METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE VIRTUALIZATION OF RESOURCES USING A VIRTUALIZATION BROKER AND CONTEXT INFORMATION

• US 20160085594A1
• Filed: 05/08/2014
• Published: 03/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Original Assignee: Convida Wireless LLC
• Inventors: WANG, Chonggang, SEED, Dale N., DONG, Lijun
• Granted Patent: US 10,114,680 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/827 Aggregation of resource allocation or reservation requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A method and entities for virtualizing resources by receiving a first virtualization request from a first entity at a virtualization broker in a network of connected entities, wherein the first virtualization request comprises context information associated with the first entity, transmitting a request from the virtualization broker to a virtualization manager for a virtualization server identifier, and receiving a virtualization server identifier from the virtualization manager. A second virtualization request may be transmitted to a virtualization server associated with the virtualization server identifier, and a first response may be received from the virtualization server comprising an indication that a resource has been virtualized. A second response comprising the indication from the virtualization broker may be transmitted to the first entity. The method is applied in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a first virtualization request from a first entity at a virtualization broker in a network of connected entities, wherein the first virtualization request comprises context information associated with the first entity;

transmitting a request from the virtualization broker to a virtualization manager for a virtualization server identifier;

receiving a virtualization server identifier from the virtualization manager;

transmitting a second virtualization request to a virtualization server associated with the virtualization server identifier;

receiving a first response from the virtualization server comprising an indication that a resource has been virtualized;

transmitting a second response comprising the indication from the virtualization broker to the first entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second virtualization request comprises a subset of the context information associated with the first entity.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the virtualization server identifier from the virtualization manager comprises receiving a plurality of virtualization server identifiers.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising selecting the virtualization server identifier from among the plurality of virtualization server identifiers based on the context information associated with the first entity.

5. The method of claim 1, further transmitting a context update to a virtualization manager.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising translating the first response from a first format into the second response in a second format.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting a registration request to a virtualization manager, the registration request comprising information associated with the virtualization server.

8. A virtualization management entity in a network of connected entities comprising:

a processor adapted to execute computer-readable instructions; and

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and having stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising;

receiving a request to register resources associated with a virtualization server entity;

storing information associated with the virtualization server entity and the resources;

receiving a request for a recommended virtualization server entity identifier from a virtualization broker entity, wherein the request for the recommended virtualization server entity identifier comprises context information;

selecting the virtualization server entity based on the context information; and

transmitting a virtualization server entity identifier to the virtualization broker.

9. The virtualization management entity of claim 8, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a context update from the virtualization server entity; and

modifying the stored information associated with the virtualization server entity and the resources based on the context update.

10. The virtualization management entity of claim 8, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a context update from the virtualization broker entity; and

modifying second stored information associated with the virtualization broker entity based on the context update.

11. The virtualization management entity of claim 8, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a context update from the virtualization server entity indicating that a resource provided by the virtualization server entity will be provided by a second virtualization server entity and no longer provided by the virtualization server entity; and

modifying stored information associated with the virtualization server entity and the resources based on the context update.

12. The virtualization management entity of claim 8, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a second request for a second recommended virtualization server entity identifier from a second virtualization management entity in a second domain, wherein the virtualization management entity is in a first domain, wherein the second request for the second recommended virtualization server entity identifier comprises second context information;

selecting a second virtualization server entity based on the second context information; and

transmitting a second virtualization server entity identifier to the second virtualization management entity.

13. The virtualization management entity of claim 8, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a request to execute a virtualization algorithm from a second virtualization broker entity;

executing the virtualization algorithm to determine a second virtualization server entity; and

transmitting a second virtualization server entity identifier associated with the virtualization server entity to the second virtualization broker entity.

14. The virtualization management entity of claim 13, wherein the request to execute the virtualization algorithm comprises context information.

15. A virtualization server entity in a network of connected entities comprising:

a processor adapted to execute computer-readable instructions; and

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and having stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising;

receiving a request to create a virtual resource from a first entity;

determining to accept the request to create the virtual resource;

creating the virtual resource;

transmitting a response to the first entity indicating that the virtual resource has been created.

16. The virtualization server entity of claim 15, wherein the request comprising context information, and wherein the determining to accept the request to create the virtual resource is based on the context information.

17. The virtualization server entity of claim 15, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by first processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

transmitting a context update to a virtualization management entity indicating that the virtual resource has been created.

18. The virtualization server entity of claim 15, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by first processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

obtaining a virtualization policy from a virtualization management entity.

19. The virtualization server entity of claim 18, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by first processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a request for the virtual resource from a second entity; and

providing the virtual resource to the second entity according to the virtualization policy.

20. The virtualization server entity of claim 15, wherein the memory has further stored therein computer-readable instructions that, when executed by first processor, cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:

receiving a request to update the virtual resource from the first entity;

modifying information associated with the virtual resource based on the request to update the virtual resource; and

transmitting a second response to the first entity indicating that the virtual resource has been updated.