An automated CI/CD process for testing and deployment of Network Applications over 5G infrastructure

As 5G standards have largely matured, further enabling the radical development of 5G networks, the pressure for mobile operators to keep up with widening range of industry and contemporary use cases increases. Consequently, many approaches have emerged from the perspective of the vertical’s interaction with the 5G system especially while onboarding specific vertical Network Applications (or NetApps). This work discusses an approach which reduces the complexity of this interaction by introducing a novel yet standard based vertical onboarding model. Our approach focuses on preserving interoperability and reproducibility with other systems through the exclusive utilization of data models derived by embracing well-known industry standards. Being also pragmatic, the mechanisms presented in this paper are implemented and applied in a large distributed 5G infrastructure.