Empowering Telco Cloud Transformation: SUSE & Trilio’s Data Protection for VNFs and CNFs

Guest blog post authored by:

Rodolfo Casás, Solution Architect at Trilio

The telecommunications industry is rapidly evolving, embracing 5G, edge computing, and Open RAN, not to leave out AI on all Event Driven Automation Tools. Data protection has always been an important concern for telco operators. As they rely more and more on cloud-native technologies, like Kubernetes, to deliver on these cutting-edge services, the need for robust backup and recovery solutions that can scale with these platforms has never been more critical.

With this in mind, I am going to outline how Trilio offers comprehensive data protection solutions created from scratch for Kubernetes environments, which help to address the unique challenges faced by telcos. It is interesting to say that although OpenStack has been for years the preferred platform to run Virtual Network Functions, more and more telco operators try to renew their digital transformation works by running more and more workloads as Container Network Functions in Kubernetes environments, including both private and public clouds. 

In this blog post I will dive into the day to day operations, best practices, challenges, and the benefits that cloud native data protection tools bring to telco architectures.

The Evolution of Telco Infrastructure

Kubernetes has grown in popularity as an orchestration tool for Cloud-native Network Functions (CNFs) with SUSE Rancher Prime taking a center stage in this space, while KubeVirt, an open source project that makes it possible to run, deploy, and manage virtual machines (VMs) with Kubernetes as the underlying orchestration platform, provides a strong base for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). The SUSE Edge for Telco platform brings several of these open source components together to give customers a single pane of glass for managing both virtualized and containerized workloads, making it an ideal solution for a unified infrastructure which can host both CNFs and VNFs.

SUSE Edge for Telco architecture

Trilio: Comprehensive Data Protection

Trilio offers robust data protection solutions that are tightly integrated with the SUSE stack, ensuring data integrity, minimizing downtime, and simplifying management.

CNF Lifecycle Management with Trilio and SUSE:

The CNF (Cloud-Native Network Function) lifecycle typically consists of three main stages:

Day-0: Design and Planning

This stage involves:

• Defining the CNF architecture and components
• Selecting appropriate container and orchestration technologies
• Creating deployment manifests and Helm charts
• Planning for resource allocation and compatibility with the existing Kubernetes environment

Day-1: Deployment and Configuration

During this phase, activities include:

• Deploying the CNF to the target environment using tools like Helm 
• Configuring the CNF and its components
• Integrating the CNF with other systems and services
• Setting up initial monitoring and observability tools

Day-2: Operations and Maintenance

This ongoing stage encompasses:

1. Monitoring and observability of the CNF
2. Scaling and optimization based on demand
3. Performing upgrades and updates
4. Implementing backup and recovery strategies
5. Troubleshooting and incident response
6. Continuous improvement and optimization of the CNF

Throughout these stages, CNFs leverage cloud-native principles such as containerization, orchestration with Kubernetes, and DevOps practices to ensure agility, resilience, and observability.

How Trilio and SUSE integrate at each stage (Day-0, Day-1, Day-2)

Day 0

1. Compatibility Assessment: Customers can evaluate Trilio’s compatibility with their existing Kubernetes environments, managed via SUSE Rancher Prime. The platform supports the major Kubernetes distributions, including RKE2 and K3s.
2. Resource Planning: Customers can assess their current resource allocation and plan for additional resources needed for Trilio’s backup and recovery operations. This can be done without modifying the CNF itself.
3. Integration with Existing Systems: Trilio can be integrated with existing monitoring and alerting systems post-deployment. It offers a cloud-native, application-centric approach that aligns well with existing Kubernetes environments.
4. Deployment Flexibility: Trilio can be deployed directly from the SUSE Rancher Prime UI, allowing for easy integration into existing SUSE Rancher Prime managed clusters.
5. Non-Intrusive Implementation: Trilio’s agentless, software-only model enables self-service for multi-cluster environments, making it easier to implement without significant changes to existing CNFs.
6. Backup Strategy Planning: Customers can plan their backup strategy, including scheduling and retention policies, without modifying the CNF architecture.

Day 1

During Day-1 of the CNF lifecycle, Trilio’s backup, recovery, and disaster recovery solutions can be integrated as follows:

1. Deployment: Trilio can be deployed alongside the CNF using Helm charts with the Trilio Kubernetes operator, using a GitOps approach with tools like Fleet, ArgoCD, or in some other ways, ensuring data protection is in place from the start.
2. Initial Configuration: Backup policies and schedules can be set up during this phase, aligning with the CNF’s requirements.
3. Application-Aware Backups: Trilio can be configured to take application-consistent backups of the CNF, capturing both data and metadata, and container images if needed.
4. Storage Integration: Trilio can be configured to use NFS, S3, or Container Blob storage for backups, providing flexibility in backup target selection.
5. Encryption Setup: LUKS 256-Bit Encryption can be enabled to secure backups from the outset, with your own keys, specifying a different key per backup plan.
6. Disaster Recovery Planning: Initial disaster recovery plans can be created, including specifying target clusters and namespace mappings for potential recoveries.
7. Testing: Initial backup and recovery tests should be performed to ensure the system is working correctly before moving to production.

