VIRTUAL NETWORK FUNCTION MANAGEMENT WITH DEACTIVATED VIRTUAL MACHINES

• US 20160335111A1
• Filed: 02/24/2014
• Published: 11/17/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Mortensen, Thomas, Bruun, Peter Michael
• Granted Patent: US 10,664,297 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• 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 41/0897 by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/50 Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• 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

A method of managing virtual network functions for a network, the method including providing a virtual network function (VNF) including a number of virtual network function components (VNFCs) of a number of different types, each VNFC comprising a virtual machine (VM) executing application software. The method further includes creating for up to all VNFC types a number of deactivated VMs having application software, monitoring at least one performance level of the VNF, and scaling-out the VNF by activating a number of deactivated VMs of a number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches a scale-out threshold.

Claims

1. A method of managing virtual network functions of a network, the method comprising:

providing a virtual network function (VNF) including a number of VNF components (VNFCs) of a number of different types, each VNFC comprising a virtual machine (VM) executing application software;

creating for up to all VNFC types a number of deactivated VMs having application software;

monitoring at least one performance level of the VNF; and

scaling-out the VNF by activating a number of deactivated VMs of a number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches a scale-out threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

scaling-in the VNF by deactivating a number of active VMs of a number of number of VNFC types.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein deactivated VMs of each VNFC type form a resource pool, wherein the resource pool includes a desired VM capacity level for each VNFC type in the resource pool, and wherein the desired VM capacity level can be different for each VNFC type, the method further including:

upon activation of a VM of a VNFC type from the resource pool, if the VM capacity level is below the desired VM capacity level, creating a deactivated VM of the VNFC type, and adding the deactivated VM to the resource pool to maintain the VM capacity level of the VNFC type at the desired VM capacity level; and

upon deactivation of a VM of a VNFC type, if the VM capacity level is below the desired VM capacity level, adding the deactivated VM to the resource pool.

4. The method of claim 3, including deleting the deactivated VM if the VM capacity level is at least at the desired VM capacity level.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein for each VNFC type, if a VM of the VNFC type is in a process of being created to maintain the VM capacity level of the VNFC type at the desired VM capacity level while a VM of the VNFC type is in a process of being deactivated, the method including:

terminating the process of creating the VM of the VNFC type;

or

completing the process of creating the VM of the VNFC type and adding the created VM of the VNFC type to the resource pool, completing the process of deactivating the VM of the VNFC type and adding the deactivated VM of the VNFC type to the resource pool, and deleting one VM of the VNFC type from the resource pool.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein upon the at least one performance level reaching the scale-out threshold, if the resource pool does not include a deactivated VM for any of the VNFC types to be activated to scale-out the VNF, the method including:

creating a number of VMs for each of the VNFC types for which the resource pool does not include a deactivated VM; and

activating the created VMs for each of the VNFC types for which the resource pool does not include a deactivated VM in lieu of first deactivating the created VMs and adding the deactivated VMs to the resource pool.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one performance level comprises a measurement of a performance level of the VNF, wherein the performance level of the VNF has a maximum value attainable for a given number of VMs of a given number of VNFC types, and wherein the scale-out and scale-in thresholds are based on the maximum value, with the scale-out and scale-in thresholds changing when the VNF is scaled-out and scaled-in.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein scaling-out and scaling-in of the VNF is done manually by a network operator or automatically.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the VNF includes a number of layers, each layer providing different functionality to the VNF, wherein each VNFC type corresponds to a different layer, wherein monitoring at least one performance level of the VNF includes monitoring at least one performance level of each layer, and wherein scaling-out the VNF includes:

for each layer, scaling-out the layer by activating from the resource pool a number of VMs of the VNFC type corresponding to the layer when the performance level of the layer reaches a scale-out threshold.

10. The method of claim 9, further including scaling-in the VNF by deactivating a number of active VMs of a number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches scale-in threshold, wherein scaling-in the VNF includes:

for each layer, scaling-in the role by deactivating a number of VMs of the VNFC type corresponding to the layer when the performance level of the layer reaches a scale-in threshold

11. A virtual network function (VNF) management system comprising:

memory to store computer executable instructions; and

a processor to access the memory and execute the computer executable instructions to;

provide a virtual network function (VNF) including a number of VNF components (VNFCs) of a number of different types, each VNFC comprising a virtual machine (VM) executing application software create for up to all VNFC types a number of deactivated VMs with application software, the deactivated VMs comprising stopped and/or hibernated VMs;

monitor at least one performance level of the VNF; and

scale-out the VNF by activating a number of deactivated VMs of a number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches a scale-out threshold.

12. The virtual network function (VNF) management system of claim 11, the processor executing the computer executable instructions to:

scale-in the VNF by deactivating a number of active VMs of a number of number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches a scale-in threshold, wherein deactivating includes stopping or hibernating a VM; and

wherein the scale-in threshold is less than the scale-out threshold to provide hysteresis between the scaling-out and scaling-in of the VNF.

13. The virtual network function (VNF) management system of claim 12, wherein deactivated VMs of each VNFC type form a resource pool, wherein the resource pool includes a desired VM capacity level for each VNFC type in the resource pool, and wherein the desired VM capacity level can be different for each VNFC type, the processor executing the computer executable instructions:

upon activation of a VM of a VNFC type from the resource pool, create a deactivated VM of the VNFC type, and adding the deactivated VM to the resource pool to maintain the VM capacity level of the VNFC type at the desired VM capacity level; and

upon deactivation of a VM of a VNFC type, add the deactivated VM to the resource pool.

14. The virtual network function (VNF) management system of claim 11, wherein the VNF includes a number of layers, each layer providing different functionality to the VNF, wherein each VNFC type corresponds to a different layer, wherein monitoring at least one performance level of the VNF includes monitoring at least one performance level of each layer, wherein for scaling-out the VNF, the processor executing the computer executable instructions to for each layer, scale-out the layer by activating from the resource pool a number of VMs of the VNFC type corresponding to the layer when the performance level of the layer reaches a scale-out threshold.

15. A computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions for controlling computer resources to perform a method of managing virtual network functions (VNFs), the method comprising:

managing a virtual network function (VNF) including a number of VNF components (VNFCs) of a number of different types, each VNFC comprising a virtual machine (VM) executing application software, the managing comprising;

instructing a hypervisor to create for each VNFC type a number of deactivated VMs with application software;

monitoring at least one performance level of the VNF; and

instructing the hypervisor to scale-out the VNF by activating a number of deactivated VMs of a number of VNFC types when the at least one performance level reaches a scale-out threshold.