Airtel and IBM complete first phase of open hybrid cloud network deployment

IBM and Bharti Airtel on Tuesday announced the competition for the first phase of Airtel’s Open Hybrid Cloud Network, which is built with the hybrid cloud and cognitive enterprise capabilities of IBM and Red Hat.

Airtel says the deployment will allow the company and its partners to deliver new applications using the cloud network. The new platform also paves the way for improved performance, automation, availability and scaling, the company said.

When fully implemented, Bharti Airtel’s open hybrid cloud network will help millions of partners and customers across industries to rapidly harness the power of emerging technologies such as 5G and advanced computing. For example, a customer could use the network to leverage the capabilities of AI, IoT, and advanced computing to power applications that can deliver better information from factories or enable remote medical visits. The company added.

IBM is responsible for the infrastructure development, design and implementation of Airtel’s open hybrid cloud network and overall program management.

In the first phase of deployment, Airtel and IBM developed a one-click automated hybrid cloud design and light touch operations. Airtel says the technology is helping the operator to accelerate improvements in network connectivity, and then the core network.

The cloud architecture, an open source technology, is based on Red Hat OpenStack Platform and Red Hat OpenShift.

This gives customers and partners in the Airtel ecosystem the flexibility to create more targeted, cutting-edge solutions in the cloud or in any on-premise location of their choice. Additionally, this open architecture enables Airtel to adopt an open source Radio Access Network (RAN) to improve interoperability for ecosystem partners using RAN devices, said Airtel.