A method and related device for slice resource allocation and admission control

Abstract

The present application provides a slice resource allocation and admission control method and related devices. The method executed by the CU includes: calculating the slice resource utilization rate when establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION; determining whether to execute a preemption method based on whether the slice utilization rate reaches a threshold; if the slice utilization rate does not reach the threshold, directly admit it and return the allocated resources; otherwise, perform preemption; if the preemption is successful, determine the minimum resource M1 to be allocated and the maximum resource M2 to be allocated, admit it, and return the allocated resources; if the preemption is unsuccessful, the admission fails. By uniformly performing slice resource allocation and admission control at the CU, the disadvantages of the general method of performing admission control at the CU and resource allocation at the DU in the past are solved, and at the same time, the admission control for scenarios where a large number of users access together can be satisfied; in addition, the CU allocates resources uniformly according to slices, which can meet different requirements and experiences of different slices.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to NR system wireless communication technology, and in particular to a slice resource allocation and admission control method and related devices. Background Art

[0002] 5G has three major requirements for the network: high speed, low latency, and wide connection. The three major scenarios corresponding to 5G are eMBB, mMTC, and URLLC. Of course, for different terminal forms, the network does not require all three scenarios to be met. In the 4G era, if you want to achieve these three requirements, you need to deploy three networks separately. In the 5G era, slicing technology has been introduced to realize the three scenarios in the same network.

[0003] The purpose of network slicing is to provide different network services and service quality for different services and users. Just like a highway is divided into passenger lanes, truck lanes, and emergency lanes, different vehicles are arranged to travel on different roads according to their needs. Operators can allocate different slices according to different services. Even for the same service, different slices can be allocated to different users, so that users of different levels can enjoy different user experiences; terminals can work on different slices for different services to meet the diverse needs of users.

[0004] The 3GPP TS38.401 protocol specifies the NG-RAN network architecture of the NR system. The main CU (Central Unit) and DU (Distributed Unit) are separated. The CU supports RRC, SDAP and PDCP protocol stack functions, and the DU supports RLC, MAC and PHY protocol stack functions. One CU can manage one or more DUs. However, the existing technology has the following defects:

[0005] (1) The 3GPP protocol does not specify the standards or methods for specific slice resource allocation and admission control;

[0006] (2) Based on the NR system architecture with CU and DU separated, the allocation and admission control of slice resources are generally implemented by CU performing admission control and DU performing resource allocation. However, this method uses CU to perform admission control, and CU does not have real-time information about overall slice resources and remaining slice resources. It is often implemented by DU periodically reporting resource status to CU. The disadvantage of this method is that the reporting period is too short, which increases the processing burden of CU and DU. If the reporting period is too long, CU will be inaccurate when performing admission control. In particular, in scenarios where a large number of users access the network together, admission control becomes very difficult. Summary of the invention

[0007] The object of the present invention is to provide a slice resource allocation and admission control method and related devices. The CU performs unified resource allocation for slices, which solves the drawbacks of the general method of the CU performing admission control and the DU performing resource allocation, and can simultaneously meet the admission control for scenarios when a large number of users access together.

[0008] A brief overview of one or more aspects is given below to provide a basic understanding of these aspects. This overview is not an exhaustive survey of all contemplated aspects, and is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of all aspects nor to attempt to define the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that follows.

[0009] According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a slice resource allocation and admission control method, which is executed by a central unit and includes:

[0010] When establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, calculate the slice resource utilization rate;

[0011] Judge whether to execute the preemption method according to whether the slice utilization rate reaches a threshold;

[0012] If the slice utilization rate does not reach the threshold, directly admit and pass, and return the allocated resources; otherwise, perform preemption;

[0013] If the preemption is successful, determine the minimum resource M1 to be allocated and the maximum resource M2 to be allocated, admit and pass, and return the allocated resources;

[0014] If the preemption is not successful, the admission fails.

