5G Cloud Native Architecture: How Telecom Operators Achieve Cloud Native 5G Core Networks [2025]

5G isn't just "faster than 4G." 5G was designed from the beginning with cloud native architecture in mind, making telecom networks more flexible and resilient. This is why 5G and Cloud Native are often discussed together.

This article explains the cloud native architecture of 5G core networks, including Service-Based Architecture (SBA), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Containerized Network Functions (CNF), and real telecom operator adoption cases.

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The Relationship Between 5G and Cloud Native

Why Does 5G Need Cloud Native?

Traditional 4G network architecture was "vertically integrated": hardware and software bundled together, provided by the same vendor. This architecture is stable, but has several problems:

1. Difficult to Scale

Need more capacity? Buy more proprietary hardware. This takes time and is expensive.

2. Slow Feature Updates

New features have to wait for hardware vendors to develop them, then schedule upgrade time. A single feature might take a year or more.

3. Vendor Lock-in

Once you choose a equipment vendor, it's hard to switch. This limits bargaining power and technology choices.

5G's Cloud Native architecture solves these problems:

Aspect	Traditional 4G	5G Cloud Native
Hardware	Proprietary hardware	Commodity servers
Software	Tied to hardware	Containerized, portable
Scaling	Buy hardware	Auto-scaling
Updates	Downtime maintenance	Rolling updates
Vendors	Single vendor	Multi-vendor integration

Traditional Telecom Architecture vs Cloud Native Architecture

Traditional Architecture:
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Proprietary Hardware (Vendor A)    │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  EPC (4G Core)               │   │
│  │  ├─ MME                      │   │
│  │  ├─ SGW                      │   │
│  │  └─ PGW                      │   │
│  └─────────────────────────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Cloud Native Architecture:
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Kubernetes Cluster                  │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  5G Core (CNF)               │   │
│  │  ├─ AMF (Container)          │   │
│  │  ├─ SMF (Container)          │   │
│  │  ├─ UPF (Container)          │   │
│  │  └─ Other NFs...             │   │
│  └─────────────────────────────┘   │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  Commodity Server Hardware   │   │
│  └─────────────────────────────┘   │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Drivers of 5G Cloud Native Adoption

1. 3GPP Standards

3GPP started defining 5G core networks in Release 15, adopting Service-Based Architecture (SBA), which naturally suits microservices and Cloud Native.

2. Cost Pressure

Telecom operators face competition from OTT players (Google, Netflix) and need to reduce infrastructure costs. Commodity hardware is cheaper than proprietary equipment.

3. New Business Requirements

5G needs to support multiple scenarios (eMBB, URLLC, mMTC), requiring flexible network slicing capabilities. Only Cloud Native architecture can achieve this.

4. Mature Ecosystem

The Kubernetes and CNCF ecosystem is now mature, allowing telecom operators to leverage existing cloud native tools.

Want to understand Cloud Native basics? See Cloud Native Complete Guide.

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5G Core Network Cloud Native Architecture

5G Core (5GC) Overview

5G Core (5GC) is the brain of the 5G network, responsible for:

• User authentication and authorization
• Session management
• Policy control
• Data routing

5GC uses Service-Based Architecture (SBA), where each Network Function (NF) is an independent service communicating via HTTP/2 and JSON.

This is very similar to microservices architecture—each NF can be independently developed, deployed, and scaled.

5GC Core Network Components

Component	Full Name	Function
AMF	Access and Mobility Management Function	Handles user access and mobility
SMF	Session Management Function	Manages PDU Sessions
UPF	User Plane Function	Processes user data packets
PCF	Policy Control Function	Policy control
UDM	Unified Data Management	User data management
AUSF	Authentication Server Function	Authentication service
NRF	Network Repository Function	Service registration and discovery
NSSF	Network Slice Selection Function	Network slice selection

SBA Architecture Diagram:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Service-Based Interface                  │
├──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────────┤
│ NSSF │ NEF  │ NRF  │ PCF  │ UDM  │ AUSF │ AMF  │   SMF    │
└──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴──────┴────┬─────┘
                                                      │
                                                ┌─────▼─────┐
                                                │    UPF    │
                                                └───────────┘

Each NF exposes RESTful APIs, and other NFs can find and call them through NRF (service discovery).

