System and method to manage network utilization according to wireless backhaul and radio access network conditions

• US 10,244,422 B2
• Filed: 07/16/2015
• Issued: 03/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Parulkar, Ishwardutt
• Primary Examiner(s): Rivas, Salvador E
• Application Number:
  US14/801,381
• Publication Number:
  US 20170019811A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,349 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 Utilisation of link capacity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/22 Traffic shaping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/726 Reserving resources in multiple paths to be used simultaneously by balancing the load H04L47/125
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0247 based on conditions of the access network or the infrastructure network central resource management H04W28/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0983 for optimizing bandwidth or throughput
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/12 Wireless traffic scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/12 Access point controller devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/18 Service support devices; Network management devices

Abstract

An example method is provided in one example embodiment and may include monitoring a plurality of wireless backhaul links associated with a radio access network (RAN); receiving an indication of a change in operating conditions for a first wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links; determining utilization of the first wireless backhaul link based on the indication of the change in operating conditions; assessing an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links; and adjusting cellular loading in the RAN based, at least in part, on the utilization of the first wireless backhaul link and the available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

configuring link associations between a plurality of cellular nodes and a plurality of wireless backhaul links, wherein each of the plurality of cellular nodes is linked to one of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

monitoring a plurality of wireless backhaul links associated with a radio access network (RAN);

receiving an indication of a change in operating conditions for a first wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

determining utilization of the first wireless backhaul link based on the indication of the change in operating conditions;

calculating an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links based on a difference between throughput of each particular wireless backhaul link and a summation of UE traffic to be communicated through each wireless backhaul link; and

adjusting cellular loading in the RAN by handing over user equipments (UEs) connected to a first cellular node associatively linked to the first wireless backhaul link to a second cellular node of the plurality of cellular nodes associatively linked to a second wireless backhaul link, wherein handing over the UEs is performed in response to determining that a utilization of the second wireless backhaul link is less than a utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions is associated with a throughput or capacity change event resulting in a change in the utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions includes an indication of utilization of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the link associations identify a relationship between each particular wireless backhaul link and one or more of the plurality of cellular nodes for which UE traffic is communicated;

and

storing the link associations in at least one memory element.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

communicating the indication of the change in operating conditions for the first wireless backhaul link to one or more of;

a RAN management system;

a central self-organizing network (cSON) server associated with the RAN; and

one or more distributed self-organizing network (dSON) modules associated with the RAN, wherein each dSON management system is further associated with a set of one or more of the plurality of cellular nodes associated with a particular wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the utilization of the first wireless backhaul link includes determining that the utilization is above a particular link utilization threshold for the first wireless backhaul link and wherein adjusting cellular loading in the RAN further by handing over UEs comprises:

identifying the second wireless backhaul link as having higher available capacity than the first wireless backhaul link;

identifying candidate cellular nodes of the plurality of cellular nodes in the RAN associated with the second wireless backhaul link, wherein the candidate cellular nodes neighbor the first cellular node and include a different cellular node, wherein the candidate cellular nodes comprises the second cellular node; and

offloading one or more UEs connected to the first cellular node to the second cellular node in the RAN associated with the second wireless backhaul link.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reconfiguring quality of service (QoS) policies for the second cellular node in response to handing over the UEs to the second cellular node.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reconfiguring, in response to handing over the UEs to the second cellular node, admission control for the first cellular node to deny any other UE from connecting to the first cellular node.

