Network-as-a-service (NaaS) provider Mavenir was selected by Hungarian telecom operator Magyar Telekom to deploy its cloud-native 5G converged packet core technology in a move to complement the operator's DevOps and cloud-native journey, Mavenir Core Networks President Ashok Khuntia told SDxCentral.

Cloud and common infrastructure from Magyar Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (DT), will initially host 5G standalone (SA), 5G non-standalone (NSA), and 4G networks, and it will host the complete packet core network further down the line, according to Khuntia. "Magyar Telekom’s selection of Mavenir shows their high-level trust and confidence in our capability to deliver packet core solutions," he said.

Mavenir’s 5G core service exists within its cloud-native MAVcore portfolio, which is founded on an open architecture that uses DT-defined hardware and a platform based on the popular open source Kubernetes project. In this way, the portfolio supports the scaling of applications and services, hardware decoupling, agility, portability, and cloud-native resilience, according to the vendor.

MAVcore supports network slicing with dedicated control and user plane network functions aimed at meeting service level agreements (SLAs), and it integrates with various third-party vendors for 4G and 5G access network and policy management functions. "The third-party vendor network function integration allows for even faster and even more agile set up as it can connect quickly to existing infrastructure," Khuntia said to describe Mavenir's differentiation from competitors.

He explained that Mavenir's cloud-native design provides a containerized solution based on stateless microservice architecture to allow for improved resilience and recovery from network failures. In addition, the vendor boasts an agile collaboration method that provides "a shorter time to market for Magyar Telekom’s new requirements," which is "a priority for them with this project," he said. "This short time-to-market and flexibility is crucial as 5G SA is focused a lot on enterprises and IoT customers, and being able to deploy rapidly is essential for Magyar Telekom’s offering."

"Mavenir is moving away from traditional model customer-supplier relationships toward real ongoing partnership and collaboration," Khuntai added, citing Mavenir's recently deployed fully containerized 5G SA converged packet core with DT Germany and successful demonstration of network slicing for on-demand live event video streaming using the vendor's converged 4G/5G packet core.