[0015] In an embodiment, before judging whether to execute preemption according to whether the slice utilization rate reaches a threshold, it further includes:

[0016] Judge whether the newly established bearer is a GBR;

[0017] When the newly established bearer is a GBR, calculate the minimum resource M1 to be allocated through the guaranteed bit rate GBR parameter;

[0018] When the newly established bearer is a NonGBR, obtain the minimum resource M1 to be allocated through configuration.

[0019] In an embodiment, when the newly established bearer is a GBR, preemption is only executed when the resources to be allocated do not exceed the sum of the preemptable resources.

[0020] In an embodiment, when the newly established bearer is a GBR, the maximum resource M2 to be allocated is obtained through the maximum bit rate parameter MBR.

[0021] In one embodiment, the slice resource utilization rate = the sum of all allocated resources of all slices / the total resources of the slice, where the sum of all allocated resources of all slices is the sum of the minimum resources allocated for all PDU SESSIONS.

[0022] In one embodiment, the preemption method includes:

[0023] Traverse all PDU SESSIONS, find PDU SESSIONS with a lower priority than the currently required PDU SESSION to be established or modified, and determine whether the preemption condition is met;

[0024] Save the PDU SESSIONS that meet the preemption condition to generate a preemptable list and sort them by priority;

[0025] Estimate the preemptable resources according to the preemptable list to generate a list of resources to be preempted;

[0026] If there is no PDU SESSION that can be preempted, end the preemption;

[0027] Otherwise, perform preemption, traverse the list of resources to be preempted, and release the PDU SESSIONS in sequence.

[0028] In one embodiment, after releasing the PDU SESSIONS in sequence, if the number of remaining PDU SESSIONS in the UE is 0, then release the UE.

[0029] In one embodiment, the determination of whether the preemption condition is met includes:

[0030] Determine whether it is a non-GBR bearer. A non-GBR bearer cannot be preempted by a GBR;

[0031] Determine whether it is a voice packet VoNR bearer. A voice packet VoNR bearer cannot be preempted; and if the ARP information supports that this PDU SESSION cannot be preempted, then it cannot be preempted.

[0032] According to the second aspect of the present invention, a central unit is provided, which is configured to be able to execute the slice resource allocation and admission control method described in any of the above embodiments.

[0033] According to the third aspect of the present invention, a slice resource allocation and admission control method is provided, including:

[0034] After receiving a message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, the central unit adopts the slice resource allocation and admission control method described in any of the above embodiments to perform resource allocation uniformly according to the slice;

[0035] The central unit sends the information of the session to the distributed unit through the UE context setup / modification message, and at the same time sends the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module;

[0036] The distributed unit saves the allocation situation of the central unit resources as a configuration, and the distributed unit manages resources and performs service scheduling according to the configuration.

[0037] In one embodiment, the central unit sending the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module includes:

[0038] The OAM module is responsible for reading the base station configuration file and loading the configuration;

[0039] The central unit modifies the base station configuration in the OAM module through the interface;

[0040] The distributed unit reads the configuration from the OAM module;

[0041] The configuration includes the allocation situation of resources.

[0042] According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a base station, including a central unit, a distributed unit, and an OAM module. The central unit is configured to, after receiving a message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, adopt the slice resource allocation and admission control method described in any of the above embodiments, and perform resource allocation uniformly according to the slice;

[0043] The central unit sends the information of the session to the distributed unit through the UE context setup or modification message, and at the same time sends the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module;

[0044] The distributed unit is configured to save the allocation situation of the central unit resources as a configuration, and the distributed unit manages resources and performs service scheduling according to the configuration.

