METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER READABLE STORAGE DEVICES FOR HANDLING VIRTUALIZATION OF A PHYSICAL TELEPHONE NUMBER MAPPING SERVICE

• US 20170031700A1
• Filed: 07/30/2015
• Published: 02/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: YASREBI, Mehrad, JACKSON, James E., DADDONA, Art
• Granted Patent: US 9,851,999 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 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/106 across networks, e.g. mapping telephone numbers to data network addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4557 Directories for hybrid networks, e.g. including telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0075 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

Virtualization of a physical telephone number mapping service is provided. An amount of memory needed for handling requests from users of a physical telephone number mapping service provided by a communication network is determined. A listing of different virtual machine flavors available for instantiation is searched. Each virtual machine flavor has a different respective memory capacity. A determination is made whether there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has a memory capacity adequate to handle the requests. Responsive to determining that there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has the memory capacity adequate to handle the requests, instantiation of the virtual machine flavor is initiated for handling the requests.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining, by a processor, an amount of memory needed for handling requests from users of a physical telephone number mapping service provided by a communication network;

searching, by the processor, a listing of different virtual machine flavors available for instantiation, each virtual machine flavor having a different respective memory capacity;

determining, by the processor, whether there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has a memory capacity adequate to handle the requests; and

responsive to determining that there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has the memory capacity adequate to handle the requests, initiating, by the processor, instantiation of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical telephone number mapping service is partitioned into a plurality of virtual machine name server instances, each instance dedicated to a specific telephone number range, and method further comprises, for each partitioned instance:

determining, by the processor, an amount of memory required by the partitioned instance of the physical telephone number mapping service to handle the requests from the users of the physical telephone number mapping service that are associated with a specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

selecting, by the processor, an available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

determining, by the processor, a number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of memory required to handle the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated; and

initiating, by the processor, instantiation of at least one copy of each of the determined number of instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting by the processor, the available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated is based on a target number of subscribers that are associated with the specific number range.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting by the processor, the available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated includes selecting the virtual machine flavor having the largest amount of memory.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed comprises computing a ratio by dividing the amount of memory required by the partitioned instance to handle the requests by the amount of memory of the selected virtual machine flavor.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining the number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed further comprises rounding the ratio up to an integer value if the ratio computed is not an integer.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein determining the amount of memory required by the partitioned instance to handle the requests includes determining an amount of bytes required and a disk space required to store subscriber records, and determining the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of memory required to store the subscriber records comprises determining the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of bytes required and the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the disk space required.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein if the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of bytes required is not the same as the number of instances of the virtual machine flavors needed to provide the disk space required, determining the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of memory required to store the subscriber records includes selecting the greater of the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of the bytes required and the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the disk space required.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein initiating instantiation of the determined number of instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range includes reserving a pool of internet protocol addresses and reserving the specific number range, such that each instance of each virtual machine among the selected number of virtual machines is assigned a specific internet protocol address from among the pool of internet protocol addresses and is designated to handle requests associated with the specific number range.

10. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

determining an amount of memory needed for handling requests from users of a physical telephone number mapping service provided by a communication network;

searching a listing of different virtual machine flavors available for instantiation, each virtual machine flavor having a different respective memory capacity;

determining whether there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has a memory capacity adequate to handle the requests; and

responsive to determining that there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has the memory capacity adequate to handle the requests, initiating instantiation of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the physical telephone number mapping service is partitioned into a plurality of instances, each instance dedicated to a specific number range, and the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the processor to perform, for each partitioned instance:

determining, an amount of memory required by the partitioned instance of the physical telephone number mapping service to handle the requests from the users of the physical telephone number mapping service that are associated with a specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

selecting an available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

determining a number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of memory required to handle the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated; and

initiating instantiation of at least one copy of each of the determined number of instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated.

12. The system claim 11, wherein selecting the available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated is based on a target number of subscribers that are associated with the specific number range.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein selecting the available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated includes selecting the virtual machine flavor having the largest amount of memory.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein determining the number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed comprises computing a ratio by dividing the amount of memory required by the partitioned instance to handle the requests by the amount of memory of the selected virtual machine flavor.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein determining the number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed further comprises rounding the number of instances of the virtual machine flavor up to an integer value if the ratio computed is not an integer.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein initiating instantiation of the determined number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range includes reserving a pool of internet protocol addresses and reserving the specific number range, such that each instance of each virtual machine among the selected number of virtual machines is assigned a specific internet protocol address from among the pool of internet protocol addresses and is designated to handle requests associated with the specific number range.

17. A non-transitory computer readable storage device having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

determining an amount of memory needed for handling requests from users of a physical telephone number mapping service provided by a communication network;

searching a listing of different virtual machine flavors available for instantiation, each virtual machine flavor having a different respective memory capacity;

determining whether there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has a memory capacity adequate to handle the requests; and

responsive to determining that there is a virtual machine flavor available for instantiation that has the memory capacity adequate to handle the requests, initiating instantiation of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the physical telephone number mapping service is partitioned into a plurality of instances, each instance dedicated to a specific number range, and the instructions, when executed by the processor, further cause the processor to perform, for each instance:

determining, an amount of memory required by the partitioned instance of the physical telephone number mapping service to handle the requests from the users of the physical telephone number mapping service that are associated with a specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

selecting an available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated;

determining a number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed to provide the amount of memory required to handle the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated; and

initiating instantiation of at least one copy of each of the determined number of instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage device of claim 18, wherein:

selecting the available virtual machine flavor having a corresponding suitable amount of memory for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range to which the partitioned instance is dedicated is based on a target number of subscribers; and

determining the number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor needed comprises computing a ratio by dividing the amount of memory required by the partitioned instance to handle the requests by the amount of memory of the selected virtual machine flavor.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage device of claim 18, wherein initiating instantiation of the determined number of unique instances of the virtual machine flavor for handling the requests that are associated with the specific number range includes reserving a pool of internet protocol addresses and reserving the specific number range, such that each instance of each virtual machine among the selected number of virtual machines is assigned a specific internet protocol address from among the pool of internet protocol addresses and is designated to handle requests associated with the specific number range.