Nordnet Builds Critical Connectivity Infrastructure

The French government aims to promote careers in rural areas and remote work, but this requires strong rural connectivity. Nordnet is connecting rural France and using VMware Tanzu Platform to streamline service delivery with integrated microservices management.

It may be many years before we understand the full impact on our workplace habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We know rates of remote working were as low as five percent pre-pandemic, and as high as 45 percent 18 months after the start. Some reports suggest a productivity dip of 19 percent, others claim a rise of 24 percent. Transport providers tell us commuter patterns have changed, retailers say city center spending has dropped and large swathes of office space lie empty.

How this plays out in the long term remains up for grabs.

What we can agree is that connectivity is king. Remote working relies on reliable connectivity. No connectivity, no video calls. You're commuting to the office. Respected researchers confirm what many suspect: that the least populated and least educated rural regions with the least internet connectivity are least likely to participate in the online labor market.

If the benefits of remote working-the ability to work from anywhere, opening up the national workforce, expanding the pool of talent-are to be realized, national connectivity infrastructure needs to keep pace.

In France, the task of connecting rural communities falls to Nordnet. The business, part of the giant Orange Telecom group, is striving to bridge the country's digital divide. Its mission is to make the internet available to all, regardless of the technology available.

"We know that at least five percent of the population will never have internet access in a conventional way," says Pierre Emery, director of infrastructure, Nordnet. "We must consider 4G or satellite connectivity. We are a public service. We have to be where others aren't."

Efficient management of 300 microservices

The challenge for Nordnet is not only to deliver the means to connect rural France, it must do so in a way that makes it easy for the 3.5 million people lacking connectivity to buy and manage a service. This demographic is hugely varied. Nordnet must create different types of service for different segments, but, with razor-thin margins, it must do so as efficiently as possible.

The use of microservices is helping Nordnet meet its service and cost commitments. The business has around 300 microservices under management, each with their own resiliency and redundancy requirements. Coordinating the management of these microservices threatened to become overwhelming.

Enter VMware Tanzu Platform.

Tanzu Platform provides Nordnet with a single, end-to-end integrated platform on which to manage its microservices. Pre-configured templates remove duplication and ensure consistency. This keeps the developers at Nordnet satisfied and enables the company to build and deploy more services faster.

With just a simple configuration file, Tanzu Platform quickly sets up Nordnet microservices. It automatically handles everything from using the source code and building the container to creating deployment files and setting up the application on Kubernetes.

Pierre Emery explains: "With our platform-as-a-service model, which incorporates Infrastructure-as-Code, we can launch new applications in just a few minutes. Previously, it would take us days to prepare a new container for deployment."

Moreover, security patches are in place within minutes. What used to be a complicated task, taking weeks if not months, has now become straightforward.

Breaking down barriers between teams

For Nordnet, this is more than a matter of efficiency. Nordnet recognizes that rural connectivity is not easy; it wants to find the solutions itself, no matter how hard the task. Building French infrastructure is a job for a French organization. Lessons learned here will benefit the broader French economy.

By clearing away much of the mundane work of managing microservices, Nordnet is giving itself the best chance of attracting the right talent, keen to make a tangible difference to the lives of citizens.

"Tanzu Platform helps break down the barriers between the developer, virtualization and infrastructure teams," explains Emery. "We're more aware of each other's constraints. It makes us better coordinated as a business."

The result is a business that is seen to be service-oriented. "We're built to be agile, to be reactive, to respond to new service opportunities," Emery says. "VMware Tanzu Platform allows our developers to self-serve. They're faster, more productive and better able to bring new services online quickly."

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