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Telco Blueprint

Purpose: For platform engineers, explains how the Telco blueprint provides edge-to-core fleet consistency and the operational controls to run Kubernetes at scale without 3am surprises.

Overview​

Telco infrastructure does not get the luxury of "we will fix it in the next sprint." This blueprint provides one deployment model, one ops workflow, whether running in a central DC or a cell tower cabinet — with observability, policy enforcement, and lifecycle management integrated by default.

What You Get​

  1. Edge to Core, Same Playbook — One deployment model and ops workflow across central data centers and remote edge sites.
  2. Ship Fast Without Breaking Things — Versioned blueprints and GitOps workflows for pushing changes to critical services with rollback guarantees.
  3. Control That Scales — Observability, policy enforcement, and lifecycle management built in — not retrofitted at site 50.

Capabilities​

Fleet-Wide Consistency​

  • Same openCenter-gitops-base tag deployed across all sites
  • Cluster overlays handle site-specific configuration (IPs, storage classes, node counts)
  • FluxCD ensures every cluster converges to declared state
  • Drift detection flags configuration divergence across the fleet

Policy-Driven Delivery​

  • Kyverno policies enforce deployment standards (image sources, resource limits, security contexts)
  • Pod Security Admission prevents privilege escalation at every site
  • Git-based change workflow — PR review required before any fleet-wide change
  • Staged rollout: canary site → validation → fleet-wide push

Operational Controls​

ControlImplementation
Monitoringkube-prometheus-stack at every site, federated to central Grafana
LoggingLoki at each site with retention policies, central aggregation available
AlertingAlertmanager with per-site and fleet-wide alert routing
BackupVelero with site-local and remote backup targets
RecoveryGit-based rebuild — re-bootstrap from cluster overlay
Key rotationSOPS Age keys (90-day) and SSH keys (180-day) managed per-cluster

Air-Gap Compatibility​

  • Full air-gap support via openCenter-AirGap tooling
  • Signed .tar.zst packages with SBOM and Cosign signatures
  • Three-zone model: Factory (build) → Airlock (transfer) → Field (deploy)
  • Bastion serves as local registry and package repository
  • Critical for remote sites with limited or no connectivity

Deployment Model​

Central DC (full connectivity)
├── Fleet management (GitOps repos, CI/CD, monitoring federation)
├── openCenter-gitops-base (tag pinned)
└── Cluster overlays per site

Edge Sites (limited/no connectivity)
├── Air-gap package deployed to bastion
├── FluxCD reconciles from local Gitea mirror
├── Observability stack runs locally
└── Periodic sync when connectivity available

Platform Controls (Inherited from Foundation)​

All controls from the Platform Foundation apply at every site:

  • 17 Kyverno ClusterPolicies
  • Pod Security Admission
  • SOPS Age encryption
  • Full observability stack (local per site)
  • Velero backup and disaster recovery

Further Reading​