IBM today announced two new partnerships with networking and security giants Cisco and Palo Alto Networks at MWC Los Angeles.

IBM paired its Cloud Pak platform with Cisco’s Crosswork service to automate and abstract the complexity of virtualizing the radio and network core. The integration will allow operators to orchestrate the management of virtual 5G networks and underlying optical and IP networks using a single cloud framework, according to Cisco.

Crosswork translates the high-level slice intent received by CP4NA — IBM’s artificial intelligence-enhanced, telco cloud platform — into a device-level configuration. This enables network operators to weigh quality of service, path selection, service assurance, and segmentation requirements when deploying a network slice.

As the number of 5G customers and services grow, Cisco contends slice lifecycle management, including slice assurance and troubleshooting, will be critical to maintaining customer service level agreements.

The move to segment routing, which allows for a greater control of traffic, also has the potential to address many of the most challenging issues facing customers running large IP networks today, Cisco explained.

While Cisco sees segment routing as the “ideal technology” for slice deployment and management, the company says its platform is adaptable to other constructs as well.

IBM also extended its relationship with Palo Alto Networks to address the security challenges faced by telecom operators as they deploy 5G networks and edge services.

The collaboration is part of IBM’s Secure by Design strategy and tackles 5G security from a variety of angles, including network hardware, virtual network functions, container, and control plane security.

These technologies enable operators to deploy and validate network slices with integrated security controls, according to IBM.

The partnership comes as IBM reports 75% of operators have experienced incidents of fraud, with 61% reporting network security threats have increased significantly since the beginning of the pandemic.

These threat vectors are expected to multiply as 5G enables new use cases, including a wave of cheap, efficient, and potentially insecure IoT devices, the company warned.