Mobile network operators (MNOs) rely on their technological foundations and capabilities to provide the range and depth of their wireless services. As business, competitive, and technology environments are in the midst of rapid digital transformation, MNOs need to keep up with modern technologies and architectures to stay relevant and drive innovation and growth.
A foundational evolution is required—the evolution to the Telco Cloud model—to drive efficiency and agility, deliver greater value to the customer, and drive growth.
As organizations are looking to adopt wireless edge compute and edge services to support the proliferation of IoT, remote workers, and overall digital innovation, 5G provides MNOs with the ability to provide value beyond connectivity to business verticals. The Telco Cloud expands all operational domains to deliver agile and profitable services across 4G and 5G RAN and Core networks, private and public clouds, and Multiaccess Edge Compute locations. This adds complexity and expands the attack surface. MNOs must therefore implement robust security solutions to address these challenges:
- Security for the Telco Cloud: Ensuring that the technologies, applications, and services that comprise the Telco Cloud service platform are properly secured to ensure availability and service continuity.
- Security from the Telco Cloud: The Telco Cloud as a service platform, enabling the provisioning and delivery of security services to internal and external customers.
The Fortinet Security Fabric: The Foundation for Telco Cloud Security
The Fortinet Security Fabric and the telco cloud both operate with the same technology foundations. They include security virtualized network function (VNF), software-defined networking (SDN), cloud-native network function (CNF), open APIs, and security operations (SecOps). These are implemented with support for MNO-specific requirements, such as massive scalability, efficiency, high performance, and very low latency. Like the Telco Cloud, Security Fabric components are internally integrated to form a seamless and automated security service platform, and externally integrated into Telco Cloud technologies, components, and architectures to become a seamless part of the Telco Cloud itself.
The Fortinet Security Fabric provides a seamless, integrated, and automated security foundation for the Telco Cloud. It delivers a security framework for the Telco Cloud’s technology, services, and operational domains with unparalleled flexibility. This is accomplished with multilayer, multidomain, multitenant, and time-continuous security visibility, control, and protection.
Further, the Fortinet Security Fabric not only secures the Telco Cloud, but it also provides a multitenant security monetization platform, so MNOs can deliver value-add, competitive, and revenue-generating security services to their business customers and their unique use cases.
