Techniques for Monitoring Virtualized Network Functions or Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure

• US 20160205004A1
• Filed: 06/26/2015
• Published: 07/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel IP Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Inventors: CHOU, Joey, VENKATACHALAM, Muthaiah
• Granted Patent: US 9,912,558 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/122 of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/142 using statistical or mathematical methods
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/20 the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV

Abstract

Examples may include techniques for monitoring virtual network functions or network functions virtualization infrastructure. Examples include receiving performance measurement data from virtualized network functions arranged to support a network service or from network functions virtualization infrastructure composed to support the virtualized network functions. In some examples, corrective actions such as virtualized network function lifecycle management operations are initiated based on the received performance measurement data.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

logic, at least a portion of the logic in hardware, the logic to;

receive first performance measurement (PM) data for a virtualized network function (VNF);

receive second PM data for network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) arranged to support the VNF; and

determine whether to initiate a network services (NS) lifecycle management (LCM) operation with a network functions virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) or a VNF LCM operation with a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) based on implementation of a PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, the logic arranged as an element manager (EM) for a 3GPP wireless network, the EM to:

receive the first PM data directly from the VNF;

receive the second PM data from VNFM coupled with a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) that received the second PM data directly from the NFVI; and

determine to initiate the VNF LCM operation with the VNFM based on implementation of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, the VNF LCM operation comprising one or more of instantiate VNF instance, terminate VNF instance, query VNF instance, scale VNF instance or update VNF instance.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, comprising the EM to forward the first PM data to a network manager (NM) for the 3GPP wireless network, the NM to initiate the NS LCM operation with the NFVO based on implementation of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

5. The apparatus of claim 2, comprising the first PM data related to VNF application layer performance to include calls-per-second, number-of-subscribers, mean number of dedicated evolved packet system (EPS) bearers in active mode or peak number of dedicated EPS bearers in active mode.

6. The apparatus of claim 2, comprising the second PM data related to one or more virtualized resources composed from the NFVI and consumed while supporting the VNF, the second PM data including virtual central processing unit (vCPU) power consumption, virtual machine (VM) memory usage oversubscription, VM disk latency, mean vCPU usage or peak vCPU usage.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising the second PM data related to one or more virtualized resources composed from the NFVI and is associated with the VNF consuming the virtualized resources while supporting the VNF and also related to a network service provided by the VNF.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, the logic arranged as a network manager (NM) for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network, the NM to:

receive the first and second PM data from an element manager (EM) for the 3GPP wireless network; and

determine to initiate the NS LCM operation with the NFVO based on implementation of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data

9. The apparatus of claim 8, the NS LCM operation comprising one or more of instantiate network service, terminate network service, query network service, scale network service, update network service, create VNF forwarding graph (VNFFG), delete VNFFG, query VNFFG, update VNFFG, create virtual link (VL), delete VL, update VL or query VL.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, the PM data correlation and detection threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data includes use of a plurality of PMs from among the first and/or the second PM data to detect whether a given threshold has been crossed.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising a digital display coupled to the logic to present a user interface view.

12. At least one non-transitory machine readable medium comprising a plurality of instructions that in response to being executed on a system for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network causes the system to:

receive first performance measurement (PM) data for a virtualized network function (VNF);

receive second PM data for network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) arranged to support the VNF; and

determine whether to request a network services (NS) lifecycle management (LCM) operation with a network functions virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) or a VNF LCM operation with a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) based on performance of a PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

13. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, the system comprising an element manager (EM) for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network, the instructions to further cause the EM to:

receive the first PM data directly from the VNF;

receive the second PM data from a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) coupled with a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) that received the second PM data directly from the NFVI; and

determine to initiate the VNF LCM operation with the VNFM based on implementation of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

14. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, comprising the instructions to further cause the EM to forward the first PM data to an NM for the 3GPP wireless network, the NM to initiate the NS LCM operation with the NFVO based on performance of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

15. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, comprising the second PM data related to one or more virtualized resources composed from the NFVI and consumed while supporting the VNF and also related to a network service provided by the VNF.

16. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, the system comprising an NM for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network, the instructions to further cause the NM to:

receive the first and second PM data from an element manager (EM) for the 3GPP wireless network; and

determine to initiate the NS LCM operation with the NFVO based on performance of the PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data.

17. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, the PM data correlation and detection threshold crossing function using the first and/or the second PM data includes use of a plurality of PMs from among the first and/or the second PM data to detect whether a given threshold has been crossed.

18. At least one non-transitory machine readable medium comprising a plurality of instructions that in response to being executed on a system arranged to operate as a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) for network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), causes the system to:

receive performance measurement (PM) data generated by the NFVI while the NFVI supports one or more virtual virtualized network functions (VNFs);

forward the PM data to a network functions virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) if the PM data is related to a network service provided by the one or more VNFs; and

forward the PM data to a virtualized network function manager (VNFM) arranged to manage the one or more VNFs if the PM data is related to one or more virtualized resources composed from the NFVI and consumed while the virtualized resources support the one or more VNFs.

19. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, the PM data related to the network service provided by the one or more VNFs to be forwarded from the NFVO to an NM for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network, the NM to implement a PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the PM data related to the network service to determine whether to initiate a network services (NS) lifecycle management (LCM) operation with the NFVO.

20. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 19, the NS LCM operation comprising one or more of instantiate network service, terminate network service, query network service, scale network service, update network service, create VNF forwarding graph (VNFFG), delete VNFFG, query VNFFG, update VNFFG, create virtual link (VL), delete VL, update VL or query VL.

21. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, the PM data related to the network service provided by the one or more VNFs to be forwarded from the VNFM to an element manager (EM) for a 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless network, the EM to implement a PM data correlation and detection of threshold crossing function using the PM data related to the one or more virtualized resources to determine whether to initiate a VNF lifecycle management (LCM) operation with the VNFM.

22. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, the VNF LCM operation comprising one or more of instantiate VNF instance, terminate VNF instance, query VNF instance, scale VNF instance or update VNF instance.

23. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, the PM data related to the network service includes latency of one or more virtual links supporting the one or more VNFs, usage of the one or more virtual links supporting the one or more VNFs, average bandwidth used by the one or more VNFs to provide the network service over a time interval, peak bandwidth used by the one or more VNFs to provide the network service over the time interval, number of virtual machines (VMs) utilized by the one or more VNFs to provide the network service or number of virtual central processing units (vCPUs) utilized by the one or more VNFs to provide the network service.

24. The at least one non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, the PM data related to the one or more virtualized resources includes virtual central processing unit (vCPU) power consumption, virtual machine (VM) memory usage oversubscription, VM disk latency, mean vCPU usage or peak vCPU usage.