Tiered distributed ledger technology (DLT) in a network function virtualization (NFV) core network

• US 10,348,488 B1
• Filed: 08/25/2017
• Issued: 07/09/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Paczkowski, Lyle W., Bertz, Lyle T., Bales, Mark R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Siddiqi, Mohammad A
• Application Number:
  US15/686,312
• Time in Patent Office: 683 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 13/00 Voting apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/56 Routing software
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/107 wherein the security policies are location-dependent, e.g. entities privileges depend on current location or allowing specific operations only from locally connected terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0637 Modes of operation, e.g. cipher block chaining [CBC], electronic codebook [ECB] or Galois/counter mode [GCM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3239 involving non-keyed hash functions, e.g. modification detection codes [MDCs], MD5, SHA or RIPEMD
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3297 involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/50 using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences

Abstract

A method of combining chains of blocks in a network. The method comprising, creating a plurality of birth blocks of a plurality of chains of blocks by a block foundry application in a network, where each birth block is associated with a chain of blocks that records events of a network entity, creating blocks by a plurality of nodes in the network, wherein the current block and the previous block are linked, terminating the chain of blocks by the network entity, wherein the entity sends a termination request to create an end block, creating the end block, wherein the end block is the final block of the chain of blocks, and in response to the creation of the end block, sending a request by the network entity to create a block of a meta-chain of blocks, and creating the block of the meta-chain of blocks by the plurality of nodes.

Claims

1. A method of tracking, monitoring, and preserving temporal network function virtualization (NFV) events on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) computer system, the method comprising:

initiating by a hypervisor executing on a computer system a plurality of virtual servers providing a plurality of virtualized network functions (VNFs) that comprises a tracking application on a network function virtualization (NFV) core network;

for each virtual server,

sending a request to create a birth block based on the initiation of the virtual server by the tracking application to a block foundry application in a network;

creating based on the block request by the block foundry application, the birth block of a chain of blocks comprising a first nonce value, a first transaction, and a first hash value;

detecting a plurality of changes of state of the virtual server by the tracking application;

for each change of state of the virtual server,

sending a request to create a new block based on the change of state of the virtual server by the hypervisor to a plurality of nodes in the network; and

creating based on the new block request by the plurality of nodes, a new block of the chain of blocks, wherein the new block follows the previous block, comprising a new nonce value, a new transaction, a new hash value, and the hash value of the previous block, wherein the hash value of the previous block links the new block and the previous block;

terminating the virtual server on the NFV core network by the hypervisor;

sending a termination request to create an end block based on the termination of the virtual server by the hypervisor to the plurality of nodes in the network;

creating based on the termination block request by the plurality of nodes, an end block of the chain of blocks, wherein the end block is the final block of the chain of blocks, the end block comprising a final nonce value, a final transaction, a final hash value, and the hash value of the previous block, wherein the hash value of the previous block links the end block and the previous block;

sending a request by the hypervisor to the plurality of nodes to create a block of a meta-chain of blocks, wherein the meta-chain of blocks tracks related chains of blocks in the NFV core network; and

creating by the plurality of nodes the block of the meta-chain of blocks, wherein the block comprises a nonce value, a transaction, a hash value, the hash value of the previous block of the meta-chain of blocks, and the hash value of the end block of the chain of blocks;

billing by a service provider a user of the plurality of virtual servers based on usage of the plurality of VNFs determined from the meta-chain of blocks; and

scaling the plurality of virtual servers used by the NFV core network in response to a change in the frequency of NFV events by the service provider.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtualized network function (VNF) provides a common function selected from one of a policy function, a mobility function, a bearer function, a context function, an authentication function, an attach function, or a data function.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the change of state comprises processing, by the virtual server, a predefined amount of virtualized network functions (VNFs) for one of a mobile phone, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wearable computer, a headset computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, or a combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the related chains of blocks tracked by the meta-chain of blocks are related by one of a network virtualization function (NFV), client, or class.