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EP-4736509-A1 - SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PCF-SPR BYPASS IN COMMUNICATION NETWORK

EP4736509A1EP 4736509 A1EP4736509 A1EP 4736509A1EP-4736509-A1

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a system (108) for Policy Control Function (PCF)- Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) bypass in a communication network. The present disclosure enhances PCF and SPR to support bypass and subscribe/notify feature. The system includes a memory and a processing engine. The processing engine is configured to receive at least one user configurable flag from the PCF (110). The processing engine is configured to determine a state of the at least one received user configurable flag. The determined state is either a true state or a false state. The processing engine is configured to perform the at least one operation based on the determined state. The at least one operation includes at least one of bypassing the SPR (112), transmitting a query to the SPR, processing a message, and rejecting the message.

Inventors

  • BHATNAGAR, AAYUSH
  • Jha, Alok
  • ANJALI, Kunuguntla
  • NARAYAN, Gaurav
  • KUMAR, SANJEEV
  • Shetty, Mukta
  • Khamesra, Apoorva
  • GUPTA, ADITYA

Assignees

  • Jio Platforms Limited

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20240604

Claims (20)

  1. 1. A system (108) for performing at least one operation in association with a policy control function (PCF) (110), and a subscription profile repository (SPR) (112) in a communication network, the system (108) comprising: a memory (204); and a processing engine (208) configured to execute instructions comprising: receive at least one user configurable flag from the PCF (HO); determine a state of the at least one received user configurable flag, wherein the determined state is either a true state or a false state; and perform the at least one operation based on the determined state, wherein the at least one operation includes at least one of bypassing the SPR (112), transmitting a query to the SPR (112), processing a message, rejecting the message, and creating a subscriber profile based on a set of configurable global parameter values.
  2. 2. The system (108) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one user configurable flag is a first user configurable flag, a second runtime user configurable flag, or a third runtime user configurable flag.
  3. 3. The system (108) as claimed in claim 2, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to: transmit the query to the SPR (112) if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the true state; and bypass the SPR (112) if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the false state and create the subscriber profile based on the set of configurable global parameter values.
  4. 4. The system (108) as claimed in claim 3, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to: determine at least one status of the SPR (112) on receiving the second runtime user configurable flag, wherein the at least one status includes a partial down, a complete down, a SPR query failure and a SPR (112) query null; process a message received from a user equipment via an access management function (AMF), with the set of configurable global parameter values if the determined state of the received second runtime user configurable flag is the true state, and the determined status of the SPR (112) is the partial down or the complete down; and reject the message if the determined state of the received second runtime user configurable flag is the false state and the determined status of the SPR (112) is the SPR query failure.
  5. 5. The system (108) as claimed in claim 2, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to: process the message with the set of configurable global parameter values if the determined state of the received third user configurable flag is the true state; and reject the message if the determined state of the received third user configurable flag is the false state.
  6. 6. The system (108) as claimed in claim 4, wherein the set of configurable global parameter values includes identical field values as stored in the SPR (112) corresponding to the subscriber profile.
  7. 7. The system (108), as claimed in claim 1, wherein the SPR (112) is configured to receive subscription information from a user indicating a change in at least one of personal information, service plans, or services subscribed by the user and is further configured to update the subscriber profile to generate a modified subscriber profile.
  8. 8. The system (108), as claimed in claim 7, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to detect a change in the subscription information associated with the user and send a notification to the PCF (110) with the modified subscriber profile.
  9. 9. The system (108), as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to generate a unique identifier for each of a plurality of subscribe requests received for a Subscription Permanent Identifier (SUPI) from a plurality of PCFs (110).
  10. 10. The system (108), as claimed in claim 9, wherein the processing engine (208) is configured to receive an unsubscribe message containing the unique identifier provided by the SPR (112) and delete existing subscriptions from the memory accordingly.
  11. 11. A method (300) for performing at least one operation in association with a policy control function (PCF) (110) and a subscriber profile repository (SPR) (112) in a communication network, the method (300) comprising: receiving (302), by a processing engine (208), at least one user configurable flag from the PCF (110); determining (304), by the processing engine (208), a state of the at least one received user configurable flag, wherein the determined state is either a true state or a false state; and performing (306), by the processing engine (208), the at least one operation based on the determined state, wherein the at least one operation includes at least one of bypassing the SPR (112), transmitting a query to the SPR (112), processing a message, rejecting the message, and creating a subscriber profile based on a set of configurable global parameter values.
  12. 12. The method (300) as claimed in claim 11, wherein the at least one user configurable flag is a first user configurable flag, a second runtime user configurable flag, or a third runtime user configurable flag.
  13. 13. The method (300) as claimed in claim 12, further comprising transmitting, by the processing engine (208), the query to the SPR (112) if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the true state.
  14. 14. The method (300) as claimed in claim 12, further comprising bypassing, by the processing engine (208), the SPR (112) if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the false state and creating the subscriber profile based on the set of configurable global parameter values.