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) is the technology for moving network functions from proprietary hardware to virtual machines or containers.

NFV Architecture Layers:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  VNF / CNF (Virtual/Containerized NFs)      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  NFVI (NFV Infrastructure)                  │
│  ├─ Virtualization Layer (VM / Container)  │
│  ├─ Virtual Compute, Storage, Network      │
│  └─ Hardware Resources                      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  MANO (Management and Orchestration)        │
│  ├─ NFVO (Orchestrator)                    │
│  ├─ VNFM (VNF Manager)                     │
│  └─ VIM (Infrastructure Manager)           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

VNF vs CNF:

Aspect	VNF (Virtual Machine)	CNF (Container)
Startup Time	Minutes	Seconds
Resource Efficiency	Medium	High
Density	10-20 VNFs per host	100+ CNFs per host
Orchestration Tool	OpenStack	Kubernetes

The trend in 5G is moving from VNF to CNF, replacing OpenStack with Kubernetes.

Network Slicing

Network slicing is one of 5G's core capabilities. It allows telecom operators to virtualize multiple "logical networks" on the same physical network, each with different characteristics.

Typical Network Slices:

Slice Type	Use Case	Characteristics
eMBB	High-speed broadband	High bandwidth, medium latency
URLLC	Ultra-low latency	Low latency, high reliability
mMTC	IoT	Low power, massive connections

How Cloud Native Supports Network Slicing:

Each slice can be deployed as an independent Kubernetes Namespace with its own:

• Resource quotas (CPU, memory)
• Network policies
• QoS settings

# Network Slice Namespace Example
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: slice-urllc
  labels:
    slice-type: urllc
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ResourceQuota
metadata:
  name: urllc-quota
  namespace: slice-urllc
spec:
  hard:
    requests.cpu: "100"
    requests.memory: 200Gi
    limits.cpu: "200"
    limits.memory: 400Gi

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3GPP Standards and Cloud Native

How 3GPP Defines Cloud Native 5G

3GPP is the organization that sets mobile communication standards. Starting from Release 15, the 5G architecture defined by 3GPP was designed with Cloud Native in mind:

Release 15 (2018):

• Defined SBA (Service-Based Architecture)
• NFs communicate via HTTP/2
• Introduced NRF (Service Discovery)

Release 16 (2020):

• Enhanced network slicing
• Edge computing integration (MEC)
• Improved service communication

Release 17 (2022):

• Further cloud native enhancements
• Better container support
• AI/ML integration (see Cloud Native AI Workflow Guide)

ETSI NFV and Kubernetes

ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) defines the reference architecture for NFV. As containerization trends grow, ETSI is also adjusting its architecture to support Kubernetes:

• ETSI GS NFV-IFA 029: Defines requirements for containerized VNFs
• ETSI GR NFV-IFA 047: Integration guide for Kubernetes and NFV

Key Changes:

Traditional NFV	Containerized NFV
OpenStack (VIM)	Kubernetes
VM Orchestration	Container Orchestration
Heat Templates	Helm Charts
Heavyweight	Lightweight

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5G Cloud Native Technology Stack

Telecom operators' 5G Cloud Native technology stack typically includes:

Container Orchestration:

• Kubernetes (industry standard)
• OpenShift (Red Hat enterprise version)

Service Mesh:

• Istio (most commonly used)
• Linkerd

Observability:

• Prometheus + Grafana (monitoring)
• Jaeger (tracing)
• Fluentd + Elasticsearch (logging)

CI/CD:

• GitLab CI / Jenkins
• Argo CD (GitOps)

Networking:

• Calico / Cilium (CNI)
• Multus (multi-network support)
• SR-IOV (high-performance networking)

Storage:

• Rook-Ceph
• Cloud storage services

Learn more about Kubernetes technology stack? See Cloud Native Technology Stack Basics.

