The advent of 5G and Beyond 5G networks has propelled the development of innovative applications and services that harness network programmability, data from management and control interfaces, and the capabilities of network slicing. However, ensuring these applications function as intended and effectively utilize 5G/B5G capabilities remains a challenge, mainly due to their reliance on complex interactions with control plane Network Functions. This work addresses this issue by proposing a novel architecture to enhance the onboarding, orchestration, and validation of 5G/B5G-capable applications and services, while enabling the creation of application-tailored network slices. By integrating DevOps principles into the NFV ecosystem, the proposed architecture automates workflows for deployment, testing, and validation, while adhering to standardized onboarding models and continuous integration practices. Furthermore, we also address the realization of such architecture into a platform that supports extensive testing across multiple dimensions, including 5G readiness, security, performance, scalability, and availability. Besides introducing such a platform, this work also demonstrates its feasibility through the orchestration and validation of an automotive application that manages virtual On-Board Units within a 5G-enabled environment. The obtained results underscore the effectiveness of the proposed architecture, as well as the performance and scalability of the platform that materializes it. By integrating DevOps principles, our work aids in reducing deployment complexity, automating testing and validation, and enhancing the reliability of next-generation Network Applications, therefore accelerating their time-to-market.

The fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks emerged to cover the demand for an increasingly wide range of industrial use cases and contemporary daily aspects, in general. Network slicing is projected as a key enabler for serving this multitude of tenants. Network slicing, as an ongoing standardization work, encapsulates the different vision and terminology across Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). That note is depicted in several existing approaches, but the extensive introduction of customizations severely undermines interoperability. On the other hand, this work leverages Openslice, a Service based, opensource Operation Support System (OSS), and aims to augment its functionality by proposing a fully standardized network slicing mechanism, combining contributions from major SDOs.