  15. 15. The method (300) as claimed in claim 14, further comprising determining, by the processing engine (208), at least one status of the SPR on receiving the second runtime user configurable flag, wherein the at least one status includes a partial down, a complete down, a SPR query failure and a SPR query null; and is further includes steps of: processing a message, received from a user equipment via an access management function (AMF), with the set of configurable global parameter values if the determined state of the received second runtime user configurable flag is the true state, and the determined status of the SPR (112) is the partial down or the complete down; and rejecting the message if the determined state of the received second runtime user configurable flag is the false state and the determined status of the SPR (112) is the SPR query failure.
  16. 16. The method (300) as claimed in claim 12, further comprising processing, by the processing engine (208), the message with the set of configurable global parameter values if the determined state of the received third user configurable flag is the true state.
  17. 17. The method (300) as claimed in claim 12, further comprising rejecting, by the processing engine (208), the message if the determined state of the received third user configurable flag is the false state.
  18. 18. The method (300) as claimed in claim 15, wherein the set of configurable global parameter values includes identical field values as stored in the SPR (112) corresponding to the subscriber profile.
  19. 19. The method (300) as claimed in claim 11, further comprising receiving, by the SPR (112), subscription information from a user indicating a change in at least one of personal information, service plans, or services subscribed by the user and updating the subscriber profile to generate a modified subscriber profile.
  20. 20. The method (300) as claimed in claim 19, further comprising detecting, by the processing engine (208), a change in the subscription information associated with the user and sending a notification to the PCF (110) with the modified subscriber profile.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PCF-SPR BYPASS IN COMMUNICATION NETWORK RESERVATION OF RIGHTS [001] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material, which is subject to intellectual property rights such as, but are not limited to, copyright, design, trademark, integrated circuit (IC) layout design, and/or trade dress protection, belonging to Jio Platforms Limited (JPL) or its affiliates (herein after referred as owner). The owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all rights whatsoever. All rights to such intellectual property are fully reserved by the owner. TECHNICAL FIELD [002] The present disclosure relates to a field of a communication network, and specifically to a system and a method for Policy Control Function (PCF) - Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) bypass in a communication network. BACKGROUND [003] The following description of related art is intended to provide background information pertaining to the field of the disclosure. This section may include certain aspects of the art that may be related to various features of the present disclosure. However, it should be appreciated that this section be used only to enhance the understanding of the reader with respect to the present disclosure, and not as admissions of prior art. [004] Currently Policy Control Function (PCF) mandates Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) lookup for Access Mobility (AM)/Session Management (SM) policy decision for initial AM policy control/SM policy control messages. Once the SPR is looked up, subscriber SPR data object is stored by SM in cache so that any future lookup query is not sent again towards SPR. This cache object is deleted once all the session data for that specific subscriber is removed from PCF. [005] In production environment, there may be negative scenarios that need to be handled by PCF including cases where SPR lookup needs to be turned off or SPR partially is unavailable or SPR lookup is failed (due to provisioning specific issues). Currently PCF application does not provide a way to handle the same. [006] Similarly, when the subscriber profile is changed at SPR, there is no way that SPR currently sends the notification towards PCF given that SPR is just a database and has no trigger point to either send modified subscriber information for running session or knowledge of which PCF sends notification. Currently PCF does not have any way to handle the same as well. [007] Thus, there is a need to provide a PCF-SPR bypass system by overcoming the deficiencies of the prior arts. OBJECTS OF THE PRESENT DISCLOSURE [008] It is an object of the present disclosure to provide a bypass system for Policy Control Function (PCF)-Subscriber Profile Repository (SPR) bypass in a communication network. [009] It is an object of the present disclosure to enhance PCF and SPR to support bypass and subscribe/notify feature. [0010] It is an object of the present disclosure to provide capability to act on notification received from SPR. [0011] It is an object of the present disclosure to provide alarms, counters, vProbe codes, and logs for operational ease of feature. SUMMARY [0012] The present disclosure discloses a system for performing at least one operation in association with a policy control function (PCF) and a subscription profile repository (SPR) in a communication network. The system includes a memory and a processing engine. The processing engine is configured to execute instructions including receiving at least one user configurable flag from the PCF. The processing engine is configured to determine a state of the at least one received user configurable flag, wherein the determined state is either a true state or a false state. The processing engine is configured to perform the at least one operation based on the determined state. The at least one operation includes at least one of bypassing the SPR, transmitting a query to the SPR, processing a message, and rejecting the message. [0013] In an embodiment, the at least one user configurable flag is a first user configurable flag, a second runtime user configurable flag, or a third runtime user configurable flag. [0014] In an embodiment, the processing engine is configured to transmit the query to the SPR if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the true state. [0015] In an embodiment, the processing engine is configured to bypass the SPR if the determined state of the received first user configurable flag is the false state and creates a subscriber profile based on a set of configurable global parameter values. [0016] In an embodiment, the processing engine is configured to determine at least one status of the SPR on receiving the second runtime user configurable flag. The at least one status includes a partial down, a complete down, a SPR query failure an