Next-Generation Connectivity
Why choose Zinkworks?
Our development teams have deep mobile domain knowledge, coupled with decades of experience delivering dynamic, robust solutions for managing converged ICT networks. We have worked with some of the world’s leading global network equipment providers in areas such as network management, policy, charging, orchestration, network slicing, and core network data exposure.
Our Experience
Who we work with
Selected Project Highlights
What can we deliver?
Delivering Dynamic Network Analytics
The Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) collects data from user equipment, network functions, and operations systems to generate analytics reports that serve as a focal point for AI and can be used to drive innovation and new use cases. The Zinkworks team delivered a scalable, secure, high availability, and resilient cloud- native NWDAF system for a leading network equipment provider.
Automating Security Apps on Open RAN
The Open RAN (ORAN) architecture introduced new types of automation applications, known as rApps, which run on the non-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). The Zinkworks team developed a solution to enforce selective and controlled access to the Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) platform. Using the 3GPP Common API Framework, the application of security policies was automated, ensuring a reliable mechanism to expose and secure services used by rApps. The project utilised cloud-native, open source solutions such as Istio, Keycloak, and OPA (Open Policy Agent) to provide the required
fine-grain access control.
rApp Lifecycle Management
The Zinkworks team developed a solution for the monitoring and lifecycle management of applications hosted by SMO platforms. The micro service based solution is responsible for onboarding rApps artifacts such as Cloud Service Archives (CSAR) to an application manager. Artifacts are uploaded, unpacked, and parsed according to the latest ORAN standards, and distributed to the corresponding Automation Enablement Services. The solution also performs the initiation or termination operations for apps and maintains a live registry.
Virtualised Network Function Onboarding and Validation
Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technology helps communications service providers increase service agility and reduce their costs. Virtual Network Function (VNF) onboarding and validation is a crucial step for operationalising this new architecture approach. The Zinkworks team developed a deployment engine that streamlines and automates NFV delivery. The deployment engine uses workflow-driven automation and automation pipelines to onboard, validate, administer, and configure complex workflows, supported by a visual dashboard. This is complemented by a flexible and extensible test integration framework that supports custom and 3GPP test tools.
Service Management Orchestration Backup and Restore
Fully Automated Network-as-a-Service
The goal of this project was to establish the client’s SMO platform on cloud-based Kubernetes, and manage its lifecycle. The Zinkworks team delivered a solution that automated the end-to-end deployment of the SaaS platform including fully automated CI/CD pipelines for new version rollouts. The solution utilised open-source and custom tools to create monitoring and alerting dashboards for the platform and product, as well as delivering custom visualisation for cost analysis, TLS certificates, and installed product versions. The solution also performs health checks to ensure product readiness.
Large-Scale Migration to the Cloud
The Zinkworks team re-architected a large-scale telecommunications product with over 10 virtual machines to a cloud based system with over 150 containers. Our teams designed the cloud services, performed regression tests, and delivered non-functional features such as install and upgrade. Further, the Zinkworks team built a migration engine to move data from the old system to the new. The project was complicated by not having a feature freeze during development, poor legacy install and upgrade code that had to be replaced, and the need for ground-up Kubernetes development. However, our customer’s investment now enables the delivery of new features weekly versus quarterly.
Continuous Updating of CNFs
To ensure seamless upgrades for Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNFs) deployed on Kubernetes, the Zinkworks team created continuous delivery pipelines that run on industry-accepted open-source tools. These continuous delivery pipelines were delivered alongside the CNFs as deployable artifacts. When a new version of a CNF was made available in the software artifact publishing portal, the main pipeline automatically detected it, along with the associated continuous delivery pipeline to support the upgrade. The solution handled the installation, acceptance testing, and automatic rollbacks if any error was detected.
We can help
Fast track your development
If you're interested in learning more about our services and how we can help your business, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our team of experts will be happy to answer any questions you may have and help you determine the best solution for your needs.