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EP-4298774-B1 - METHOD, APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR NF SELECTION

EP4298774B1EP 4298774 B1EP4298774 B1EP 4298774B1EP-4298774-B1

Inventors

  • ALVAREZ DOMINGUEZ, RODRIGO
  • MUÑOZ DE LA TORRE ALONSO, Miguel Angel

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20210421

Claims (14)

  1. A method (300, 400, 700) performed by a Network Function, NF, (306) in a wireless communication network (100), wherein the method comprises: sending (S302, S402, S704), by the NF (306) to a Network Repository Function, NRF (120), a request to register or update an NF profile of the NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; and receiving (S304, S404, S706), by the NF (306) from the NRF (120), an acknowledgement of the request.
  2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the hardware acceleration information relates to a hardware accelerator for one or more of encryption, digital signal processing, packet header processing, packet buffering, packet scheduling, and compression of one or more data files.
  3. A method as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising, prior to sending (S302, S702, S902), by the NF (306) to the NRF (120), the request to update the NF profile of the NF (306) in the NRF (120), analyzing (S702), by the NF (306), the hardware characteristic.
  4. A method (300, 400, 800) performed by a Network Repository Function, NRF, (120) in a wireless communication network (100), wherein the method comprises: receiving (S302, S402, S804), by the NRF (120) from a first Network Function, NF (306), a request to register or update an NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; and sending (S304, S404, S806), by the NRF (120) to the first NF (306), an acknowledgement of the request.
  5. A method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the hardware acceleration information relates to a hardware accelerator for one or more of encryption, digital signal processing, packet header processing, packet buffering, packet scheduling, and compression of one or more data files.
  6. A method as claimed in any one of claims 4 to 5, wherein the received request to update is based on the hardware characteristic analyzed by the first NF.
  7. A method as claimed in any one of claims 4 to 6, further comprising: receiving (S504, S516, S526, S904), by the NRF (120) from a second NF (112, 114), a request for discovery of a said NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to one or more of: a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), a latency characteristic of the wireless communication network (100), and a throughput characteristic of the wireless communication network (100); and sending (S506, S518, S528, S906), by the NRF (120) to the second NF (112, 114), a list with a said NF profile and an NF identifier for at least one first NF (306), wherein each NF profile comprises the one or more parameters requested to be discovered; in particular wherein: (i) the second NF comprises an Access and Mobility Management Function, AMF, (112) wherein the first NF comprises a Session Management Function, SMF, (114) and wherein the NF profile comprises an SMF profile of the SMF (114), and wherein said discovery is based on whether the SMF profile of the SMF (114) comprises a hardware accelerator; and/or (ii) the second NF comprises an SMF (114), wherein the first NF comprises a Policy Control Function, PCF, (122) wherein the NF profile comprises a PCF profile of the PCF (122), and wherein said discovery is based on one or both of: whether a latency for storing information in the PCF (122) is less than a first threshold, and whether a throughput for storing information in the PCF (122) is larger than a second threshold; and/or (iii) the second NF comprises an SMF (114), wherein the first NF comprises a User Plane Function, UPF, (106), wherein the NF profile comprises a UPF profile of the UPF (106), and wherein said discovery is based on one or more of: whether a latency in the network (100) is less than a third threshold, whether a latency between two or more virtual machines (612, 622) in the network (100) is equal to or less than a fourth threshold, and whether a throughput in the network (100) is larger than a fifth threshold.
  8. A method (300, 400, 700, 800) performed in a wireless communication network (100) that comprises a first Network Function, NF, (306), a Network Repository Function, NRF, (120) and a second NF (112, 114), wherein the method comprises: sending (S302, S402, S704, S902), by the first NF (306) to the NRF (120), a request to register or update an NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; receiving (S504, S516, S526, S904), by the NRF (120) from a second NF (112, 114), a request for discovery of a said NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to one or more of: a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), a latency characteristic of the wireless communication network (100), and a throughput characteristic of the wireless communication network (100); sending (S506, S518, S528, S906), by the NRF (120) to the second NF (112, 114), a list with a said NF profile and an NF identifier for at least one first NF (306), wherein each NF profile comprises the one or more parameters requested to be discovered; and selecting (S508, S520, S530, S908), by the second NF (112, 114), a first NF (306) based on the list with the NF profile and the NF identifier for the at least one first NF (306), obtained from the NRF (120).
  9. A computer program product comprising program code portions that, when executed on at least one processor, configure the processor to perform the method of any one of the preceding claims.
  10. An apparatus (630) adapted to operate in a wireless communication network (100), wherein the apparatus (630) is configured to: send, to a Network Repository Function, NRF (120), a request to register or update an NF profile of a Network Function, NF, (306), in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating toa hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; and receive, from the NRF (120), an acknowledgement of the request.
  11. An apparatus (630) as claimed in claim 10, configured to perform the method of any one of claims 2 or 3.
  12. An apparatus (632) adapted to operate in a wireless communication network (100), wherein the apparatus (632) is configured to: receive, from a first Network Function, NF, (306), a request to register or update an NF profile of the first NF (306) in a Network Repository Function, NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; and send, to the first NF (306), an acknowledgement of the request.
  13. An apparatus (632) as claimed in claim 12, configured to perform the method of any one of claims 5 to 7.
  14. A system (650) adapted to operate in a wireless communication network (100), comprising a first Network Function, NF, (306), a Network Repository Function, NRF, (120) and a second NF (112, 114), wherein the system (650) is configured to: send, by the first NF (306) to the NRF (120), a request to register or update an NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), wherein the hardware characteristic comprises hardware acceleration information; receive, by the NRF (120) from a second NF (112, 114), a request for discovery of a said NF profile of the first NF (306) in the NRF (120), wherein the NF profile signaled via the request comprises one or more parameters relating to one or more of: a hardware characteristic of hardware (600, 602) comprised in the wireless communication network (100), a latency characteristic of the wireless communication network (100), and a throughput characteristic of the wireless communication network (100); send, by the NRF (120) to the second NF (112, 114), a list with a said NF profile and an NF identifier for at least one first NF (306), wherein each NF profile comprises the one or more parameters requested to be discovered; and select, by the second NF (112, 114), a first NF (306) based on the list with the NF profile and the NF identifier for the at least one first NF (306), obtained from the NRF (120).

