Ericsson claims to reduce operational spending by up to 50 percent with the newly launched Ericsson Continuous Software Delivery and Deployment model.
With the new continuous delivery and deployment of software releases, for example, customers are able to get Packet Core software updates monthly rather than every six or 12 months. Also, new software can be live in an operator’s network within as little as two days of general availability, reduced from six to nine weeks, said Ericsson.
Packet Core is one of the first offerings in Continuous Software Delivery and Deployment. Other ‘early adopters’ already include Ericsson Network Manager, Ericsson IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Ericsson User Data Consolidation (UDC) software, but the change is taking place more widely within Ericsson too. By pioneering this transition, Ericsson claims that it has significantly changed the way in which its telecom software is developed, delivered and deployed.
Ericsson said its adoption of a one-track approach to software development and responsive customer feedback has increased software quality, significantly reducing the number of trouble reports received from customers. Deploying software in smaller, more frequent drops with an increased level of automated acceptance testing also results in operational expenditure savings of up to 50 percent. Using the Ericsson Automated Acceptance Tests product, verification times can be reduced, from weeks to hours, as a typical Packet Core test case can be executed in roughly four seconds.
Reducing the time it takes for operators to introduce new network functionality increases their responsiveness to changing market demands and enables them to keep pace with technological innovation, while maintaining the highest possible network quality with regular software updates.
Michal Sewera, Head of EPC Shared Service Center, Deutsche Telekom
From our perspective as an operator, continuous deployment will become an essential part of the entire network function lifecycle management process. It’s not just about the frequency of the software delivery by the supplier.
Emmanuel Bidet, VP, Convergent Networks Control, Orange
We are reaping the benefits of Ericsson Continuous Software Deployment. Updates that used to be taken yearly are now taken much more frequently, in a better-automated manner, enabling us to activate features in an agile way.
