te load conditions. This would involve testing with the maximum possible throughput, active subscribers, and call events per second, such as handovers, connections, disconnects of subscribers, and SO on. This would give an idea of the maximum number of transactions per second that the network can handle. Automation infrastructure in 5G Operations: Operating a network is one of the most critical aspects of an MNO. This directly impacts revenue. A smoothly operating network will give the best customer experience, which will most certainly drive revenue for the operator in terms of customer retention and new customer wins. Similarly, an efficiently operating network will save a lot of money allocated to Operational Expenses (OPEX). If the network operations are fully automated, it will result in faster maintenance cycles and quicker fault detection, and would, in turn, result in better customer experience and less cost to the operator in terms of needing a large workforce for maintenance activities. Network automation drives OPEX down, and at the same time, reduces the time to market for the MNO to launch a solution. Older generations of mobile technology did use some initial scripts to automate parts of their processes but the push toward a one-touch automated network only came in with 5G networks. It would be excruciating to build a 5G network without automation. Let us understand, one by one, the reasons why we must build a robust automation framework and the purposes it should attempt to solve: Heterogeneous technologies: 5G networks are built using a mix of cloud-native functions that have a microservices-based architecture and multiple virtual network functions that are neither appliance-based nor cloud-native. They may be virtualized using different hypervisors; there will also be some physical network functions and legacy routers or switches that serve to build the IP network connectivity backbone. In addition to this, there will be various operations and maintenance tools, both proprietary and open source. 