[0045] The beneficial effects of the embodiments of the present invention are as follows: By uniformly performing slice resource allocation and admission control in the CU, the disadvantages of the general method of performing admission control by the CU and resource allocation by the DU in the past are solved, and at the same time, the admission control in the scenario when a large number of users access together can be satisfied; In addition, the CU performs resource allocation uniformly according to the slice, and the resource allocation is flexibly allocated according to different slices and levels, which can meet the different requirements and experiences of different slices; When the slice resources are insufficient, a method for preemption according to priority is also given, and this method is simple, flexible, and easy to implement. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0046] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the following will briefly introduce the drawings required for the embodiments. It should be understood that the following drawings only show some embodiments of the present invention and should not be regarded as a limitation of the scope. For those of ordinary skill in the art, without creative efforts, other related drawings can also be obtained based on these drawings.

[0047] After reading the detailed description of the embodiments of the present disclosure in conjunction with the following drawings, the above features and advantages of the present invention can be better understood. In the drawings, the components are not necessarily drawn to scale, and components with similar relevant characteristics or features may have the same or similar reference numerals.

[0048] Figure 1 is the method flowchart of the embodiment of the present application;

[0049] Figure 2 is the schematic diagram of the information interaction relationship of the embodiment of the present application;

[0050] Figure 3 is the module schematic diagram of the embodiment of the present application. Detailed implementation manners

[0051] The following will describe the present invention in detail in conjunction with the drawings and specific embodiments. Note that the aspects described below in conjunction with the drawings and specific embodiments are only exemplary and should not be construed as any limitation on the protection scope of the present invention.

[0052] The 3GPP TS23.501 protocol defines network slices, and each network slice is uniquely identified by S-NSSAI (Single Network Slice Selection Assistance Information). However, the 3GPP protocol only defines the slices and stipulates their functions, and does not provide specific methods for slice resource allocation and admission control. When the available resources of the slice are insufficient, how to perform admission control on the slice resources of different services, and how to preempt high-priority services (such as voice services), there are no specific solutions provided in these protocols; and users of different levels of operators have different experience requirements, such as high-level users enjoying greater bandwidth, which can also be achieved through slices, but the protocol does not provide specific slice implementation methods for these functions.

[0053] Therefore, the present embodiment provides a slice resource allocation and admission control method, which is executed by the central unit and includes:

[0054] When establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, calculate the slice resource utilization rate;

[0055] Determine whether to execute the preemption method based on whether the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold; when the slice utilization rate does not reach the threshold, there is no need for preemption, and the allocated resources can be directly determined; when the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold, preemption is required;

[0056] If the preemption is successful, determine the minimum resource M1 and the maximum resource M2 to be allocated, and accept and pass, and return the allocated resources;

[0057] If the preemption is unsuccessful, the acceptance fails.

[0058] It should be noted that the resources in the above method refer to radio resources, mainly bandwidth resources. When a PDU SESSION needs to be established or modified, the UE initiates a service request. First, the UE sends a PDU session establishment request to the core network AMF. This is a NAS message. The UE sends it to the base station, and then the base station forwards it transparently to the core network AMF. Usually, this message will carry slice information (S-NSSAI: This is UE preferred network slice or NSSAI where UE was registered before). After receiving the message, the AMF indicates "initial request" based on the request type, determines that the message corresponds to a request for a new PDU session, and the PDU session ID is not used for any existing PDU sessions of the UE. If the NAS message does not contain S-NSSAI, the AMF allocates a default S-NSSAI for the PDU session to the UE according to the UE's subscription data, or selects an S-NSSAI based on the operator's policy. The core network AMF sends a PDU SESSION RESOURCE SETUP REQUEST message to the base station, carrying the list of PDU sessions to be established, slice information, the Qos Flow list for each PDU session, and the quality attributes of each Qos Flow, etc. After receiving the PDU SESSION RESOURCE SETUP REQUEST message, the central unit (CU) in the base station executes the above method.