By integrating Trilio during Day-1, organizations ensure that their CNFs have robust data protection and disaster recovery capabilities from the moment they are deployed, setting the stage for reliable operations and quick recovery in case of issues

Day 2

Trilio plays a crucial role in Day 2 operations for Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNFs) by providing robust backup, recovery, and disaster recovery solutions. Here’s how Trilio supports Day 2 activities:

Continuous Monitoring and Protection

Trilio enables continuous monitoring and protection of CNFs through:

• Application-consistent backups that capture both data and metadata
• Flexible scheduling of full and incremental backups
• Support for multiple backup targets, including NFS and S3 storage

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Trilio’s Continuous Restore feature significantly improves disaster recovery capabilities:

• Near-zero Recovery Time Objective (RTO) by maintaining up-to-date snapshots on secondary clusters
• Ability to recover CNFs to any Kubernetes distribution and cloud platform, enhancing portability.

Automated Operations

Trilio integrates with automation and orchestration tools to streamline Day 2 operations:

• Compatibility with Ansible and other automation tools for managing application environments
• Integration with monitoring systems like Dynatrace, Datadog, or Prometheus for event-driven recovery.

Compliance and Security

Trilio supports compliance requirements and enhances security through:

• Evidence-based compliance for regulatory standards
• LUKS 256-Bit Encryption for data protection

Performance Optimization

Trilio contributes to performance optimization by:

• Providing synthetic full backups to efficiently manage backup chains
• Offering insights into backup and recovery performance for continuous improvement

By leveraging Trilio and SUSE, organizations can ensure their CNFs remain resilient, compliant, and quickly recoverable throughout their operational lifecycle, addressing the critical aspects of Day 2 operations in cloud-native environments.

Comprehensive Data Protection for Helm-Deployed CNFs

Trilio provides robust data protection tailored for Helm-deployed Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNFs). Its features ensure seamless backup, recovery, and disaster recovery for applications managed via Helm.

SUSE Virtualization

Trilio also seamlessly integrates with SUSE Virtualization – a modern, open, interoperable, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution that incorporates KubeVirt, is built on Kubernetes, and is integrated with SUSE Rancher Prime – offering:

• Native Integration: Simplified management and automation of VNFs
• Multi-Tenancy: Self-service backup and recovery operations for multi-tenant environments
• Vendor-Agnostic Backups: Portable formats avoiding vendor lock-in
• Advanced Security: Encryption and ransomware recovery features to protect sensitive data
• Migration and Cloning: Flexible workload and data management
• Full Automation: Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
• Portability in hybrid environments leveraging migration/on-prem and public cloud/hypervisors

Key Benefits for Telcos that leverage the joint stack from SUSE and Trilio: 

• No vendor lock-in due to the use of open formats
• Enhanced security features to protect sensitive date
• Support for both SUSE Virtualization and SUSE Rancher Prime environments
• An enhanced data management layer that protects both multi-vendor CNFs and other applications from a single pane of glass

Use Cases in Telco Environments

The joint stack is ideal for various use cases including:

• CNF and VNF Protection: Protecting critical network functions against data loss or corruption
• Multi-Cloud and Multi-Tenant Data Protection: Ensuring seamless backup and recovery across multiple cloud environments and tenants
• Regulatory Compliance: Meeting regulatory requirements with secure and compliant data protection solutions
• Disaster Recovery: Minimizing downtime and ensuring near-zero RTO in the event of a disaster
• DevOps Integration: Streamlining DevOps processes through declarative backup management and automation

Conclusion

As telcos continue their cloud transformation journey, the partnership between SUSE and Trilio offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to address the unique challenges of modern telco environments. By leveraging Trilio’s expertise in data protection and SUSE’s expertise in telco infrastructure management projects and initiatives, including Project Sylva where SUSE is a core member, telcos can ensure data integrity, minimize downtime, and accelerate innovation, unlocking the full potential of 5G, edge computing, and Open RAN.

Meet us at Mobile World Congress 2025: Take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about how our joint stack can transform your telco business. Visit the SUSE booth #2A6 in Hall 2, or contact me at: rodolfo.casas@trilio.io

Guest author:

Rodolfo Casás is a Solution Architect from Madrid working for Trilio with a special focus on cloud-native computing, hybrid cloud strategies, telco and data protection. He started working with Solaris back in 1998, and GNU/Linux back in 2001 (including SLES) and developed a passion for Open Source software. His main fields of interest are cloud computing, data protection, automation, and systems performance tuning. He was a former Technology Instructor, teaching many classes about GNU/Linux, OpenStack, Ansible and Kubernetes. He is an active member of the Open Source and Kubernetes community, and is often featured in thought leadership discussions and events.