Virtual mobile management entity management

• US 10,595,190 B2
• Filed: 12/23/2015
• Issued: 03/17/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Chou, Joey
• Primary Examiner(s): Thier, Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sandhu, Nevena Zecevic
• Application Number:
  US15/741,285
• Publication Number:
  US 20180206108A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,546 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/088 among core entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/12 between location registers or mobility servers

Abstract

The present disclosure provides systems for instantiating and terminating a MME VNF. The MME VNF is instantiated and/or terminated using an EM, a NM, a VNFM, a VIM, a NFVO and/or a catalog. Instantiating an MME VNF includes on-boarding the VNF package, creating a managed element, executing the enabled VNF package, instantiating the MME VNF instance, creating the MME function and modifying the MME pool to add the MME VNF instance. Terminating the MME VNF includes decommissioning the MME VNF services, modifying the MME pool to remove the MME VNF from the MME pool, and terminating the MME VNF instance.

Claims

1. An element manager, comprising:

electronic memory;

one or more processors configured to access the electronic memory to;

receive, from a network manager (NM), a request to create a management object instance;

receive, from a virtual network function manager (VNFM), a notification of a successful instantiation of a virtual mobile management entity (VMME);

create the management object instance in response to receiving the request and the notification, wherein the management object instance is created with at least a user defined state attribute, a vendor name attribute, a version attribute, a managed element type attribute, and a virtual network function (VNF) image identification (ID) attribute;

add the management object instance to a mobile management entity (MME) pool to manage a plurality of user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication system; and

notify the NM of the creation of the management object instance.

2. The element manager of claim 1, wherein the managed object instance is a Managed Element Object.

3. The element manager of claim 1, further configured to modify attributes of the managed object instance in response to receiving a request to modify the attributes.

4. The element manager of claim 3, wherein at least the user defined state attribute is modified to an enabled value in response to a request from the NM.

5. The element manager of claim 1, further configured to create a mobile management entity MME function object that inherits from the managed object instance.

6. The element manager of claim 1, further configured to add the management object instance to the MME pool by setting an mMEPoolMemberList attribute of the MME pool object equal to a domain name (DN) of the MMEFunction object.

7. The element manager of claim 6, further configured to set the MMEPool attribute of the MMEFunction object equal to the DN of the MMEPool object.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when implemented by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations for a virtual mobile management entity virtual network function (MME VNF) instantiation, the operations comprising:

on-boarding a virtual network function (VNF) package in response to a request for mobile management entity (MME) resources;

creating a management object instance in response to the on-boarding of the VNF package, wherein the management object instance is created with at least a user defined state attribute, a vendor name attribute, a version attribute, a managed element type attribute, and a virtual network function (VNF) image identification (ID) attribute;

enabling the VNF package based on the on-boarding of the VNF package in response to the creation of the management object instance; and

instantiating a MME VNF based on the enablement of the VNF package in response to the enablement of the VNF package.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein on-boarding the VNF package further comprises:

submitting the VNF package to a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) to be included in a catalog; and

receiving an acknowledgement from the NFVO of a completion of the on-boarding of the VNF package.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein enabling the VNF package marks the VNF package as enabled at a catalog.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein enabling the VNF package further comprises:

sending a request to a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) to enable the VNF package; and

receiving an acknowledgement from the NFVO of an enablement of the VNF package.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein instantiating the MME VNF further comprises:

sending a request to a network function virtualization orchestrator (NFVO) to instantiate the MME VNF; and

receiving an acknowledgement from the NFVO of an instantiation of the MME VNF.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein creating the management object instance further comprises sending, to an element manager (EM), a plurality of configuration management (CM) commands.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the CM commands include:

a command to create the management object instance; and

a command to modify the attributes of the created management object instance.

15. A method comprising:

receiving, from a virtual network function manager (VNFM), a notification of a successful instantiation of a virtual mobile management entity (VMME);

in response to the notification and a request to create a management object instance, creating the management object instance, wherein the management object instance is created with at least a user defined state attribute, a vendor name attribute, a version attribute, a managed element type attribute, and a virtual network function (VNF) image identification (ID) attribute;

adding the management object instance to a mobile management entity (MME) pool to manage a plurality of user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication system; and

notifying the NM of the creation of the management object instance.