Axiata Sets New Benchmark for IT Transformation

WinWin Issue 43

Voices from Industry

By Anthony Rodrigo
GCIO of Axiata

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Axiata Sets New Benchmark for IT Transformation

--At MWC Barcelona 2023, Anthony Rodrigo, GCIO of Axiata, sat down with Huawei's WinWin Live to exchange thoughts about Axiata's Transformation journey from telco to techco. He explains their current progress and elaborates on their best practices and some of the most important technologies for this transformation. Anthony also sheds some light on the significant changes needed for an open digital IT architecture and culture, and to change in ways of working internally as well as with partners.

WinWin: Axiata is a leading carrier in Asia Pacific, and has many best practices in IT transformation. What do you think are the core elements for Axiata's IT transformation? What progress have you made?

It all began around 10 years ago when we started our developer application programming interface (API) marketplace. The developer API marketplace influenced internal IT culture and innovation. The learnings boiled down to three core elements of our transformation process: The first was an API driven open digital architecture (ODA); the second is an open source software digital telco stack to bring ODA to life; and the third element was on IT way of working to take back control of DevOps.

When it comes to ODA, Axiata embraced the TM Forum ODA blueprint as a canvas and used that to build a stack that could work with new digital solutions as well as our telco legacy assets. Over time, we learned to bring ODA to life through an open source software stack. It includes things like end-to-end fully automated CI-CD pipeline, cloud orchestration, API management at scale, microservice orchestration, and an API/software marketplace to search before build. During this process, we ran in excess of 400 projects on our Digital Telco Enabler (DTE) stack. The latest edition of that stack was building an AI factory into the DTE.

The third element was to change our way of working (WoW). We had outsourced most of our IT to vendors, but that was getting slow and too expensive. For this reason, we decided to take back control of DevOps. This was done through a company called Axiata Digital Labs that could run the DevOps for us.

The overall impact of this has been significant. We've seen a ten-fold increase in GTM speed, over 40% savings on IT capital expenditure (CAPEX), and business support systems (BSS) change requests brought close to zero. The benefits that we uncovered on our journey to digital transformation are significant.

WinWin: IT is developing rapidly. What does Axiata think are the most important technologies for IT transformation?

Telcos are currently at a crossroads in their evolution, with some choosing to take the journey of transforming from telco to techco. In the techco journey, IT stacks and WoW will play a major role in this techco transformation.

There are some key ingredients that telcos will need for this cloud transformation journey to be successful, including having an open architecture, owning their DevOps or taking back control of their DevOps, running AI at scale, adopting cloud native software, and most importantly, collaborating with partners via APIs to co-innovate with the ecosystem.

In terms of tech stack, key pieces of the puzzle include running APIs at scale, microservice engines, AI-driven architecture, high velocity CI-CD operations, and cloud orchestration. In addition to this, it is also very important to have the infrastructure and the setup to work with external developers and partners; as a techco, you are not only building for yourself, you are building with the ecosystem.

WinWin: What do you think is the best IT reference architecture during IT transformation. How is it used in Axiata?

When it comes to the IT reference architecture during IT transformation, we at Axiata embraced an open architecture, which refers the TM Forum's ODA on a very large scale. It provides a great canvas to building a digital telco on top of legacy assets and enables the techco transformation with many readily available APIs. Obviously, you should not throw your legacy assets away as they should be used for as long as possible; as I often say, "sweat the BSS assets." And we do this through an API overlay of the legacy assets.

It is also important for IT to get their hands dirty. You cannot outsource everything to different vendors — you've got to own the DevOps engine.

Digital stack is required to power the creation of ODA and bring it to life. There are a few elements that one should have: An API gateway that is tuned to run on telcos and governance that go along with that; telco adapters towards the network and the BSS and operations support systems (OSS); a microservices platform to run telco at scale; and the telco business templates to create services like building with Lego. We are also running fully automated DevOps and CI-CD to achieve production velocity.

WinWin: You mentioned the multi-cloud strategy. How do you select cloud transformation partners? What are your major considerations?

Axiata has a full complement of on-premises and public cloud infrastructure providers, and our cloud strategy involves looking at total cost of ownership (TCO), latency, edge requirements, overall data architecture, and GTM speed.

When it comes to selecting a cloud service provider (CSP) as our cloud transformation partners, there are some major considerations. In this process, we do not only consider technology. Rather, you've got to consider the specific skills that you need on the ground and then look at the local support provided by CSPs — every country and situation has its own unique needs. The second requirement focuses on their telco domain knowledge. Our cloud partner has got to fully understand the problems that we are trying to solve, so that they can help us solve them faster. The third consideration is their ability to complete joint R&D so that we can co-innovate. We are already doing much work in this space with CSPs. For example, we are building an AI factory to run some GTM use cases very tuned to our market requirements. Finally, you need to be able to reap the benefits of cloud computing in terms of GTM speed and agility.

WinWin: Can you tell us about your relationship with Huawei? What are the main areas of cooperation?

Today, one of the key areas of cooperation with Huawei is in Axiata Digital Labs (ADL), Axiata Group’s very own innovative software services and platform provider. A core platform of ADL, Axonect Digital Telco Enabler (DTE) is already pre-integrated with Huawei CBS. We are also looking to deepen the cooperation between Huawei and ADL by making Axonect DTE part of Huawei CBS offerings.

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Axiata Sets New Benchmark for IT Transformation

WinWin: Axiata is a leading carrier in Asia Pacific, and has many best practices in IT transformation. What do you think are the core elements for Axiata's IT transformation? What progress have you made?

WinWin: IT is developing rapidly. What does Axiata think are the most important technologies for IT transformation?

WinWin: What do you think is the best IT reference architecture during IT transformation. How is it used in Axiata?

WinWin: You mentioned the multi-cloud strategy. How do you select cloud transformation partners? What are your major considerations?

WinWin: Can you tell us about your relationship with Huawei? What are the main areas of cooperation?

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