Service packet distribution method and apparatus

• US 10,225,191 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2016
• Issued: 03/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Wu, Erhua, Gao, Xiaofeng
• Primary Examiner(s): Gidado, Rasheed
• Application Number:
  US15/381,158
• Publication Number:
  US 20170099221A1
• Time in Patent Office: 809 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/00 Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units program control for peripheral devices G06F13/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/00 Data switching networks interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0823 characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for optimising operational conditions of wireless networks H04W24/02
• 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 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 Setup of transport tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

Embodiments of the present application relate to a service packet distribution method and an apparatus. The method includes: receiving, by a service packet processing node located in a cloud gateway, a session request signal sent by a peer device of the cloud gateway; establishing a user bearer according to the session request signal and allocating a user bearer index used to identify the user bearer, where the user bearer index includes a location index value, the location index value is used to indicate a location of the service packet processing node in a location table of a packet distribution node located in the cloud gateway, and the location table includes a correspondence between a location index value and an identifier of a service packet processing node; and sending a session response signal to the peer device, where the session response signal includes the user bearer index.

Claims

1. A method for service packet distribution, wherein the method comprises:

receiving, by a first service packet processing node device in a cloud gateway, a session request signal sent by a peer device of the cloud gateway, wherein the cloud gateway includes a packet distribution node device and a plurality of service packet processing node devices, including the first service packet processing node device;

establishing, by the first service packet processing node device, a user bearer according to the session request signal,

allocating a user bearer index used to identify the user bearer, wherein the user bearer index comprises an allocated location index value, the allocated location index value is associated with the first service packet processing node device in a location table of the packet distribution node device, and the location table comprises corresponding relationships between location index values and identifiers of the service packet processing node devices in the cloud gateway; and

sending, by the first service packet processing node device, a session response signal to the peer device, wherein the session response signal comprises the user bearer index, so that the peer device adds the user bearer index into a service packet when sending the service packet to the packet distribution node device, the packet distribution node device updates the location table to establish a relationship between the allocated location index and a second service packet processing node device among the plurality of service packet processing node devices when the first service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway, and the packet distribution node device determines, according to the location index value and the location table after receiving the service packet, one of the plurality of service packet processing devices for processing the service packet.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the location table is established by the packet distribution node device according to the corresponding relationships that are sent by the service packet processing node devices.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising, when a third service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway:

receiving, by the first service packet processing node device, a migration message sent by a management node in the cloud gateway, wherein the migration message comprises an identifier of the third service packet processing node device;

identifying, by the first service packet processing node device, a target location index value corresponding to the identifier of the third service packet processing node device according to the identifier of the third service packet processing node device and the corresponding relationships between the location index values and the identifiers of the service packet processing node devices; and

sending, by the first service packet processing node device, a corresponding relationship between the target location index value and an identifier of another service packet processing node device other than the third service packet processing node device to the packet distribution node device, so that the packet distribution node updates a corresponding relationship related to the target location index value in the location table.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein:

in a 2^nd generation mobile communications technology (2G) network or a 3^rd generation mobile communications technology (3G) network, the cloud gateway is a gateway general packet radio service support node (GGSN), and the peer device is a serving general packet radio service support node (SGSN);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is a mobility management entity (MME);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) roaming network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is an evolved packet data gateway (ePDG).

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the user bearer index is specifically a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID) or a Generic Routing Encapsulation key (GRE Key).

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of consecutive bits in the user bearer index are used to save the allocated location index value.

7. A service packet processing node device that is in a cloud gateway, the could gateway including a packet distribution node device and a plurality of service packet processing node devices, which includes the service packet processing node device as a first service packet processing node, the service packet processing node device comprising:

a memory configured to store software instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the software instructions to;

receive a session request signal sent by a peer device of the cloud gateway;

establish a user bearer according to the session request signal;

allocate a user bearer index to identify the user bearer, wherein the user bearer index comprises an allocated location index value, the allocated location index value is associated with the first service packet processing node device in a location table of the packet distribution node device, and the location table comprises corresponding relationships between location index values and identifiers of the service packet processing node devices; and

send a session response signal to the peer device, wherein the session response signal comprises the user bearer index, so that the peer device adds the user bearer index into a service packet when sending the service packet to the packet distribution node, and the packet distribution node updates the location table to establish a relationship between the allocated location index and a second service packet processing node device among the plurality of service packet processing node devices when the first service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway, and the packet distribution node device determines, according to the location index value and the location table after receiving the service packet, one of the plurality of service packet processing devices for processing the service packet.

