Method, device, system and medium for improving resource utilization rate of network slice

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, device, system and storage medium for improving resource utilization of network slices, which improves wireless resource utilization under the premise of satisfying the mutual isolation of slice resources and meeting the requirements of the service level agreement (SLA). The method includes the following steps: after knowing that all users belonging to a network slice have completed scheduling, if there are unused resources in the network slice, the unused resources in the network slice are divided into system shared resources; when scheduling other network slices, the system shared resources are allocated to the corresponding scheduled network slice; if there are unused resources in the scheduled network slice after the scheduling is completed, the unused resources are divided into system shared resources for use by the remaining network slices during scheduling.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the field of communication technologies, and in particular to a method for improving resource utilization of network slicing. Background Art

[0002] Today, wireless frequency band resources are becoming increasingly scarce. How to rationally utilize frequency band resources is an important factor that needs to be considered for every 5G technology. To this end, 5G introduces network slicing technology.

[0003] Unlike the traditional 4G network's "one pipe, best-effort" model, 5G network slicing aims to provide multiple end-to-end logical "dedicated networks" based on a unified infrastructure and network, optimally adapting to the diverse business needs of industry users. For example, user requirements for 5G can be categorized into two main categories based on factors such as performance metrics, functional differences, network requirements, and O&M models: 1) Public network user requirements: These requirements fully inherit the services provided to individuals in 4G, ensuring a consistent or even improved user experience; and 2) Industry network user requirements. 5G public and industry networks share both shared and separate core network hardware resource pools, transmission resources, and wireless resources, leveraging network scale. Furthermore, the public and industry networks can be isolated at the user level using IoT and public network codes, respectively, and can utilize independent network elements, resources, and base stations, providing diverse and flexible architectures and configuration options.

[0004] Slicing technology enables vertical network segmentation, providing isolated, customizable network services for different vertical industries, customers, and businesses. It is a logical network that delivers specific network capabilities and features. A network slice instance is a collection of network functions and the required physical / virtual resources, including access networks, core networks, transport networks, and applications. Network slices can be built using traditional proprietary hardware or the common infrastructure of NFV / SDN.

[0005] The 3GPP protocol stipulates that resources between slices do not affect each other. Slices can allocate shared resources and dedicated resources to isolate resources between slices. However, idle resources within a slice cannot be shared by other slices, which cannot maximize wireless bandwidth and wastes wireless resources. Summary of the Invention

[0006] In response to the above problems, the present invention provides a method for improving the resource utilization of network slicing, which improves the utilization of wireless resources while ensuring that slice resources are isolated from each other and meeting the requirements of the service level agreement (SLA).

[0007] The technical solution is as follows: A method for improving resource utilization of network slices, characterized by comprising the following steps: after learning that all users belonging to a network slice have completed scheduling, if there are unused resources in the network slice, allocating the unused resources in the network slice to system shared resources;

[0008] When scheduling other network slices, the system shared resources are allocated to the corresponding scheduled network slices. If there are unused resources in the scheduled network slice after the scheduling is completed, the unused resources will be divided into system shared resources for use by the remaining network slices during scheduling.

[0009] Furthermore, when scheduling a user in a network slice, the upper limit of resources allocated to the user is expressed as:

[0010] The upper limit of user-allocated resources = slice user-dedicated resources + slice user-shared resources + system-shared resources - network slice used resources.

[0011] Furthermore, after a user in a network slice completes scheduling, the resources used by the corresponding user are added to the used resources of the network slice.

[0012] Furthermore, when scheduling multiple network slices in a wireless network, network slices with higher priorities are scheduled first according to the priorities of the network slices.

[0013] Furthermore, when scheduling multiple users in a network slice, users with higher priorities are scheduled first according to their priorities.

[0014] A base station device, characterized in that it includes a memory, a communication interface and a processor coupled to the memory and the communication interface; the memory is used to store instructions, the processor is used to execute the instructions, and the communication interface is used to communicate with other devices under the control of the processor; wherein, when the processor executes the instructions, it performs a method for improving resource utilization of network slices as described above.

[0015] A communication system, characterized by comprising a terminal device and the above-mentioned base station device.

[0016] A storage medium, characterized in that when the instructions in the storage medium are executed by the processor of a device, the device is enabled to execute a method for improving resource utilization of network slices as described above.