[0059] According to the different QCI, the bearer can be divided into two categories: GBR (Guaranteed Bit Rate) bearer and Non-GBR bearer. Therefore, in possible embodiments, GBR and Non-GBR are distinguished in the above method:

[0060] Before determining whether to perform preemption based on whether the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold, it is necessary to determine whether the newly established bearer is a GBR bearer. When the newly established bearer is a GBR bearer, the minimum required allocated resource M1 is calculated through the guaranteed bit rate GBR parameter. When the newly established bearer is a Non-GBR bearer, the minimum required allocated resource M1 is obtained through configuration. For example, if the GBR of a GBR service is 200M, then M1 is 200M. For Non-GBR, it is obtained through configuration, and the base station configuration can be read (either by reading the configuration file or by the base station obtaining parameters sent from the core network). When the newly established bearer is a GBR bearer, the maximum required allocated resource M2 is obtained through the maximum bit rate parameter MBR. For example, if the MBR of a GBR service is 800M, then M2 is 800M. This value is meaningless for Non-GBR and can be ignored.

[0061] In addition, when the newly established bearer is a GBR bearer, preemption is only performed when the required allocated resources do not exceed the sum of the preemptable resources.

[0062] In the above method, the slice resource utilization rate = the sum of the allocated resources of all slices / the total slice resources, where the sum of the allocated resources of all slices is the sum of the minimum resources allocated for all PDU SESSIONS. The acceptance threshold of the slice utilization rate is configured by the base station. If the slice resource utilization rate does not reach the threshold, it is directly accepted; otherwise, preemption is triggered.

[0063] Figure 1 The flowchart of the slice resource allocation and admission control method in an embodiment is shown as Figure 1 As shown, when the CU processes the establishment or modification of a PDU SESSION, it first calculates the slice resource utilization rate; determines whether the newly established bearer is a GBR bearer; if it is a GBR bearer, calculates the minimum required allocated resource M1 according to the GBR; if it is a Non-GBR bearer, determines the minimum required allocated resource M1 according to the configuration. Then it determines whether the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold. If it does not reach the threshold, it determines the minimum required allocated resource M1 and the maximum required allocated resource M2, and directly returns the allocated resources and acceptance passed. If it reaches the threshold, for GBR, it needs to calculate the sum of the resources of the PDU SESSIONS that can be preempted currently; if the required resources exceed the sum of the preemptable resources, it is determined that the preemption is unsuccessful; if there are sufficient resources, preemption is performed. For Non-GBR, since only one PDU SESSION needs to be preempted, preemption can be directly performed. If the preemption is successful, it determines the minimum required allocated resource M1 and the maximum required allocated resource M2, and outputs acceptance passed, returning the allocated resources. If the preemption is unsuccessful, it outputs acceptance not passed.

[0064] Figure 1The inputs of the method shown include: total resource size configuration, slice resource utilization acceptance threshold (abbreviated as threshold in this application), and minimum resource configuration for Non-GBR services. The output of this method is: whether the acceptance is passed. If the acceptance is passed, the allocated resource size (including the minimum resource M1 and the maximum resource M2) is determined.

[0065] The embodiments of this application also provide a specific preemption method in the above method, including:

[0066] Traverse all PDU SESSIONS, find PDU SESSIONS with a lower priority than the PDU SESSION that needs to be established or modified currently, and determine whether the preemption conditions are met;

[0067] Save the PDU SESSIONS that meet the preemption conditions to generate a list of preemptable sessions, and sort them by priority;

[0068] Estimate the preemptable resources based on the list of preemptable sessions to generate a list of resources that need to be preempted;

[0069] If there are no PDU SESSIONS that can be preempted, end the preemption;

[0070] Otherwise, perform preemption, that is, traverse the list of resources that need to be preempted and release the PDU SESSIONS in sequence.

[0071] After releasing the PDU SESSIONS in sequence, if the number of remaining PDU SESSIONS in the UE is 0, release the UE.