8. The service packet processing node device according to claim 7, wherein the location table is established by the packet distribution node device according to the corresponding relationships that are sent by the service packet processing node devices.

9. The service packet processing node device according to claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to, when a third service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway:

receive a migration message sent by a management node in the cloud gateway, wherein the migration message comprises an identifier of the third service packet processing node device;

determine a target location index value corresponding to the identifier of the third service packet processing node device according to the identifier of the third service packet processing node device and the corresponding relationships between location index values and the identifiers of the service packet processing node devices; and

send a corresponding relationship between the target location index value and an identifier of another service packet processing node device other than the third service packet processing node device to the packet distribution node device, so that the packet distribution node device updates a corresponding relationship related to the target location index value in the location table.

10. The service packet processing node device according to claim 7, wherein:

in a 2^nd generation mobile communications technology (2G) network or a 3^rd generation mobile communications technology (3G) network, the cloud gateway is a gateway general packet radio service support node (GGSN), and the peer device is a serving general packet radio service support node (SGSN);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is a mobility management entity (MME);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) roaming network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is an evolved packet data gateway (ePDG).

11. The service packet processing node device according to claim 7, wherein the user bearer index allocated is specifically a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID) or a Generic Routing Encapsulation key (GRE Key).

12. The service packet processing node device according to claim 7, wherein a plurality of consecutive bits in the user bearer index are used to save the allocated location index value.

13. A packet distribution node device that is

in a cloud gateway, the could gateway including the packet distribution node device and a plurality of service packet processing node devices, and the packet distribution node device comprising:

a memory configured to store software instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the software instructions to;

receive a service packet sent by a peer device of the cloud gateway, wherein the service packet comprises a user bearer index, the user bearer index is sent to the peer device by a first service packet processing node device among the plurality of service packet processing node devices, the user bearer index comprises an allocated location index value, the allocated location index value associated with the first service packet processing node device in a location table of the packet distribution node device, and the location table comprises corresponding relationships between location index values and identifiers of the service packet processing node devices;

update the location table to establish a relationship between the allocated location index and a second service packet processing node device among the plurality of service packet processing node devices when the first service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway;

determine, according to the location index value and the location table, one of the plurality of service packet processing devices for processing the service packet; and

send the service packet to the determined one of the plurality of service packet processing node devices, so that the determined one of the plurality of service packet processing node devices performs processing on the service packet.

14. The packet distribution node device according to claim 13, wherein the location table is established according to the corresponding relationships that are sent by the service packet processing node devices.

15. The packet distribution node device according to claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to, when a third service packet processing node device is to be migrated out of the cloud gateway:

receive from the first service packet processing node device a corresponding relationship between a target location index value corresponding to an identifier of the third service packet processing node device and an identifier of another service packet processing node device other than the third service packet processing node device; and

update, based on the corresponding relationship between the target location index value and the identifier of the another service packet processing node device, the location table.

16. The packet distribution node device according to claim 13, wherein:

in a 2^nd generation mobile communications technology (2G) network or a 3^rd generation mobile communications technology (3G) network, the cloud gateway is a gateway general packet radio service support node (GGSN), and the peer device is a serving general packet radio service support node (SGSN);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is a mobility management entity (MME);

or

in a 4^th generation mobile communications technology (4G) roaming network, the cloud gateway is a packet data network gateway (P-GW) or a serving gateway (S-GW), and the peer device is an evolved packet data gateway (ePDG).

17. The packet distribution node device according to claim 13, wherein the user bearer index comprised in the service packet received is specifically a tunnel endpoint identifier (TEID) or a Generic Routing Encapsulation key (GRE Key).

18. The packet distribution node device according to claim 13, wherein a plurality of consecutive bits in the user bearer index are used to save the allocated location index value.