[0017] The 3GPP protocol only stipulates that slices cannot affect each other, but unused resources within a slice cannot be shared by other slices, and wireless bandwidth resources cannot be fully utilized. The method for improving resource utilization of network slices in the present invention sets system shared resources. After a network slice completes scheduling, if there are allocated resources in the network slice that are not used, the system shared resources are updated with the remaining resources. When other network slices are scheduled, the system shared resources are allocated to the scheduled network slice for use, thereby realizing the sharing of idle resources within the network slice with other network slices and improving wireless resource utilization. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0018] Figure 1 It is a schematic flowchart of a method for improving resource utilization of network slices shown in an embodiment of the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] The following will be combined with the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure. Obviously, the embodiments described are only part of the embodiments of the present disclosure, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without making any creative efforts are within the scope of protection of the present disclosure.

[0020] Figure 1 This is a schematic flow chart illustrating a method for improving resource utilization of network slices according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The method for improving resource utilization of network slices illustrated in this embodiment can be applied to communications between base stations, including but not limited to future base station devices such as 5G base stations and 6G base stations, and terminals, which can serve as user devices, including but not limited to electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, wearable devices, sensors, and IoT devices.

[0021] like Figure 1 As shown, a method for improving resource utilization of a network slice includes at least the following steps:

[0022] Step 1: After all users of a network slice have completed scheduling, if there are unused resources in the network slice, the unused resources are allocated to the system shared resources.

[0023] System shared resources can be used by both slice-owning users and non-slice-owning users;

[0024] Step 2: When scheduling other network slices, the system shared resources are allocated to the corresponding scheduled network slices. If there are unused resources in the scheduled network slice after the scheduling is completed, the unused resources will be divided into system shared resources for the remaining network slices to use during scheduling.

[0025] The 3GPP protocol only stipulates that slices cannot affect each other, but the unused resources within a slice cannot be shared by other slices, and the wireless bandwidth resources cannot be fully utilized. This disclosure shares the unused resources of a slice among other slices, so that the wireless bandwidth resources can be fully utilized.

[0026] In one usage scenario, an operator configures four network slices: s1, s2, s3, and s4. Slice s1 can use 20% of the total bandwidth, s2 can use 20% of the total bandwidth, s3 can use 20% of the total bandwidth, and s4 can use 40% of the total bandwidth. For a period of time, s1 uses 80% of its allocated resources, or 16% of the total bandwidth; s2 uses 90% of its allocated resources, or 18% of the total bandwidth; s3 uses 100% of its allocated resources, or 20% of the total bandwidth; and s4 uses 50% of its allocated resources, or 20% of the total bandwidth. Without inter-slice resource coordination, the system bandwidth will not be fully utilized, wasting 26% of the total bandwidth. Therefore, a method for improving resource utilization of network slices disclosed in the present invention is applied.

[0027] In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the method for improving resource utilization of network slices of the present disclosure is applied to the user plane scheduling of the media access control layer (MAC layer) of the 5G NR base station, which can allocate resources that meet SLA requirements between different slices while taking into account the reasonable allocation of remaining resources between each slice, so as to maximize the cell throughput.

[0028] The user-plane scheduling tasks of the MAC layer are: 1) Allocating physical layer resources, including physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), to terminals during the access process. 2) Selecting terminals during each scheduling cycle and allocating physical layer resources for data transmission based on the amount of data to be transmitted by the terminal and channel conditions, including the physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH), physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and physical uplink control channel (PUCCH). 3) PUCCHs are allocated to terminals based on a triplet of time, frequency band, and codeword. At that specific time and frequency band, regardless of whether a terminal sends a message, the base station's media access control layer and physical layer must perform the corresponding processing.

[0029] The MAC layer can perceive slices and process traffic within the slices, and can perform differentiated processing on traffic in different slices.