[0072] The preemption conditions in the above preemption method include but are not limited to:

[0073] Determine whether it is a non-GBR bearer. Non-GBR bearers cannot be preempted by GBR;

[0074] Determine whether it is a voice packet VoNR bearer. Voice packet VoNR bearers cannot be preempted; and

[0075] If the ARP information supports that this PDU SESSION cannot be preempted, then it cannot be preempted.

[0076] Corresponding to the above slice resource allocation and admission control method, the embodiments of this application also provide a central unit. This central unit is configured to be able to execute the methods in any of the above embodiments through software and other means. Since it corresponds to the method, it will not be elaborated here.

[0077] Based on the slice resource allocation and admission control method executed by the central unit above, the embodiments of this application also provide a slice resource allocation and admission control method executed by a base station, as Figure 2 shown, including:

[0078] After receiving a message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, the central unit adopts the slice resource allocation and admission control method in any of the above embodiments to perform resource allocation uniformly according to slices;

[0079] The central unit sends the information of the session to the distributed unit through the UE context setup / modification message, and the central unit sends the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module;

[0080] The distributed unit saves the allocation situation of the central unit resources as a configuration, and the distributed unit manages resources and conducts service scheduling according to the configuration.

[0081] Among them, the central unit sending the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module specifically includes:

[0082] The OAM module is responsible for reading the base station configuration file and loading relevant configurations;

[0083] The central unit modifies the base station configuration in the OAM module through an interface;

[0084] The distributed unit reads the configuration from the OAM module;

[0085] The configuration includes the allocation situation of resources.

[0086] When the base station starts up, the OAM module is responsible for reading the base station configuration file and loading these configurations. The CU and DU respectively read the configurations through the interfaces provided by the OAM module; at the same time, the CU and DU can modify the configurations through the interfaces provided by the OAM module. After the CU configuration is modified, it is synchronously updated to the OAM module, and the configuration read by the DU from the OAM module is the updated one set by the CU. For example, the CU allocates resources M1 as 200M and M2 as 800M for the PDU SESSION with ID 1. The CU updates the allocation resource configuration to the OAM through the interface provided by the OAM module, and then the DU reads from the OAM the configuration (the PDU SESSION with ID 1 allocates resources M1 as 200M and M2 as 800M).

[0087] Corresponding to the above method, an embodiment of the present application further provides a base station, as Figure 3 shown, including a central unit (CU) 301, a distributed unit (DU) 302, and an OAM module 303. The central unit 301 is used to, after receiving a message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, adopt the slice resource allocation and admission control method executed by the central unit 301 above to perform resource allocation uniformly according to slices;

[0088] The central unit 301 sends the information of the session to the distributed unit 302 through the UE context setup / modification message, and at the same time sends the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit 302 through the OAM module 303;

[0089] The distributed unit 302 is used to save the allocation situation of the resources of the central unit 301 as a configuration, and the distributed unit 302 manages the resources and conducts service scheduling according to the configuration.

[0090] In summary, the embodiment of the present application provides a method for uniformly performing slice resource allocation and admission control at the CU, which solves the drawbacks of the general method of performing admission control at the CU and resource allocation at the DU, and can meet the admission control in the scenario when a large number of users access together; at the same time, the CU allocates resources uniformly according to the slice, and the resource allocation is flexibly allocated according to different slices and levels, which can meet the different needs and experiences of different slices; in addition, the embodiment of the present application also gives an implementation method for supporting preemption according to the priority when the slice resources are insufficient, and this method is simple, flexible and easy to implement.

[0091] The various embodiments in this specification are described in a progressive manner, and the key points of each embodiment are the differences from other embodiments. The same or similar parts among the various embodiments can be referred to each other.

[0092] The previous description of the present disclosure is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the present disclosure. Various modifications to the present disclosure will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein can be applied to other variations without departing from the spirit or scope of the present disclosure.

[0093] The above are only the preferred examples of the present application, and are not intended to limit the present application. Any modifications, equivalent replacements, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present application shall be included in the scope of protection of the present application.

