Spica Systems Embraces Panoptica to Develop a Highly Secure Private 5G Network Application

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Tricia Nagar
Thursday, Jun 15th, 2023

At Spica Systems, developing applications that support private 5G network adoption among customers is an obsession. The Spica Systems team is deeply committed to designing SMC (Spica Mobility Core), their private 5G packet core application that helps enterprise customers benefit from faster and more reliable connectivity than public networks. As for their team of application developers and IT Ops, frictionless collaboration is the business-critical value they consistently apply to innovate on cloud native telco applications. 

While the DevOps team was working hard at building the lightweight cloud native 5G packet core engine for private 5G networks, Sisir Chowdhury, the CEO of Spica Systems was growing concerned. He knew that his team needed a comprehensive yet cost-effective cloud native security solution to harden SMC’s security posture. 

“Our customers span the spectrum from small startups to large enterprises in the oil and gas, manufacturing, utilities, and high-tech sectors—all in the midst of transitioning to private 5G networks,” explained Sisir Chowdhury. “Ensuring their sensitive data is exchanged safely over our private 5G packet core application was a top concern and the highest priority.” 

Sisir further explained, “The widely available cloud native security solutions in the market proved impractical for us due to how much they cost, and the intricate processes associated with their adoption. Our customers prefer a private 5G network that can be continuously monitored for security vulnerabilities while remaining simple to adopt, effective, and cost-friendly in delivering enterprise-grade security.” 

Resource constraints compounded the obstacles faced by Spica Systems.  

Mr. Subhas Bothra, Director of IT and Security Operations at Spica Systems added, “Our security operations rely on a small team of professionals. We urgently needed a trusted partner who could assist us in managing security and flagging vulnerabilities within our Kubernetes clusters, all while alleviating the strain on our human and capital resources.” 

Sisir and Subhas promptly embarked on a search to find the ideal solution and came across Panoptica by Cisco following a rigorous evaluation of cloud native application security vendors. “Panoptica scored highly on every aspect of the proof of concept,” remarked Subhas. “By closely evaluating all the container security and vulnerability management capabilities offered in the Panoptica solution, we concluded that it was the perfect security solution for SMC, our private 5G network application.” 

“Panoptica helped us reduce tool sprawl by not having to purchase multiple security solutions and deal with multiple vendors. It is easy to set up and integrate with the toolsets our DevOps teams already use, and simple to institute into our workflows. My DevOps teams also found Panoptica easy to try out with the unlimited free signup.” Subhas further adds. “Another crucial factor is that Panoptica is offered by Cisco Systems, a highly credible brand that we implicitly trust. Not surprisingly, our pre-and post-sale customer service experience with the Panoptica team was exceptional.” 

Panoptica Met Every Single Spica Systems Requirement 

Their specific solution requirements were as follows: 

  • The solution must be a user-friendly, DevOps-oriented cloud native security solution that can be easily adopted by lean IT security and DevOps teams.  
  • It must easily integrate into the CI/CD pipeline of the SMC application. 
  • It should provide comprehensive visibility within Kubernetes clusters at runtime to effectively address potential risks in the context of telecom network infrastructure.  
  • It should be platform-agnostic and adhere to the “single pane of glass” principle allowing flexible monitoring of cloud workloads across multiple cloud environments.  
  • It should secure a cloud native private 5G network with robust security monitoring capabilities that are cost-effective for Spica Systems and its valued customers. 

Spica Systems and Panoptica – A Trusted Partnership  

“The Panoptica solution is cleverly designed with a policy-based approach to enforcing security in modern apps that run on a multi-cloud architecture,” said Subhas. “We rely on it every day to identify and manage security vulnerabilities. Continuous insights from the Panoptica dashboard have enabled our teams to block the vulnerabilities before they turn into full-blown security threats. We have successfully secured multiple Kubernetes clusters running in Azure (AKS) and AWS (EKS) public clouds with Panoptica.” 

Designing a state-of-the-art private 5G network application with a Cisco security solution like Panoptica embedded into it has transformed Spica Systems into a one-stop supplier of highly secure telco applications.  

We met with the Spica Systems team to learn how they ensure security in their DevOps workflows while keeping collaboration between Dev and Ops seamless. Towards the end of our meeting, Sisir Chowdhury’s concluding remark made our day, “As we scale our cloud native application development in private 5G network technology, we trust Panoptica from Cisco to be beside us.” 

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To read the full story, visit us here. To learn more about how the innovation team at Spica Systems can help you get on your private 5G adoption journey, be sure to look them up here.

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