Telstra's GitOps Journey: Scaling Reliable Mobile Core Operations with Kubernetes
Full length talk (20 minutes)
Abstract
Modern telecommunications networks operate some of the largest distributed systems in Australia, where reliability and operational consistency are critical.
As Telstra expanded its cloud-native mobile core on Kubernetes, the challenge was no longer deploying applications. It was onboarding, operating, upgrading, and recovering hundreds of applications consistently without scaling operational effort linearly.
This talk shares our GitOps journey using Kubernetes, Flux, OpenTelemetry, and reusable platform abstractions to standardise onboarding, observability, and lifecycle management. We'll discuss how declarative workflows reduced deployment lead times, eliminated configuration drift, improved operational reliability, and enabled self-service consumption of common platform capabilities.
Speaker Bio
Senior technology leader at Telstra with 10+ years of experience in telecommunications, cloud-native transformation, and site reliability engineering. Driving the design and delivery of cloud-scale architectures for 5G and networks, with a focus on automation and zero-touch operations. Proven expertise in Kubernetes, GitOps, and network orchestration, alongside a strong track record in optimizing release engineering and fostering cross-functional collaboration. Active contributor to global industry forums including CNCF and Linux Foundation Networking.