Claims

1. A slice resource allocation and admission control method, executed by a central unit, characterized in that Including: When establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, calculate the slice resource utilization rate; Based on whether the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold, determine whether to execute the preemption method; If the slice utilization rate does not reach the threshold, directly accept and pass, and return the allocated resources; Otherwise, perform preemption; If the preemption is successful, determine the minimum resource M1 to be allocated and the maximum resource M2 to be allocated, accept and pass, and return the allocated resources; If the preemption is not successful, the acceptance fails.

2. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 1, characterized in that Before determining whether to execute the preemption based on whether the slice utilization rate reaches the threshold, it also includes: Determine whether the newly established bearer is a GBR; When the newly established bearer is a GBR, calculate the minimum resource M1 to be allocated through the guaranteed bit rate GBR parameter; When the newly established bearer is a NonGBR, obtain the minimum resource M1 to be allocated through configuration.

3. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 2, characterized in that, When the newly established bearer is a GBR, preemption is only executed when the resources to be allocated do not exceed the sum of the preemptable resources.

4. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 2, wherein When the newly established bearer is a GBR, the maximum resource M2 to be allocated is obtained through the maximum bit rate parameter MBR.

5. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 1, characterized in that, The slice resource utilization rate = the sum of the allocated resources of all slices / the total slice resources, where the sum of the allocated resources of all slices is the sum of the minimum resources allocated for all PDU SESSIONS.

6. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 1, characterized in that The preemption method includes: Traverse all PDU SESSIONS, find PDU SESSIONS with a lower priority than the PDU SESSION that needs to be established or modified currently, and determine whether the preemption conditions are met; Save the PDU SESSIONS that meet the preemption conditions to generate a preemptable list and sort them by priority; Based on the preemptable list, estimate the preemptable resources and generate a list of resources to be preempted; If there are no PDU SESSIONS that can be preempted, end the preemption; Otherwise, execute the preemption, traverse the list of resources to be preempted, and release the PDU SESSIONS in turn.

7. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 6, wherein After releasing the PDU SESSIONS in turn, if the number of remaining PDU SESSIONS in the UE is 0, release the UE.

8. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 6, wherein, The determination of whether the preemption conditions are met includes: Determine whether it is a non-GBR bearer. Non-GBR bearers cannot be preempted by GBR; Determine whether it is a voice packet VoNR bearer. Voice packet VoNR bearers cannot be preempted; and If the ARP information supports that this PDU SESSION cannot be preempted, it cannot be preempted.

9. A slicing resource allocation and admission control method, characterized in that Including: After receiving the message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, the central unit adopts the slice resource allocation and admission control method as described in any one of claims 1 to 8, and performs resource allocation uniformly according to the slices; The central unit sends the session information to the distributed unit through the UE context setting / modifying message, and the central unit sends the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module; The distributed unit saves the allocation situation of the central unit resources as a configuration, and the distributed unit manages resources and performs service scheduling according to the configuration.

10. The slice resource allocation and admission control method according to claim 9, wherein The central unit sending the allocation situation of the session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module includes: The OAM module is responsible for reading the base station configuration file and loading the configuration; The central unit modifies the base station configuration in the OAM module through the interface; The distributed unit reads the configuration from the OAM module; The configuration includes the allocation of resources.

11. A base station, characterized in that, It includes a central unit, a distributed unit and an OAM module. After receiving a message for establishing or modifying a PDU SESSION, the central unit uses the slice resource allocation and admission control method as described in any one of claims 1 to 8 to allocate resources uniformly according to the slice; The central unit sends the information of the session to the distributed unit through the UE context setting or modification message, and at the same time sends the allocation of session resources to the distributed unit through the OAM module; The distributed unit is used to save the allocation of resources of the central unit as a configuration, and the distributed unit manages resources and conducts service scheduling according to the configuration.

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