Telefónica and Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced an agreement to initiate the transformational journey towards Network Operations by introducing Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment and Continuous Testing (CI/CD/CT) in Telefonica’s German and Brazilian markets, with the perspective of expansion to Spain and UK.

With 5G, born cloud native and based on containers and microservices, suppliers have endorsed a CI/CD/CT approach in their industrialization process dramatically increasing the number of product releases and the volume of testing. Operators need to be radically agile to face this new situation without compromising the right level of quality, performance, scalability and time to market.

Telefonica plans to leverage a common CI/CD/CT framework for all the markets which can be implemented locally to meet specific local integration needs, with the support of Wipro. This will ease collaboration among Telefonica OpCos allowing to share design, parametrization/configuration, test plans and results.

The solution, developed by Wipro, will be built over opensource tools and open to evolution, allowing rapid adaptation to future technological changes. Common repository test tools will also be used, with the possibility of future integration with the CI/CD/CT pipeline.

Wipro will work with Telefonica to automate the associated Network Operations and, thus, enable the transition to the Telco Cloud and the adoption of the virtualized Network Functions. This framework will allow for industrialization of the process, coping with the increased volume and complexity of the Network Functions while adopting an Agile working methodology in parallel to the industry. 

Telefonica Germany considers CI/CD/CT to be an important tool when implementing automation strategy. “Agile working methods and delivery mechanisms will play an important role in the future to be a successful player in the market. With Wipro, we have chosen a service provider that can build converged solutions for us to optimally serve all technology segments. Fast, reliable and standardized automation of all tasks from build to production will improve our time to market as well as service quality,” said Thomas Braun, Manager Test Environments & Integration, Telefónica Germany.

Telefonica Brazil considers the initiative fundamental in its cloudification and network transformation strategy. “Automation of testing and continuous delivery will be one of the pillars to address the new construction model for 5G networks and even for traditional fixed and mobile networks” said Elmo Rocha, Director of Planning and Technology, VIVO.

Although the initial target is 5G Core Network, the strategy is to expand the solution to other areas such as Transport, Access and Infrastructure.

Furthermore, Telefonica and Wipro will collaborate in implementing and incorporating the CI/CD/CT framework in the Telefonica Technology & Automation Lab (based in Madrid). Wipro will support Telefónica in implementing different use cases over Telco Cloud environments and will build an automated and programmable environment based on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning where both partners will work jointly with the objective to achieve Zero touch network testing and deployment without a maintenance window.

“CI/CD/CT is a must in our 5G strategy enabling the robustness and reliability of our Network while ensuring adaptability and accelerating the time to market. This is one of the key steps in the path of automation of our networks. We see Wipro as the best partner for this journey given the knowhow and the experience we have in some other projects of automation like SDN implementation”said Cayetano Carbajo, Director of Core, Service Platforms and Transport, Telefonica CTIO.

Thomas Mueller, CTO – Engineering and R&D Services, Wipro Limited said, “Network disaggregation, O-RAN and automation are at the core of our investments to enable cost efficient, scalable networks of the future. Our decade long partnership with Telefonica is continuing to thrive through this agreement. Wipro will now leverage our investments into open-source based network automation and support Telefonica in future network transformation.”

Wipro had also recently announced a five-year strategic partnership with Telefónica Germany / O2 for a Radical IT Transformation (RAITT) program.