Nokia announced a cloud-native portfolio that pulls from its enhanced data center fabrics and Network Services Platform to integrate cloud networks with new 5G services such as Edge Network Controller.

Adaptive Cloud Networking is “aimed at helping service providers to support their new cloud networking requirements, which has been brought on by the adoption of 5G services, as well as the transition to a cloud-native application environment,” Pat McCabe, senior marketing manager of Nokia’s IP networks portfolio, told SDxCentral.

5G services require cloud service providers to deploy more advanced automation and NetOps capabilities to their existing operational model, he explained. 

To address those needs, Nokia’s new portfolio includes services for three areas of the service provider network: data center fabric, edge-cloud network, and interconnectivity across the WAN.

“​​Adapted Cloud Networking is tailored to meet the needs of everywhere from the smallest edges, which would include an on-premise cloud, a far-edge cloud, all the way to the largest data center facilities,” McCabe said. “It also provides the ability to provide seamless connectivity across the entire wide area network, connecting edge clouds to data center fabrics.”

For edge-cloud network automation, the Finnish vendor introduced Edge Network Controller, an application built within the Kubernetes environment for local network management and automation.

“Due to its lightweight footprint and its modest resource requirements, it's designed to be economically able to be deployed across tens of thousands of edges to provide a cost-effective management and automation capability,” McCabe touted.

The networking components are hosted in the same cluster as the software, so the controller is “agile to changes in the network” and inherits the Kubernetes management capabilities, he added.

Additionally, “it doesn't require a lot of CPU requirements, which is really important, because you can't expect a very small location to have a lot of compute power,” McCabe said. 

With its plug-in architecture, the controller supports Nokia’s Service Router operating systems and other network operating systems that use advanced data models.

The data center fabric elements in Adaptive Cloud Networking include Nokia’s SR Linux network operating system, Fabric Services System, and its data center hardware platforms.

The Fabric Services System is a management and automation platform based on top of Kubernetes that provides automation across users’ entire data center fabric lifecycle, McCabe explained.

The vendor built a set of microservices with the fabric services system and integrated them into the major cloud management platforms, he added. 

The new Connect Service also “automates network connectivity based on changes in the application layer immediately,” McCabe said. “When it receives any event that requires a network change, it then immediately tells the network to make the connectivity required to support that application change.”

Lastly, for interconnectivity, Nokia’s Network Services Platform connects the data centers and edge clouds across the WAN.

Customers can choose to buy each of the elements within the Adaptive Cloud Networking portfolio separately, and the portfolio is expected to be available this spring.