Why is it so Hard to Run a 5G Core on Kubernetes—and What Needs to Change for 6G
summary
Telco CNFs often stay boxy: vendors ship thousands-parameter Helm charts, bundle Kafka/databases per function, and demand root/privileged containers, which undermines Kubernetes’ IPAM, networking, and HA. A real outcome: deployed Ericsson 5G core in North Macedonia (production) but only after fixing duplicated labels and later tackling security gaps. Tooling wins include Flux dependency graph and Gitless OCI delivery plus Cluster API bootstraps; remaining blockers are contractual responsibility, configuration sprawl, and per-CNF infrastructure that prevents true cloud-native velocity.
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chapters (15)
- 0:00Introduction to 5G core
- 1:53Challenges in 5G core deployment
- 8:40Success stories and progress
- 10:28Monolithic packaging criticism
- 13:59GitOps misconceptions in telco
- 17:25Lessons from telco for cloud apps
- 21:41Forking open source projects
- 24:32Reusing upstream components
- 29:34Cloud native in 6G specifications
- 31:23AI workloads and Kubernetes
- 34:37Open source contributions
- 38:52Upcoming telco events
- 39:15Common framework for telco apps
- 41:48Responsibility shift in 6G
- 42:09One thing to eliminate by 6G
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