cloud, native telco day we got in London, that was a preday of the big coupon. Just remember that in London we were 12,000 people in the Santa stage. So it's huge, huge audience. And during the London chapter, we got all the cloud native session. And what we learned from the Linux Foundation organization very, very recently is that, and it's good news, we will transform all the cloud native Telco day to a full day. It's so amazing because Guy last year in London, we got a full room, I think that it was nearly 300 people in the room for a full afternoon listening to cloud native telco networking topics. So okay, even if Telco is a big business, it's a narrow one regarding the full business ecosystem or areas. And having an opportunity to have a full day session is absolutely a good sign about the fact that we got strong traction and wheel from the operators, the vendors, the hardware, the orchestration partners to bring their knowledge, to share their story, and to reinforce and to identify the priority on which we need to move firsthand to really be effective in the transformation we are currently having on the cloud native telco ecosystem.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (25:04):
Well, that's really good to hear and hopefully we'll be in attendance. And meanwhile, of course, we'll continue to support the industry with our ongoing cloud native telco summits. Philippe, as always, it's great talking with you and thanks so much for sharing your views with us today.

Philippe Ensarguet, Orange (25:20):
My pleasure, Guy.