9. One or more non-transitory tangible media encoding logic that includes instructions for execution that when executed by a processor, is operable to perform operations comprising:

configuring link associations between a plurality of cellular nodes and a plurality of wireless backhaul links, wherein each of the plurality of cellular nodes is linked to one of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

monitoring a plurality of wireless backhaul links associated with a radio access network (RAN);

calculating an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links based on a difference between throughput of each particular wireless backhaul link and a summation of UE traffic to be communicated through each wireless backhaul link;

receiving an indication of a change in operating conditions for a first wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

determining utilization of the first wireless backhaul link based on the indication of the change in operating conditions;

assessing an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links; and

adjusting cellular loading in the RAN by handing over UEs connected to a first cellular node associatively linked to the first wireless backhaul link to a second cellular node of the plurality of cellular nodes associatively linked to a second wireless backhaul link, wherein handing over the UEs is performed in response to determining that a utilization of the second wireless backhaul link is less than a utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

10. The media of claim 9, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions is associated with a throughput or capacity change event resulting in a change in a link utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

11. The media of claim 10, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions includes an indication of a link utilization of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

12. The media of claim 9, the operations further comprising:

communicating the indication of the change in operating conditions for the first wireless backhaul link to one or more of;

a RAN management system;

a central self-organizing network (cSON) server associated with the RAN; and

one or more distributed self-organizing network (dSON) modules associated with the RAN, wherein each dSON management system is further associated with a set of one or more cellular nodes of the plurality of cellular nodes associated with a particular wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

13. The media of claim 9, wherein determining the utilization of the first wireless backhaul link includes determining that the utilization is above a particular link utilization threshold for the first wireless backhaul link and wherein adjusting cellular loading in the RAN by handing over UEs further comprises:

identifying the second wireless backhaul link as having higher available capacity than the first wireless backhaul link;

identifying candidate cellular nodes of the plurality of cellular nodes in the RAN associated with the second wireless backhaul link, wherein the candidate cellular nodes neighbor the first cellular node and include a different cellular node, wherein the candidate cellular nodes comprises the second cellular node; and

offloading one or more UEs connected to the first cellular node to the second cellular node in the RAN associated with the second wireless backhaul link.

14. The media of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

reconfiguring quality of service (QoS) policies for the second cellular node in response to handing over the UEs to the second cellular node.

15. The media of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

reconfiguring, in response to handing over the UEs to the second cellular node, admission control for the first cellular node to deny any other UE from connecting to the first cellular node.

16. A communication system comprising:

at least one memory element for storing data; and

at least one processor that executes instructions associated with the data, wherein the at least one processor and the at least one memory element cooperate such that the communication system is configured for;

configuring link associations between a plurality of cellular nodes and a plurality of wireless backhaul links, wherein each of the plurality of cellular nodes is linked to one of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

monitoring a plurality of wireless backhaul links associated with a radio access network (RAN);

calculating an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links based on a difference between throughput of each particular wireless backhaul link and a summation of UE traffic to be communicated through each wireless backhaul link;

receiving an indication of a change in operating conditions for a first wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links;

determining utilization of the first wireless backhaul link based on the indication of the change in operating conditions;

assessing an available capacity of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links; and

adjusting cellular loading in the RAN by handing over UEs connected to a first cellular node associatively linked to the first wireless backhaul link to a second cellular node of the plurality of cellular nodes associatively linked to a second wireless backhaul link, wherein handing over the UEs is performed in response to determining that a utilization of the second wireless backhaul link is less than a utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

17. The communication system of claim 16, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions is associated with a throughput or capacity change event resulting in a change in link utilization of the first wireless backhaul link.

18. The communication system of claim 16, wherein the indication of the change in operating conditions includes an indication of a link utilization of each of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

19. The communication system of claim 16, wherein the communication system is further configured for:

communicating the indication of the change in operating conditions for the first wireless backhaul link to one or more of;

a RAN management system;

a central self-organizing network (cSON) server associated with the RAN; and

one or more distributed self-organizing network (dSON) modules associated with the RAN, wherein each dSON management system is further associated with a set of one or more cellular nodes of the plurality of cellular nodes associated with a particular wireless backhaul link of the plurality of wireless backhaul links.

20. The communication system of claim 16, wherein the communication system is configured for:

reconfiguring, in response to handing over the UEs to the second cellular node, admission control for the first cellular node to deny any other UE from connecting to the first cellular node.