This document discusses how to setup a telco in the cloud using open source technologies. It describes how the company X by Orange uses infrastructure as code practices like Git, Packer, Terraform, and Ansible to provision their cloud infrastructure immutably. They deploy applications as containers using OpenShift and monitor services with Prometheus and Netdata. The goal is to provide flexible online solutions to customers faster than traditional telcos by embracing a cloud native approach.

1. How to setup a telco in the cloud
walking together with and

2. Who am I?
o @methadata sleeping at @X_byOrange
o 2x Telecom engineer
o Worked for aerospace, banking and telco industry.
o Security, SDN, networking, automation, private/public cloud... and slides
o Cloud architect since 2012
o We’re hiring (bald) people at XByOrange

3. Who am I?
o @AngelBarrera92 working at @Intelygenz
o From fullstack developer to devops, SRE, cloud architect, automation
engineer... put your innovative role here
o Cloud passionate and Kubernetes lover
o At @Intelygenz we are hiring, devops, SRE, data science, developers.
Work with us in innovative projects like X By Orange!
rrhh@intelygenz.com or angel.barrera@intelygenz.com

4. Why are
we here?

5. A software
company within
a telco
1st telco
commited
exclusively to
SMBs
Big data is the
catalyst for
developing our
customers'
bussiness
We're creating a
platform to
integrate
partners and
start-ups
We're cloud
based, for
fastest delivery
of new products

6. Currently, telcos...
o … are seen merely as a wire-provider.
o … offer a few products, tightly coupled to their infrastructure.
o … aren't seen as tech-leaders in the cloud/software world.
o … need more than 1 year to launch new products.
o … develop features based on big customer's needs.
o … deploy ad-hoc configs, creating snowflakes.

7. X by Orange
response

8. Our customers enjoy, with
no upfront costs, flexible,
online-managed solutions
that until now were
reserved for big
companies.

9. How we do it

10. We build with
expert partners
and the
community: no
turnkey
solutions.
Pure-techie
staff with
(Sec)DevOps
culture
Automate
everything
Hyperscalable
by design
Lean lifecycle:
we deliver a
true MVP and
evolve with the
customer

11. Why Intelygenz?
o 16 years of expertise in Madrid & SF
o Consolidated organization helping Global Top 100
companies innovate further
o Real DevOps culture, Startup mindset and SRE staff
o Works in innovative projects and areas
o Cloud native since 2008
o AWS partner

12. Our services platform
Container platform
Provisioning
Cloud infrastructure
Monitoring&ServiceAssurance
ControlOperation

13. Our services platform
ProvisioningControlOperation
µ servµ servµ serv
XProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Control planeXProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Data plane
Monitoring&ServiceAssurance
Isolation of
customer’s data
plane
Centralized control
of products
Translation from
bussiness logic to
technical

14. Immutable infrastructure: provisioning
Cloud infrastructure
ControlOperation
XProduct
Control plane
XProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Data plane
XProduct
Data plane
Provisioning
Monitoring&ServiceAssurance

15. Infrastructure as Code journey
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config
We are all DevOps!
Some of us are SRE
Cattle vs pets

16. Infrastructure as Code journey
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config
From networking (our core) to reverse proxies… everything is code
Infrastructure is versioned too
Git is the de-facto standard

17. Infrastructure as Code journey
Gitlab CI as infrastructure orchestrator
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config

18. Infrastructure as Code journey
Packer is our choice for image (AMI) creation
AMI lifecycle
Hardened AMI is used as our base AMI
It is key to have Immutable infrastructure
Packer + Ansible: good choice
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config

19. Infrastructure as Code journey
Terraform is our infrastructure deployer of choice
Infrastructure components are modularized
We contribute to open source terraform modules (elasticsearch service module)
Multi environment setup
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config

20. Infrastructure as Code journey
Ansible is our Config Manager of choice
From OS layer to deployment stage
Modules for functionality, playbooks for specific deployments
We contribute to open source ansible roles (bind, auditbeat, Check Point...)
All roles and playbooks are versioned
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config

21. Infrastructure as Code journey
Some infrastructure components can be deployed as containers.
Our apps are deployed as containers using OpenShift: Kubernetes distro.
version
control
pipeline
automation
image
build
deploy config
app
orchestration

22. Ansible during
deployment?
Where the f**k is
the immutability?

23. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
Initial
APP V1
OS V1
APP V1
OS V1

24. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
Patch OS
APP V1
OS V1
APP V1
OS V1

25. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
Patch OS
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V1

26. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
Patch OS
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V1

27. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
OS pathed
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2

28. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
Release APP V2
APP V1
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2

29. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
APP V2
OS V2
APP V2
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2
Release APP V2

30. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
APP V2
OS V2
APP V2
OS V2
APP V1
OS V2
Release APP V2

31. Immutable infrastructure
Mutable Immutable
APP V2
OS V2
APP V2
OS V2
APP V2 released

32. What about non cloud-native
components?
Some products cannot be modified: we lose vendor support.
Making their products cloud friendly is a challenge.
Win-win model: vendors understand this paradigm with a
collaboration model.
All other infrastructure componentes follow this paradigm

33. /XbyOrange
We embrace
Open Source
Public repo:
o Notification App
o Amazon Alexa integration
o (Future) BPM Console
Public collaboration with partners:
o Contribution to Terraform modules
o Check Point Python Modules (SDK)

34. www.xbyorange.com
walking together with and

36. Monitorization
- Prometheus is the first graduated project after kubernetes
by the CNCF
- Netdata is also part of the Cloud Native Computing
Foundation (CNCF) landscape
- Prometheus is deployed intra Openshift Cluster
- Netdata is deployed as agent in all VMs
- Both are open source

37. Monitorization overview
TSDB

38. - Kubernetes is a standard from 2016 until now in the
DevOps ecosystem
- We trust in RedHat team to have a fully supported
Kubernetes platform
- Openshift help us to rapid create an enterprise ready
kubernetes platform
Kubernetes Platform,
Openshift distribution

39. - In a year of development, we had some issues with the
cluster
- Most issues were related to RedHat customizations of k8s
(docker’s fork maintained by RedHat...)
- Subscription model makes it hard to get an immutable
cluster. RedHat and us are working on it.
- Standard RedHat support is not enough: RedHat people in
place is a must. And they’re great!
Openshift issues

40. - It doesn’t seem possible today
- Scale master nodes is painful
- Scale infra-nodes is hard (redhat component)
- Scale compute nodes is hard too…
- Again, subscriptions and the (current) installation method
make this task really difficult to automate and make it
immutable
- By the moment, these tasks are manually
Openshift cluster auto-scaling

41. - Router sharding for internal and external routes
- Fully automated Kafka deployment (confluent distribution).
This deployment is made in dedicated nodes inside the
Openshift cluster
- Bring-Your-Own-Language: We do not limit the
microservices language ecosystem. Python, golang, java,
nodejs are currently used
Openshift configuration

42. CQRS in X by Orange
producer consumer queue connector
service API
Identity Server
Products SaaS
Frontend
BPM
Products Control EPs Common services
API Manager
Command/reply eventCommand/reply
query Command +
reply
event