FEATURE : MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
public and private cloud , as well as central and Edge data centres , must be secured .
Adapting to change
As circumstances continue to change , some telcos are exploring the creation of private content delivery networks to ensure their Internet Protocol Television ( IPTV ) services and third-party entertainment content are readily available to a large customer base ( without congesting their backbone network ).
At the same time , Edge Computing is already pushing certain applications and services , such as mobile gaming , closer to end-users , enhancing the user experience and the reliability of the services , including reducing network latency , increasing bandwidth and delivering significantly faster response times .
Another key telco priority is to tackle soaring instances of cyber fraud , many of which are now using Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) and Machine Learning ( ML ) to deceive .
As a case in point , Shape Security , which was acquired by F5 in January , recently found that 99 % of login attempts for one large service provider ’ s customer portal were automated ( non-human ). It is a common occurrence , and one that is driving demand for solutions that separate ‘ good ’ users from ‘ bad ’ without compromising user experiences . This may include an ability to identify users via fingerprinting techniques ( based on variables like device type , location and user behaviour ) to ensure quick and easy access – even in the absence of passwords .
As people stay at home and access online entertainment services , telcos will keep looking to expand and protect their IPTV services while reducing risks to downtime to an absolute minimum . This calls for robust application delivery controllers and web application firewalls that can both scale IPTV services and keep them secure . On top of that , sophisticated traffic visibility , analytics and steering capabilities can enable telcos to route traffic based on subscriber type , server availability and network policies . These are essential capabilities to help improve service availability , performance and reliability in the most demanding conditions .
Consolidate and simplify
As part of the bigger evolutionary picture , we ’ re also seeing mobile operators increasingly turning to virtualised mobile core and Gi-LAN solutions that use network function virtualisation ( NFV ) for a simpler and more stable means of implementing policy enforcement , firewalls and control over application delivery . A virtual firewall , for example , can play a critical role in protecting mobile networks from dedicated denial of service attacks that can bring them down . Recent evolutions in the server networking industry also provide the ability to offload volumetric DDoS mitigation to a SmartNIC , keeping the CPU in the virtual firewall available for more advanced processing tasks .
It is worth noting that , while automation is one of the key pillars of NFV , it was only
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