The Orange Journey to the Cloud Native Telco

Orange, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators, has embarked on a transformative journey to evolve from a traditional telco into a cloud-native technology company.

With operations spanning Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Orange serves millions of customers and has recognized the need to adopt cloud-native principles to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving telecom industry.

This case study explores Orange’s strategic adoption of cloud-native technologies, focusing on its implementation of a Cloud Native Telco model, the challenges faced, and the outcomes achieved.

Background

The telecom industry has historically relied on legacy infrastructure and siloed operational models, which limited agility and scalability. With the advent of 5G and increasing demand for digital services, Orange identified cloud-native technologies as a critical enabler for delivering automation, agility, and innovation.

The company’s leadership, including Group CTO Laurent Leboucher and VP of Software Engineering Philippe Ensarguet, has driven a shift toward a “techco” mindset, emphasizing flexibility, cost efficiency, and the ability to support new services.

Orange’s cloud-native journey aligns with its broader corporate strategy to modernize its network infrastructure and enhance customer experiences. The introduction of 5G Standalone (SA) networks, which are inherently cloud-native, provided a catalyst for this transformation, pushing Orange to rethink its operational and technological frameworks.

Objectives

Orange aimed to achieve several key objectives through its cloud-native adoption:

• Agility and Scalability: Enable rapid deployment of new services and scaling of network functions to meet fluctuating demand.
• Cost Optimization: Reduce operational costs by leveraging automation and efficient resource utilization.
• Resilience and Automation: Build a self-healing, automated network capable of maintaining high reliability and security.
• Industry Collaboration: Address fragmentation in the telecom sector by fostering open-source standards and ecosystems.

Implementation Strategy

Orange’s transition to a Cloud Native Telco model involved a multi-faceted approach:

• Technology Adoption: Kubernetes and Containers: Orange embraced Kubernetes as the cornerstone of its cloud-native architecture, enabling containerized network functions (CNFs) to replace traditional virtual network functions (VNFs). This shift allowed for greater flexibility and portability across its infrastructure.
• Red Hat OpenShift: In a significant move, Orange partnered with Red Hat in 2025 to deploy OpenShift as the foundation for its telco cloud infrastructure. This platform supports a vendor-agnostic framework, hosting services like SD-WAN, 5G core, and IoT within milliseconds of customers globally.
• 5G Standalone Deployment: Starting in 2023, Orange rolled out 5G SA in six European markets, beginning with Spain. This deployment relied heavily on cloud-native principles, automating lifecycle management of the core network, including control planes and customer data.
• Organizational Transformation: Orange restructured its workforce, consolidating network planning and management into a single infrastructure department. This broke down traditional silos between optical, fixed, and mobile teams, fostering a unified approach to cloud-native operations. The company invested in upskilling its employees to handle cloud-native tools and methodologies, addressing the skills gap inherent in transitioning from legacy systems.
• Open-Source Collaboration: Orange spearheaded Project Sylva, an open-source initiative launched in November 2022 under the Linux Foundation Europe. Sylva aims to create a standardized telco cloud stack, reducing fragmentation and enabling interoperability. By March 2025, Sylva had released its first production-grade version and expanded to 25 participating companies, including Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Nokia. Orange also engaged with projects like Nephio to drive Kubernetes-based automation, working closely with vendors like Nokia and Ericsson to align their offerings with cloud-native standards.
• Step-by-Step Deployment: Orange adopted a phased approach, starting with simpler network loads (e.g., control planes) before tackling more complex user-plane functions. Early trials, such as the Pikeo cloud-native core, used vendors like Casa and HPE, while commercial deployments incorporated Nokia and Ericsson.

Small-scale cloud RAN deployments, such as a shared Open RAN network with Vodafone in rural Romania, showcased Orange’s commitment to extending cloud-native principles to the access network.

Challenges

Orange encountered several hurdles during its cloud-native transformation:

• Vendor Alignment: Traditional vendors like Nokia and Ericsson were initially slow to adapt to cloud-native requirements, delivering containerized functions without fully embracing independent Kubernetes operators. This necessitated tough negotiations and collaborative efforts to define automation roadmaps.
• Operational Complexity: Managing hybrid environments—combining legacy systems with cloud-native infrastructure—added complexity, particularly in ensuring compatibility with existing deployments across five European countries.
• Fragmentation: The telecom industry’s fragmented ecosystem posed a risk of creating multiple incompatible cloud stacks. Orange’s leadership described the initial state of telco cloud as a “nightmare” due to siloed vendor offerings.
• Cultural Shift: Transitioning from a traditional telco mindset to a cloud-native, software-driven culture required significant change management, with employees needing to adopt new ways of working within weeks rather than months.

Outcomes

Orange’s cloud-native adoption had yielded notable results:

• Network Expansion: Orange deployed six new points of presence (PoPs) running on Red Hat OpenShift, with plans to scale to 75 PoPs globally by 2027, migrating from 50 OpenStack platforms and adding 25 new sites.
• Automation Gains: The company achieved significant automation in its 5G core operations, reducing manual intervention and enhancing resilience through infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and zero-touch provisioning.
• Cost and Sustainability Benefits: By reusing existing equipment and leveraging OpenShift’s power monitoring capabilities, Orange reduced its carbon footprint while optimizing costs.
• Service Innovation: Cloud-native infrastructure enabled faster time-to-market for services like SD-WAN, IoT, and roaming, positioning Orange as a leader in digital service delivery.
• Industry Influence: Through Sylva, Orange contributed to a standardized telco cloud framework, validated in test centers in Spain and Belgium, fostering broader industry adoption.

Lessons Learned

Orange’s journey offers valuable insights for other telcos:

• Collaboration is Key: Open-source initiatives like Sylva and partnerships with vendors are essential to overcoming fragmentation and building a unified cloud-native ecosystem.
• Phased Approach Works: Starting with manageable use cases (e.g., control planes) allowed Orange to build expertise before tackling more complex deployments.
• Cultural Change is Critical: Success hinges on aligning workforce skills and mindsets with cloud-native principles, requiring sustained investment in training and communication.

Conclusion

Orange anticipates fully realizing its cloud-native vision between 2025 and 2030, with a focus on scaling automation across its 5G core, RAN, and edge use cases. The company plans to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) to further optimize network performance and enhance customer experiences. As it expands its Red Hat OpenShift-based infrastructure, Orange aims to solidify its position as a global leader in the Cloud Native Telco space, driving innovation and setting a benchmark for the industry.

Orange’s adoption of a Cloud Native Telco model exemplifies how a traditional telecom operator can transform into a technology-driven entity. By embracing Kubernetes, partnering with Red Hat, and leading initiatives like Project Sylva, Orange has navigated significant challenges to achieve agility, scalability, and operational efficiency.

This progress underscores the potential of cloud-native technologies to reshape the telecom landscape, offering a blueprint for others to follow in the era of 5G and beyond.