Leading Telco Cuts Network Function CAPEX by 80% with Unified Orchestration
Carrier-grade automation delivers end-to-end CNF/VNF lifecycle management, ETSI MANO compliance, and high-availability orchestration across core and edge.
Summary
A major telecommunications operator faced growing complexity in its effort to virtualize and scale its network infrastructure to support 5G and edge deployments. Managing a multi-vendor environment spanning physical, virtual, and cloud-native network functions was overwhelming existing operations teams and creating costly inefficiencies.
By deploying UBiqube’s MSActivator, the telco gained a centralized, ETSI MANO–compliant orchestration layer capable of automating CNF/VNF lifecycle management across its hybrid network. The solution’s cloud-native architecture, DevOps readiness, and support for both standardized and non-standardized systems enabled massive CAPEX reduction, faster deployment cycles, and stronger service resilience.
The Challenge
Expanding into 5G and edge computing required the telco to rethink its network architecture—from static, vendor-defined deployments to a more flexible, cloud-native approach. But with dozens of vendors and platforms in play, orchestrating network functions across domains proved highly complex and labor-intensive.
Core-to-edge expansion: Delivering consistent performance and low latency across edge locations introduced new architectural and operational complexity.
Multi-vendor CNF/VNF orchestration: Supporting a heterogeneous mix of physical, virtual, and cloud-native functions required unified control without vendor lock-in.
Scaling operational demands: Orchestrating services at telco scale traditionally meant expanding Ops teams—a cost- and resource-heavy approach.
Disaster recovery and high availability: The growing importance of edge services and 5G placed stringent requirements on uptime, failover, and geo-redundancy.
The Solution
To address these challenges, the telco implemented MSActivator, UBiqube’s Integrated Automation Platform. Engineered to support hybrid infrastructures at scale, MSActivator enabled seamless integration of network domains, standardized and proprietary systems, and DevOps workflows.
- ETSI MANO–compliant orchestration that ensures interoperability and lifecycle control across CNF, VNF, and physical network functions.
- Adapter-based integration with native protocols (CLI, API, etc.)—no agents required.
- Support for VM-based and cloud-native VNFs across multiple virtualized infrastructure managers (VIMs).
- Microservice-based abstraction for reusable, vendor-agnostic automation logic.
- CI/CD integration and DevOps readiness enabling evergreen configuration delivery.
- Active disaster recovery and geo-redundancy, ensuring carrier-grade resilience.
The Results
With MSActivator, the telco achieved measurable improvements in cost efficiency, agility, and service continuity:
- 80% reduction in network function CAPEX by eliminating rigid vendor dependencies and enabling infrastructure flexibility.
- Full ETSI MANO compliance, future-proofing operations for ongoing innovation and vendor expansion.
- Improved service availability and resiliency with built-in high availability and disaster recovery.
- Streamlined DevOps operations, reducing deployment time and manual configuration cycles.
- Unified orchestration across core, edge, and cloud for end-to-end lifecycle management and governance.
