- Nokia tapped Pure Storage to provide a single data layer for telco CNFs
- Pure Storage will provide block, file and object storage, covering all the bases telcos need to scale cloud-native deployments
- A unified data layer could help smooth efforts to roll out automation and AI
Nokia turned to Red Hat in 2023 to help it build the foundation for cloud-native network functions (CNFs). Now, it’s enlisted Pure Storage to serve as the basis for the data pipeline that will feed the next-generation telco cloud.
This is actually a pretty big deal. Honoré LaBourdette Red Hat’s VP of Global Telco Ecosystem, told Fierce that though telcos are trying to scale their cloud-native deployments to thousands of network nodes, they’ve found themselves bogged down by a “fragmented mess of legacy storage silos.” That’s where a unified data layer can help.
“Data pipelines are the circulatory system of modern CNFs, enabling continuous automation, AIOps and sovereignty for networks,” Honoré LaBourdette Red Hat’s VP of Global Telco Ecosystem, told Fierce. “While Red Hat OpenShift provides the application foundation, Pure Storage acts as the essential data layer required to move from experimental projects to profitable, large-scale production.”
LaBourdette added that data pipelines are what will allow operators to deploy software updates and configuration management across thousands of sites, ingest a massive volume of metrics to better predict failures before they happen, feed AI models and maintain technical sovereignty.
Here's how Pure Storage is helping
Enter Pure Storage. The company’s FlashArray offering will serve as the primary data infrastructure in Nokia’s edge to core reference architecture, building on Nokia’s earlier choice of Red Hat’s OpenShift as the platform for core network applications. FlashArray provides block, file and object storage.
Object storage could be key. As we recently noted, object storage in particular could be just what operators need to put the mounds unstructured data they have to work.
“Operators will need all storage types, but there will be a stronger emphasis on object storage in the AI era,” Maciej Kranz, Pure Storage’s GM for Enterprise, told Fierce. “Block storage is still needed for low-latency, stateful network functions and databases, and file storage is used for shared access and operations. Object storage is becoming essential for telemetry, logs, backups and AI workloads.”
But Kranz added the key change isn’t a shift from one storage type to another but avoiding data silos. Because without a consistent data layer, automation slows down and manual work increases, he said.
“In a telco cloud, the data layer is what determines whether cloud-native network functions can actually scale and evolve,” Kranz said. “As AI and applications become core to the strategy, storage can no longer be just an endpoint.”