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Telecom Operator Case Studies

Rakuten Mobile (Japan)

The world's first fully cloud native 5G network.

Rakuten Mobile launched 5G services in 2020, adopting a fully cloud native architecture from the start:

Architecture Features:

• 100% software-defined network
• All NFs containerized
• Multi-vendor integration (Cisco, Nokia, NEC, etc.)
• Self-built Rakuten Communications Platform

Results:

• Construction costs reduced by 40%
• Operating costs reduced by 30%
• New feature deployment time reduced from months to days

Dish Network (USA)

America's first cloud native 5G network.

Dish launched 5G services in 2022 with these architecture features:

• AWS as primary cloud infrastructure
• Fully Open RAN (O-RAN)
• Multi-cloud strategy

Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan)

Taiwan's leading 5G service provider.

Chunghwa Telecom's 5G architecture adopts:

• Hybrid architecture (partially cloud native)
• Multi-vendor strategy (Ericsson, Nokia)
• Gradual containerization

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Technical Challenges and Solutions

Challenge 1: Carrier-Grade Reliability

Telecom networks require 99.999% (five nines) availability, equivalent to only 5 minutes of downtime per year.

Solutions:

• Multi-AZ (Availability Zone) deployment
• Automatic failover
• Chaos engineering testing

Challenge 2: Low Latency Requirements

5G URLLC scenarios require end-to-end latency below 1 millisecond.

Solutions:

• Edge deployment (MEC)
• High-performance CNI (SR-IOV, DPDK)
• Resource reservation

Challenge 3: High-Performance Networking

Telecom workloads require extremely high packet processing performance.

Solutions:

• SR-IOV for direct NIC access
• DPDK userspace networking
• eBPF network acceleration

Challenge 4: Security Compliance

Telecom networks are subject to strict regulatory oversight.

Solutions:

• Zero trust architecture
• End-to-end encryption
• Complete audit logs

Learn more about security topics? See Cloud Native Security Complete Guide.

Challenge 5: Technical Talent

Traditional telecom engineers need to learn Cloud Native technologies.

Solutions:

• Internal training programs
• Partnerships with cloud vendors
• Recruiting DevOps talent

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FAQ

Q1: Does 5G have to use Cloud Native architecture?

It's not mandatory, but 3GPP standards are designed to make Cloud Native the most natural choice. Traditional architecture can also implement 5G, but you lose the flexibility and cost advantages.

Q2: Can telecom operators use public cloud?

Yes. Dish uses AWS. But most telecom operators choose private or hybrid cloud due to data sovereignty and regulatory requirements.

Q3: What's the difference between CNF and regular container applications?

CNFs have stricter performance and reliability requirements. They need special network configuration (SR-IOV), resource isolation, and real-time guarantees.

Q4: Can existing 4G networks be upgraded to Cloud Native?

Gradual upgrades are possible. The typical path is virtualization first (VNF), then containerization (CNF). But this requires time and investment.

Q5: What technical background is needed for 5G Cloud Native?

You need a combination of telecom and IT skills: understanding 3GPP standards, Kubernetes, network virtualization, and high-performance networking. This is why talent shortage is a major challenge.

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Next Steps

5G Cloud Native is a major transformation for the telecom industry. If your enterprise is evaluating or implementing related technologies:

1. First understand 3GPP and ETSI standard requirements
2. Evaluate the cloud native maturity of existing infrastructure
3. Plan a phased migration path
4. Build a cross-functional technical team

Further reading:

• Back to Core Concepts: Cloud Native Complete Guide
• Deep Dive into Kubernetes: Cloud Native Technology Stack Basics
• Understanding Security: Cloud Native Security Complete Guide

Need professional help with carrier-grade architecture design? Schedule an architecture consultation and let us help you assess your situation and plan the optimal 5G Cloud Native strategy.

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References

• 3GPP TS 23.501 - System Architecture
• ETSI GS NFV 002 - NFV Architectural Framework
• CNCF Telecom User Group
• O-RAN Alliance
• Rakuten Mobile Network Architecture