BI-DIRECTIONAL LOAD BALANCING

• US 20120134268A1
• Filed: 11/30/2010
• Published: 05/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: LOPEZ, Javier M., Shaikh, Imtiaz, Ritter, Phillip
• Granted Patent: US 8,542,590 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/004 in the uplink, i.e. towards network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 Setup of transport tunnels

Abstract

A method includes receiving, from a user device, a request to access a long term evolution (LTE) network; sending, to a group of servers, a query to obtain information associated with a respective traffic condition and processing capacity associated with each of the group of servers; identifying a particular server, of the group of servers, via which to establish a communication session with the user device based on a determination that the particular server has a reserve processing capacity that is greater than a respective reserve processing capacity associated with the each other one of the group of servers, where the reserve processing capacity is based on a traffic condition and processing capacity associated with the particular server; and sending, to the particular server, an instruction to establish the communication session, where sending the instruction enables the particular server to establish the communication session via which the user device is to access the network.

Claims

1. A method performed by a device associated with a long term evolution (LTE) network, the method comprising:

receiving, by the device and from a user device, a request to access the network;

sending, by the device and to a plurality of server devices, a query to obtain information associated with a respective traffic condition and processing capacity, associated with each of the plurality of server devices, in response to the request;

identifying, by the device, a particular server device, of the plurality of server devices, via which to establish a communication session with the user device based on a determination that the particular server device has a reserve processing capacity that is greater than a respective reserve processing capacity associated with each other of the plurality of server devices,

where the reserve processing capacity is based on a traffic condition and

processing capacity associated with the particular server device; and

sending, by the device and to the particular server device, an instruction to establish the communication session that enables the particular server device to establish the communication session via which the user device is to access the network.

2. The method of claim 1, where the query is sent to the plurality of server devices via one or more S1-mobility management entity (MME) interfaces.

3. The method of claim 1, where identifying the particular server device further includes:

determining a plurality of reserve processing capacities associated with the plurality of server devices;

identifying a maximum reserve processing capacity of the plurality of reserve processing capacities; and

selecting the particular server device to which the maximum reserve processing capacity corresponds.

4. The method of claim 1, where identifying the particular server device includes:

calculating the reserve processing capacity, associated with the particular server device, by subtracting a data rate, associated with traffic being processed by the particular server device, from a particular processing capacity associated with the particular server device,

where the data rate and the particular processing capacity are derived from information obtained as a result of the query.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, at a later point in time, that another reserve processing capacity, associated with another server device, is equal to the reserve processing capacity associated with the particular server device;

retrieving, from a memory associated with the device, information associated with a respective traffic condition or processing capacity associated with the each of the plurality of servers from a prior period of time;

forecasting that the other reserved processing capacity will be greater than the reserve processing capacity, at a future point in time, based on the information associated with the respective traffic condition or processing capacity associated with the each of the plurality of servers from the prior period of time; and

identifying the other server device via which to establish another communication session based on the forecast that the other reserved processing capacity will be less than the reserve processing capacity at the future point in time.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that another reserve processing capacity, associated with another server device, of the plurality of server devices, is less than a threshold; and

sending, to the other server device, another instruction to decrease a quantity of communications that are not essential to operations associated with the other server device or the network based on the determination that the other reserve processing capacity, associated with the other server device, is less than the threshold.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

identifying that a quantity of occurrences, in which the other reserve processing capacity is less than the threshold, is greater than another threshold;

identifying that an equipped processing capacity associated with the other server device is less than a maximum processing capacity associated with the other server device; and

displaying, on a display associated with the device, a recommendation that indicates that the equipped processing capacity, associated with the other server device, is to be increased based on the identification that the equipped processing capacity is less than the maximum processing capacity.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that an elapsed time since information associated with a traffic condition or processing capacity, associated with a server device of the plurality of server devices, is greater than a threshold; and

sending, to the server device, another query to obtain the information associated with the traffic condition or processing capacity, associated with the server device, based on the determination that the elapsed time is greater than the threshold.

9. A device, comprising

a memory to store information associated with traffic conditions and processing capacity that corresponds to a plurality of server devices that are interconnected to the device, where the information was obtained from the plurality of server devices;

and

a processor to;

receive a request to establish a communication session with a user device,

retrieve, from the memory, the information associated with the traffic conditions and processing capacity that corresponds to the plurality of server devices,

select a server device, of the plurality of server devices, via which to create the communication session, based on a determination that the server device has a greatest reserve processing capacity among the plurality of server devices, where the determination is based on the information associated with the traffic conditions and processing capacity, and

send, to the selected server device, an instruction to create the communication session based on the selection of the server device, where creating the communication session causes traffic, associated with the communication session, to be processed in a manner that avoids congestion in one or more of the plurality of server devices with a reserve processing capacity that is less than the greatest reserve processing capacity.