[0030] In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the following steps are included:

[0031] Configure four network slices s1, s2, s3, and s4 in the 5G network;

[0032] Initialize system shared resources;

[0033] According to the existing system scheduling algorithm, users belonging to network slice s1 are scheduled first;

[0034] After the MAC layer learns that the scheduling of network slice s1 in the wireless network has been completed, if there are unused allocated resources in network slice s1, the unused resources in network slice s1 are allocated to the system shared resources;

[0035] When scheduling network slice s2, system shared resources are allocated to network slice s2 for use;

[0036] After the MAC layer learns that the scheduling of network slice s2 is completed, if there are unused resources in network slice s2, the unused resources in network slice s2 are allocated to the system shared resources;

[0037] When scheduling network slice s3, system shared resources are allocated to network slice s3 for use;

[0038] After the MAC layer learns that the scheduling of network slice s3 is completed, if there are unused resources in network slice s3, the unused resources in network slice s3 are allocated to the system shared resources;

[0039] When scheduling network slice s4, system shared resources are allocated to network slice s4 for use.

[0040] The MAC layer can perceive network slices. During the scheduling process, the MAC layer needs to meet the resource isolation requirements and SLA of each network slice. On this basis, the MAC layer can know the resource usage of the network slice and reasonably allocate idle resources to other network slices to achieve maximum wireless resource utilization.

[0041] In other embodiments of the present disclosure, the number of network slices may be more or less.

[0042] In one embodiment, after adopting the method disclosed herein, after the MAC layer learns that the user to which network slice s1 belongs has been scheduled, it discovers that some resources in network slice s1 are still unused, and it is necessary to use these unused resources to update the system shared resources. When scheduling network slice s2, the upper limit of its allocated resources = network slice s2 dedicated resources + network slice s2 shared resources + system shared resources; when the user scheduling of network slice s2 is completed, but there are unused allocated resources, it is necessary to update the system shared resources with the unused resources, and then the scheduling of network slice s3 is carried out according to the same method, and network slice s3 uses all the available resources; then the scheduling of network slice s4 is carried out according to the same method, and network slice s4 uses 50% of the available resources.

[0043] Specifically, network slice s1 is allocated 20% of the total bandwidth, network slice s2 is allocated 20% of the total bandwidth, network slice s3 is allocated 20% of the total bandwidth, and network slice s4 is allocated 40% of the total bandwidth. First, network slice s1 is scheduled. It actually uses 80% of its allocated resources, or 16% of the total bandwidth, with 4% of the total bandwidth allocated to the system's shared resources. Then, network slice s2 is scheduled. It actually uses 90% of its allocated resources, or 18% of the total bandwidth, leaving no system-shared resources. At this point, 6% of the total bandwidth is allocated to the system's shared resources. Then, network slice s3 is scheduled. It uses 100% of its allocated resources and all system-shared resources, or 26% of the total bandwidth. Finally, network slice s3 is scheduled. Network slice s4 uses 50% of its allocated resources, or 20% of the total bandwidth.

[0044] In this embodiment, network slice s3 uses 6% of the total bandwidth that is not used by network slices s1 and s2, so that the idle resources within the slice are shared by other slices, thereby maximizing the use of wireless bandwidth and avoiding wasting wireless resources.

[0045] It should be noted that the terms "s1", "s2", etc. in the specification of the present disclosure are used to distinguish similar objects, and are not necessarily used to describe a specific order or sequence.

[0046] In one embodiment of the present invention, when scheduling a user in a network slice, the upper limit of resources allocated to the user is expressed as:

[0047] The upper limit of resources allocated to users = slice user dedicated resources + slice user shared resources + system shared resources - network slice used resources. Slice user dedicated resources can only be used by slice users. If not used up by slice users, they cannot be used by other users. Slice user shared resources are used by slice users first. If not used up by slice users, they can be used by other users. Slice user dedicated resources and slice user shared resources are both stipulated in the 3GPP protocol.

[0048] After a user in a network slice completes scheduling, the corresponding user's used resources are added to the network slice's used resources, expressed as: network slice's used resources = network slice's used resources + user's used resources;

[0049] Repeat the above steps to complete the scheduling of all users in the network slice.

[0050] In one embodiment of the present disclosure, when scheduling multiple network slices in a wireless network, network slices with higher priorities may be scheduled first based on the priorities of the network slices.

[0051] Among network slices s1, s2, s3, and s4, the priorities are s4, s2, s1, and s3, respectively. Slice s4 has the highest priority, making it the first to be scheduled. Slice s4 uses 50% of its allocatable resources, and the unused 50% is allocated to the system's shared resources. Next, s2 uses 100% of its allocatable resources plus the unused 50% of s4's shared resources. S1 uses 95% of its allocatable resources, and s3 uses 100% of its allocatable resources plus the unused 5% of s1's shared resources. This ensures 100% utilization of the system's overall bandwidth.

