SPIFFE/SPIRE provide strongly attested, cryptographic identities for workloads on a variety of platforms. 
Globally, Telco workloads are shifting from Bare metal/Virtualized platforms to Containerized platforms. Due to license restrictions, where a software vendor is supporting software only on Bare metal or Virtualized platforms, or due to other legacy reasons, Telco operators still need to manage workloads deployed across Bare metal/Virtualized and Containerized platforms, and these workloads need to communicate securely with each other. The overhead of managing and issuing cryptographic identity documents (e.g., X.509 certificates) for these different platforms increases Telco operators' operational expenditure (OPEX), reducing business expediency and return on investment.
Traditional methods of managing secure communications do not provide a consistent way to manage and issue cryptographic identity documents across different Bare metal/Virtualized and Containerized platforms.