The shift to disaggregated 5G architectures introduces unprecedented flexibility but also significant complexity in Beyond 5G Radio Access Networks (RANs). Open RAN enables programmability through xApps, yet deploying and validating these applications is critical given the nature of the systems they aim to control. Current Open RAN ecosystems lack robust lifecycle management of xApps that enable automated testing, seamless migration, and production-grade observability, resulting in slow, error-prone xApp delivery. To address these issues, DevOps practices can streamline the xApp lifecycle by integrating Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines with advanced traffic management and monitoring, such as leveraging service mesh technologies to enable progressive deployment strategies (e.g., canary releases and A/B testing) to ensure fine-grained observability and resilience. The solution presented in this article, MANATEE (Mesh Architecture for Radio Access Network Automation and TEsting Ecosystems), is the first platform that combines these principles to simplify xApp delivery into production, accelerate innovation, and guarantee performance across heterogeneous O-RAN environments. We prototyped MANATEE on a Kubernetes cluster integrated with the O-RAN Software Community Near-Real Time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), as well as with service mesh technologies, to facilitate testing of xApps across simulated, emulated, and real testbed environments. Our experimental results demonstrate that service mesh integration introduces minimal overhead (below 1 ms latency), while enabling reliable canary deployments with fine-grained traffic control and conflict-free A/B testing through circuit-breaking mechanisms.

翻译：向解耦式5G架构的转型为超5G无线接入网络带来了前所未有的灵活性，同时也引入了显著的复杂性。开放无线接入网通过xApp实现了可编程性，但鉴于其所控制系统的高敏感性，这些应用的部署与验证至关重要。当前开放无线接入网生态系统缺乏能够支持自动化测试、无缝迁移和生产级可观测性的xApp全生命周期管理方案，导致xApp交付过程缓慢且易出错。为解决这些问题，DevOps实践可通过将持续集成/持续部署流水线与先进的流量管理及监控技术相结合来优化xApp生命周期管理，例如利用服务网格技术实现渐进式部署策略（如金丝雀发布和A/B测试），从而确保细粒度可观测性与系统韧性。本文提出的MANATEE（面向无线接入网自动化与测试生态的网格架构）解决方案，是首个融合上述原则的平台，旨在简化xApp生产环境交付流程、加速创新进程，并保障异构O-RAN环境下的性能表现。我们在集成O-RAN软件社区近实时无线接入网智能控制器以及服务网格技术的Kubernetes集群上对MANATEE进行了原型实现，以支持在仿真、模拟和真实测试床环境中对xApp进行全面测试。实验结果表明，服务网格集成仅引入极低开销（时延低于1毫秒），同时通过熔断机制实现了具备细粒度流量控制的金丝雀部署和无冲突的A/B测试。