[0052] In one embodiment of the present disclosure, when scheduling multiple users in a network slice, users with higher priorities are scheduled first based on their priorities.

[0053] In an embodiment of the present invention, a base station device is also provided, including a memory, a communication interface and a processor coupled to the memory and the communication interface; the memory is used to store instructions, the processor is used to execute instructions, and the communication interface is used to communicate with other devices under the control of the processor; wherein, when the processor executes the instructions, the method for improving resource utilization of network slices as described above is executed.

[0054] In an embodiment of the present invention, a communication system is further provided, including a terminal device and the above-mentioned base station device.

[0055] In an embodiment of the present invention, a storage medium is also provided. When the instructions in the storage medium are executed by the processor of the device, the device is able to execute the method for improving the resource utilization of the network slice as described above.

[0056] The steps of the method or algorithm described in conjunction with the disclosure of the embodiments of the present invention can be implemented in hardware or by executing software instructions by a processor. The software instructions can be composed of corresponding software modules, which can be stored in a read-only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a programmable read-only memory (PROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), a one-time programmable read-only memory (OTPROM), an electronically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), a compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) or other optical disc storage, magnetic disk storage, magnetic tape storage, or any other computer-readable medium capable of carrying or storing data or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor so that the processor can read information from the storage medium and write information to the storage medium. Of course, the storage medium can also be an integral part of the processor. The processor and storage medium can be located in an ASIC. Alternatively, the ASIC can be located in a base station device. Of course, the processor and storage medium can also exist as discrete components in the base station device.

[0057] Those skilled in the art will appreciate that all or part of the processes in the above-described method embodiments can be implemented by instructing the relevant hardware through a computer program. The program can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. When executed, the program can include the processes in the above-described method embodiments. The aforementioned storage medium includes various media capable of storing program code, such as ROM, RAM, magnetic disks, or optical disks.

[0058] The above describes in detail the method for improving resource utilization of network slices, base station equipment, communication system, and storage medium provided by the present invention. Specific examples are used herein to illustrate the principles and implementation methods of the present invention. The description of the above embodiments is only used to help understand the method of the present invention and its core idea. At the same time, for those skilled in the art, according to the ideas of the present invention, there may be changes in the specific implementation methods and application scope. In summary, the content of this specification should not be understood as limiting the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for improving resource utilization of a network slice, characterized in that: The following steps are involved: After it is known that all users belonging to a network slice have completed scheduling, if there are unused resources in the network slice, the unused resources in the network slice are allocated to system shared resources; When scheduling other network slices, the system shared resources are allocated to the corresponding scheduled network slices. If there are unused resources in the scheduled network slice after the scheduling is completed, the unused resources are divided into the system shared resources for the remaining network slices to use during scheduling; When scheduling a user in a network slice, the upper limit of resources allocated to the user is expressed as: The upper limit of user-allocated resources = slice user-dedicated resources + slice user-shared resources + system-shared resources - network slice used resources; When scheduling multiple network slices in a wireless network, the scheduling order of the network slices can be adjusted; When scheduling multiple network slices in a wireless network, the network slices with higher priorities are scheduled first according to their priorities. When scheduling multiple users in a network slice, users with higher priorities are scheduled first based on their priorities.

2. The method for improving resource utilization of network slicing according to claim 1, characterized in that: After a user in a network slice completes scheduling, the resources used by the corresponding user are added to the used resources of the network slice.

3. A base station device, characterized in that: It includes a memory, a communication interface and a processor coupled to the memory and the communication interface; the memory is used to store instructions, the processor is used to execute the instructions, and the communication interface is used to communicate with other devices under the control of the processor; wherein, when the processor executes the instructions, it executes a method for improving resource utilization of network slicing as described in claim 1 or 2.

4. A communication system, characterized in that: It comprises a terminal device and the base station device described in claim 3.

5. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that: When the instructions in the storage medium are executed by the processor of the device, the device is enabled to execute a method for improving resource utilization of network slices as described in claim 1 or 2.

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