10. The device of claim 9, further comprising:

an interface unit to;

receive, from the plurality of server devices and during a prior period of time, the information associated with the traffic conditions and processing capacity, where the information is received via an S1-mobility management entity (MME) interface, where the prior period of time is before the request to establish the communication session is received.

11. The device of claim 10, where the processor is further to:

determine that an elapsed time since information, associated with traffic conditions or processing capacity that corresponds to one of the plurality of server devices, was received is greater than a threshold,

send a query to the one of the plurality of server devices to obtain current information associated with traffic conditions or processing capacity that corresponds to the one of the plurality of server devices, and

update the stored information associated with the traffic conditions and processing capacity that corresponds to the one of the plurality of server devices by storing, in the memory, the current information associated with the traffic conditions or processing capacity that corresponds to the one of the plurality of server devices.

12. The device of claim 9, where the processor is further to:

receive an indication that one or more bearers, via which communications with the user device will be processed, have been established in connection with the communication session, and

output, to the user device, another indication that the communication session has been established based on the indication that the one or more bearers have been established, where the indication includes information associated with the one or more bearers.

13. The device of claim 12, where the one or more bearers include at least one of:

a first server device associated with a packet data network (PDN) that assigns an Internet-protocol (IP) address to the user device to be used during the communication session, and

a second server device that serves the device by establishing a network path between the device and the first server device via which the communications with the user device are to flow during the communication session.

14. The device of claim 9, where, when selecting the server device via which to create the communication session, the processor is to:

determine a respective reserve processing capacity associated with each of the plurality of server devices based on the information associated with the traffic conditions and processing capacity for the each of the plurality of server devices,

rank the reserve processing capacities, associated with the plurality of server devices, in a descending or an ascending order,

identify the greatest reserve processing capacity based on the ranked reserve processing capacities, and

select the server device that corresponds to the greatest processing capacity.

15. The device of claim 14, where, when determining the respective reserve processing capacity associated with the each of the plurality of server devices, the processor is further to:

compute a reserve processing capacity for one of the plurality of server devices, by subtracting a bandwidth, associated with traffic being processed by the one of the plurality of server devices, from a particular processing capacity associated with the one of the plurality of server devices.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instruction executable by at least one processor, the computer readable medium comprising:

one or more instructions to receive, from a user device, a request to access the network;

one or more instructions to retrieve, from a memory and in response to the request, information associated with a reserve processing capacity of a first server device and a second server device;

one or more instructions to determine whether to send a query to obtain current information associated with the reserve processing capacity of the first and second server devices based on an elapsed time since the retrieved information was obtained;

one or more instructions to send, to the first and second server devices, the query to obtain the current information based on a determination that the elapsed time is greater than a threshold;

one or more instructions to select the first server device, via which to establish a communication session with the user device, based on a determination that the first server device has a reserve processing capacity that is greater than another reserve processing capacity of the second server device; and

one or more instructions to send, to the first server device, an instruction to establish the communication session with the user device, where establishing the communication session, via the first server device, decreases a risk associated with the second server device from becoming congested when processing traffic associated with the communication session.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, where the reserve processing capacity is based on a difference between a loading condition associated with traffic being processed by the first server device and a processing capacity associated with the first server device, and

where the loading condition corresponds to at least one of a quantity of bandwidth, a data rate, or a quantity of data calls associated with traffic being processed by the first server device.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

one or more instructions to determine, at a later point in time and in response to another request, that the reserve processing capacity, associated with first server device, is equal to the other reserve processing capacity associated with the second server device;

one or more instructions to retrieve, from the memory, information corresponding to a respective loading condition associated with the first server device and the second server device from a prior period of time;

one or more instructions to project that the other reserved processing capacity will be greater than the reserve processing capacity at a future point in time based on the information corresponding to the respective loading condition associated with the first server device and the second server device from the prior period of time; and

one or more instructions to identify the second server device via which to establish another communication session based on the projection that the other reserved processing capacity will be greater than the reserve processing capacity at the future point in time.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

one or more instructions to determine that the other reserve processing capacity is less than a threshold; and

one or more instructions to send, to the second server device, another notification to decrease a quantity of communications that are not essential to operations associated with the second server device or a network associated with the second server device.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, further comprising:

one or more instructions to determine, at a later point in time, that the other reserve processing capacity is not less than the threshold; and

one or more instructions to send, to the second server device, a further notification that communications that are not essential to operations associated with the second server device or the network associated with the second server device, may be increased.