Ericsson’s Cloud‑Native Journey for 5G Transformation

Cloud native has become the best path for enterprises to modernize applications and seize digital transformation opportunities. This article is part of the “Cloud Native Case Collection” series, which deeply analyzes how companies use cloud‑native technologies to drive business growth.

This article introduces how Ericsson uses cloud native to achieve 5G transformation.

Ericsson is one of the top suppliers of information and communications technology (ICT) for service providers and various industries.

For more than a century, Ericsson has evolved into a leading telecommunications equipment manufacturer, handling about 40% of global mobile traffic. Its major innovations include HEVC, wireless point systems, multiple generations of mobile technology, AMR, Bluetooth, and the Erlang programming language.

Challenges of 5G Transformation

Since the 1G era, Ericsson has helped define global mobile communication standards and now stands at the forefront of the 5G transition.

As the telecom industry moves toward 5G, new business models and use cases will emerge that demand reliable networks, low latency, high bandwidth, distributed cloud, AI/ML, and network slicing. According to senior product management director Balaji Ethirajulu, vendors must achieve higher automation, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), faster time‑to‑market, greater reliability, and security to serve all industries efficiently.

Cloud‑Native Practices Based on 5G Networks

To meet the demanding requirements of 5G, Ericsson’s team evaluated various technologies and chose cloud native together with open‑source solutions such as Kubernetes.

Ericsson decided to embed cloud‑native technologies across multiple products, including a dual‑mode 5G core, Ericsson Cloud‑Native Infrastructure, and a Kubernetes distribution called Cloud Container Distribution (CCD). It has deployed micro‑services and container‑based cloud‑native applications in carrier networks, leveraging numerous CNCF projects and adapting them to telecom needs.

“In 5G networks, cloud native is essential for telecom applications.” — Balaji Ethirajulu, Senior Product Management Director, Ericsson

Cloud‑native principles and micro‑service architecture provide flexibility, performance, efficiency, and speed, delivering solutions that are independent of the underlying infrastructure. This modular approach improves software quality, reduces risk, and enables early market entry.

Service feedback time across multiple applications has been reduced from weeks to hours, and micro‑service update cycles now take only seconds to minutes.

Ethirajulu notes that a major customer concern with network function virtualization (NFV) is compatibility. Customers need assurance that virtual network functions (VNFs) can run alongside physical network functions on legacy infrastructure, while also requiring streamlined development, testing, deployment, and management to maximize cloud benefits.

“Cloud native starts from the ground up, providing the reliability the telecom industry needs, allowing enterprises to launch new services in days instead of months.” — Balaji Ethirajulu

To achieve these goals, Ethirajulu proposes the following best‑practice methods:

Start from the ground up with cloud native: build, test, deploy, and run applications that fully exploit cloud advantages, delivering the reliability required by the telecom industry and enabling new services to be released in days rather than months.

Recognize telecom‑specific performance and latency requirements; design cloud‑native telecom applications to leverage automation and software‑defined infrastructure (SDI), reducing complexity in multi‑vendor environments.

Implement continuous software integration, delivery, and deployment (CI/CD); adopt a “zero‑touch” automated pipeline that can cut CI/CD effort by up to 90% in a fully cloud‑native environment.

Beyond the 5G core and telecom applications, Ericsson incorporates the CCD Kubernetes distribution as part of its cloud infrastructure solution. In its application development framework, Ericsson extensively uses Kubernetes, Prometheus, Jaeger, Envoy, Helm, OpenTracing, as well as Docker, Kafka, Istio, and other projects.

Key Role of Cloud Native in 5G Transformation

Some data:

Service feedback time reduced from weeks to hours.

Micro‑service update time now seconds to minutes.

Cloud‑native design and technology help achieve automation, scalability, performance, efficient operation, rapid market entry, and improved CI/CD pipelines, allowing new software or features to be introduced without impacting the entire application. These designs also meet edge requirements, optimize infrastructure utilization, and lower TCO.

Ethirajulu says: “5G will bring unprecedented new business models and use cases; enterprises, the public, and society will benefit from 5G innovations. We believe cloud‑native technology will play a crucial role in the development of 5G networks, helping us meet the needs of carriers, their customers, and ultimately end‑users.”

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02 How Fidelity Investments Uses Cloud Native for Multi‑Cloud Strategy

03 Enabling the People’s Bank of China’s Central Clearing Center with Bare‑Metal Container Platform

04 A “Aviation Cloud” Safeguarding Core Services of the Air China App