The NetApps Certification Environment for 5G and beyond Vertical Ecosystems: The EVOLVED-5G Approach.

Certification is the means to promote excellence through adherence to best practices, and ensure the appropriate security and transparency, in alignment to regulations set by the market and (various levels of) administrations. In the mobile telecommunications domain, certification for the radio equipment and user terminals has been a fundamental practice. With the 3GPP5G specifications, a novel core network (5GC) model comes to promote dynamic, open 5G services and enable network programmability through standard APIs unlocking the network intelligence to the vertical application needs. A consequence of this “openness” is the mandate for supplements in the established practices of the mobile network operators (MNOs) to include beyond device also software conformance and quality assessment certification. This study describes the work carried out by EU Horizon 2020 EVOLVED-5G project, to define the relevant certification framework for the NetApps, a novel concept introduced as an enabler for the 5G adoption from the vertical industries. The paper goes beyond the definition of the key constructs for the appropriate certification creation process, and explores the technical characteristics of the execution environment to support the certification auditing in an effective, automated and repeatable manner.