Description

Technical Field The present disclosure generally relates to wireless communication. In more detail, aspects of the present disclosure relate to registering or updating a Network Function (NF) profile of an NF in a Network Repository Function (NRF). An NF may be selected based on one or more of hardware characteristics, latency characteristics and throughput characteristics in the wireless communication network. These aspects can be implemented as methods, computer program products, apparatus and systems, and may in particular pertain to Operation, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) in 5th generation (5G) networks. Background Prior art can be found in, for example, US 10 637 753 B1 which describes the managing of a 5G network using extension information, in WO 2020/108507 A1 and EP 3 843 341 A1 which describe a method and system for providing metadata information of a network function service and related device, and in WO 2021/013321 A1 which describes an apparatus, a method, and a computer program for preparing, sharing and using feedback information relating to a service provided by a network function service producer in a cellular network. EP 3 739 919 A1 discloses a technique for managing an identifier of a terminal and status information thereof in a mobile communication system. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is developing technical specifications (TSs) for 5G communication systems. 3GPP TS 23.501 V16.7.0 (2020-12) defines architectural aspects of a 5G Service Based Architecture (SBA). According to this SBA, NFs use service-based interactions to consume services from other NFs. The discovery of services and of NFs producing them is provided by an NRF. Service producing NFs register, update or deregister their profiles in the NRF. Service consuming NFs discover services offered by NF producer instances by querying the NRF about NF instances offering services of a given type. NFs may subscribe and unsubscribe to changes in the status of NFs registered in the NRF. Based on such subscriptions, the NRF may notify NFs of status changes of other NFs. For the aforementioned (and other) procedures, the NRF provides the so-called Nnrf_NFManagement service in an exemplary 5G implementation (see Sect. 5.2 of 3GPP TS 29.510 V16.6.0 (2020-12)). Moreover, NFs may also query the NRF to discover services provided by other NFs and how to consume them. For these procedures, the NRF provides the so-called Nnrf_NFDiscovery service in an exemplary 5G implementation (see Sect. 5.3 of TS 29.510). As the complexity of 5G systems continues to increase, it may be more and more difficult, and in some instances impossible, for conflicts between entities participating in the 5G system to be avoided. Different entities which participate in the 5G system may take certain decisions. As a result, a variety of types of conflicts may arise. Such conflicts include, for example, resource conflicts, in which several services may have been accepted, but the same resources may be needed in order to fulfil their respective quality requirements. Such resource conflicts may arise due to incorrect admission control over too aggressive oversubscription. Such a conflict may result in fines which may need to be paid, though the conflicts still need to be resolved. Another conflict example relates to rules which might conflict with each other, for instance when providing a service out of functions that may specify mutually incompatible packet forwarding behavior. These conflicts may be detected by a Management and Orchestration (MANO) system. Furthermore, feature interaction conflicts are possible. In particular, at a service level, a service conflict may be a "call waiting" and "call forwarding" feature interaction problem. A possible solution to the above problems is to avoid the conflicts, or detect and resolve the conflicts. In order to do so, in some examples, pre-fixed policies (either specified by the platform in general or by a service) are implemented. There are limitations to these possible solutions. In the example of a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session establishment procedure, when a subscriber registers and creates a PDU session, an NF selection mechanism is performed which may be based on different criteria. For instance, in the case of a User Plane Function (UPF) selection (by the Session Management Function (SMF)), the selection may be based, for example, on UPF load information and on a subscriber's profile. However, existing mechanisms are not optimal, since, for example, with current mechanisms, the selection may not guarantee the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for each subscriber and per application that may need to be provided by the network. Such load information (relating to central processing unit (CPU) and memory) may only reflect which space is left to allocate new users or PDU sessions for the NF instance. Summary Accordingly, there is a need for a technique that avoids one or more of the above drawbacks. Acco