Automated CNF-Ready Container Platform Provisioning

< Case Studies 

Accelerating 5G Readiness: Shrinking CNF Cluster Deployment from Weeks to <1 Day

TL;DR

• The Challenge: Deploying Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNFs) suffered from slow, manual cluster provisioning, frequent integration errors, and inconsistent security baselines across the private cloud.

• The Solution: Automated end-to-end Kubernetes cluster provisioning on the private cloud using pre-defined blueprints, automated security hardening, and GitOps management.

• The Result: Slashed cluster deployment time by 90%+ (from weeks to under a day), reduced integration errors by 70%, and standardized platform compliance across all nodes.

The Situation

Deploying modern CNFs (like vIMS or 5G Core) requires a highly robust, secure, and precise container platform. Previously, building out these Kubernetes clusters on the private cloud took 3–4 weeks due to fragmented infrastructure provisioning, slow validation, and manual configuration of complex networking (like SR-IOV and Multus). This manual approach caused frequent integration errors and made maintaining regulatory compliance inconsistent.

The Spark

We approached infrastructure as code. By treating entire Kubernetes clusters and their complex telecom configurations as standardized, repeatable software pipelines, we could eliminate human configuration drift and safely spin up validated, CNF-ready environments instantly.

The Solution

We engineered an automated end-to-end cloud-native provisioning pipeline:

• Infrastructure Build: Utilized Terraform to dynamically build the underlying compute, network, and storage foundations on the Ericsson CCD target platform.

• Pipeline & Governance: Orchestrated the entire workflow via Git CI/CD pipelines complete with built-in validation approvals.

• Cluster Configurations: Deployed Ansible AWX to handle cluster bootstrapping, security baselines, and CIS hardening rules.

• CNF Dependencies: Configured specialized networking (CNI/Multus, SR-IOV), storage, and ingress policies, pulling core CNF prerequisites directly from a private Helm repository.

• Continuous Delivery: Leveraged ArgoCD/Flux to manage active cluster states using an auditable, declarative GitOps approach.

• Readiness Telemetry: Connected Splunk Core to stream infrastructure logs and populate readiness dashboards to validate platform health before handoff.

The Success