Automation, Orchestration, and Testing

Automation and orchestration have been tightly integrated into the development, deployment, and operations life cycle of modern networks. A 5G network is no exception. 5G network specifications emphasize a cloud-native framework on which the various network functions are built, which goes hand in hand with massive-scale network automation. In this chapter, we will delve into details of network automation, understand how these critical networks are orchestrated, and discover how advanced use cases such as automatic scale-in and scale-out can be achieved. Automatic failure recovery is another topic that we will discuss in detail, and we will explore why it is needed.

The integration of various network components in a highly complex network such as a standard 5G network is a massive time consumer for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Communication Service Providers (CSPs). We will discuss in detail how various network components can be integrated...