Amazon Web Services (AWS) push into the telecommunications and 5G space has so far been advanced yet measured. However, with its depth of cloud resources and capabilities the hyperscaler could be sitting on significant opportunities to upend the market.

“We have been working on looking at how we could host networks in the public cloud, and by public cloud I mean our regions as well as all of the edge offerings that we have, for the last few years,” Ishwar Parulkar, CTO for telecom and edge at AWS, recently told SDxCentral in an interview. “And we've made significant progress in understanding what's needed to really run these workloads in the cloud and build networks.”

Parulkar noted those efforts really took flight during AWS’ work with Dish Network as part of that carrier’s greenfield 5G network build. The nascent operator bucked convention by moving its Nokia 5G standalone (SA) core to run in AWS’ public cloud environment.

That work has shown the different challenges in running a telecommunications network compared to typical cloud workloads.

“Packet core is a different workload than the other workloads we are running,” Parulkur said. “We had to look at how we could improve our cloud networking, how we could enhance some of our performance required for packet processing to run networking workloads. And this is a journey we've been on. We have been on this path for the last two, three years in just making the cloud capable of running these workloads.”

He specifically noted that cloud relies heavily on compute and storage, with simple “networking as an enabler. … You know, one interface, one or two IPs, and so forth.”

But “with network workloads, [it] was the flip. Compute was very simple. If you look at the packet core, it’s a few instances and not a large amount of compute,” Parulkur explained. “But the networking was where the complexity was. We needed multiple network interfaces, we needed millions of IP [addresses] because a lot of devices connect to the system, so we had to re-orient our thinking to building some of our infrastructure services to account for that.”

[caption id="attachment_126741" align="alignleft" width="300"] Ishwar Parulkar, CTO for Telecom and Edge, AWS[/caption]

AWS has also seen the increased importance of its edge locations to help power these telecom networks.

“What we realized was to build networks you needed edge because networks are all about connecting end devices to your central data center,” Parulkur said. “So edge was fundamental to hosting network functions.”

For AWS this means its edge cloud portfolio, including its Local Zones, Wavelength, and Outposts platforms. The company has been able to solidify the reliability and flexibility of these platforms despite initial operator trepidation.

“That's been one of the challenges and one of the things I've been working on over the years is just changing the mindset,” Parulkur said. “So things like availability, reliability – the models change when you go to a more software-based network and the cloud.”

He added that this includes redundancy models, which are very different in the cloud.

“You don’t need redundant hardware servers because the cloud itself has a bunch of servers in there and we have availability zones, so that model changes,” Parulkur said.

AWS’ model is also allowing operators to consume only the resources they need. This was recently highlighted by Hawaii-based mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Mobi, which launched a pilot 5G service tapping into a fully cloud-native core from Working Group Two and riding on AWS.

“With cloud what we've shown is with scale you get elasticity, with elasticity you can open up new consumption models like pay-as-you-go type of model [that] is highly secure, reliable, fully automated, [and] with changes happening 24/7,” Parulkur said.

Mobi is also looking to take advantage of AWS’ deeper capabilities. Mobi CEO Justen Burdette said he was looking toward working with Amazon on tying its ever-listening Alexa voice assistant system into that carrier’s offerings.

“One of the reasons the AWS cloud is different than say a [Hewlett Packard Enterprise] or Dell server running at the edge is that we bring the cloud to the edge,” Parulkur noted. “It's not just servers running, it comes with services. So when you have an Outposts you can run the whole portfolio of services on top of Outposts. And that's the beauty of how we are offering the edge. If you were to put servers in the edge you would need to build a lot of software to get to that level. Here, just by installing Outputs, you have the whole [artificial intelligence/machine learning] stack there and then you can start building network analytics at the edge using that.”

Despite AWS’ increased telecom interests, Parulkur did reiterate that AWS was not interested in moving much closer to the hardware side of telecom networks.

“We don’t intend to get involved in that,” he stated. “We recognize the strengths of the cloud and where we add value and that’s where we are focused on. We want to be the best place to run networks.”

This notion echoed previous comments from other AWS executives.

“Our goal is I want to make AWS the best place to run 5G networks,” Jan Hofmeyr, VP for AWS’ EC2 said during the hyperscaler’s recent re:Invent show. “That is the overarching objective. How can I make AWS, whether we are running it in the region, in a Local Zone, on an Outposts, on a Snow device, how do we make it the best place to run a 5G network, and then provide that infrastructure.”

The closest AWS is getting toward encroaching into the operator space is through its Private 5G platform. The hyperscale unveiled that initiative in late 2021, and has so far made modest updates to the platform.

Parulkur said AWS has more than 200 Private 5G deployments running on its Outposts platform, mostly enterprises that wanted a simple-to-deploy and manage system. However, it’s looking to partner with operators for more complex deployments.

“We are working with operators to expand that,” Parulkur said. “There are other use cases where we need telcos to partner with us because you need spectrum, or these networks are pretty large and relatively more complex with the radio planning and things like that. That's where we are partnering with telcos to evolve this service.”