The Record - Issue 19: Winter 2020

79 COMMUN I CAT I ONS & MED I A virtualised network software and voice, data and communications solutions for operators. According to Dougherty, the experience of the two companies in the telecommunica- tions industry will play an important role in Microsoft’s strategy for delivering reliable cloud solutions to operators. “We’re moving more and more advanced workloads into our carrier grade cloud, which is why we made the acquisitions of both Affirmed and Metaswitch,” says Dougherty. “We wanted to quickly gain that significant level of both intellectual property and engineering knowl- edge, which will help us build out carrier grade infrastructure that operators can depend on.” Affirmed Networks was chosen by Finnish mobile operator DNA to replace its legacy network infrastructure. Affirmed’s 5G Standalone solution will serve as the foundation of all of DNA’s services and was deployed for the operator’s consumer 5G offering. The solution allows mobile operators to converge multiple networks into one unified net- work, eliminating the need to maintain parallel legacy networks dedicated to just one service. “Our selection of Affirmed Networks as the foundation for our new, virtualised network architecture enables us to deliver fast and reli- able 5G to our residential and enterprise cus- tomers,” says Ville Virtanen, director of core networks at DNA. “This supports our vision for providing the best possible customer experience by leveraging the most innovative technology from best of breed vendors. 5G will enable new opportunities and experiences for the people of Finland. This is an exciting time and an opening for a new era of mobile data.” The capabilities of the cloud are also being extended to areas that may be far away from Microsoft Azure Regions through Azure Edge Zones.These small-footprint extensions of Azure can be placed in mobile operators’ datacentres, providing secure, high-bandwidth connections “5G will offer lots and lots of opportunity to both consumers and businesses”