A multi-access edge computing network, traffic processing method and related devices

Abstract

The application provides a multi-access edge computing network, comprising a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is used for processing target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold; the forwarding device is used for receiving a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element, and preferentially forwarding target service requests belonging to the target service to the target application instance; and the target application instance is used for processing the target service requests received thereby. When the target service is a latency-sensitive service (i.e. a service requiring the multi-access edge computing network to provide a smaller latency, such as a 5G service), the multi-access edge computing network preferentially forwards the target service, so that the target service can be preferentially provided with service, and thus the latency requirement of a user equipment for processing the latency-sensitive service can be met. In addition, the application further provides a traffic processing method and device, a computer readable storage medium and a computer program product.

Description

[0001] This application claims priority from the Chinese patent application No. 202110138516.2 filed on February 01, 2021, and entitled "Edge container network system", the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. TECHNICAL FIELD

[0002] The present application relates to the technical field of traffic processing, and in particular to a multi-access edge computing network, a traffic processing method and related devices. BACKGROUND

[0003] A multi-access edge computing (MEC) network can reduce network operation and service delivery latency by providing an IT service environment (including computing resources, storage resources, network resources, etc.) at the edge of a mobile network. Generally, the MEC network includes multiple application containers (also referred to as MEC sites) deployed at the edge of the mobile network, and the application programs on the application containers can provide corresponding services for user equipment.

[0004] However, in many practical application scenarios, the user equipment has a high latency requirement when requesting services. At this time, the processing capability of the MEC network can be difficult to meet the latency requirement. SUMMARY

[0005] The present application provides a multi-access edge computing network for meeting the latency requirement when the user equipment requests services. In addition, the present application also provides a traffic processing method, device, computer readable storage medium and computer program product.

[0006] In a first aspect, the present application provides a multi-access edge computing network, which includes a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances. A target application instance in the plurality of application instances is configured to process target traffic requiring a latency lower than a target threshold. The forwarding device is configured to receive a plurality of traffic requests from a user plane function network element, and to preferentially forward target traffic requests belonging to the target traffic among the plurality of traffic requests. The target application instance is configured to process target traffic requests belonging to the target traffic received by the target application instance.

[0007] For a target service (or can be referred to as a latency sensitive service) requiring a latency lower than a target threshold, the multi-access edge computing network can preferentially forward the target service, so that the multi-access edge computing network can preferentially provide services for the target service, and thus can meet the latency requirement of the user equipment processing the latency sensitive service. At the same time, for other services (or can be referred to as non-latency sensitive services) requiring a latency not lower than the target threshold, even if the multi-access edge computing network causes a larger latency for providing services for the other services due to preferentially forwarding the target service, the latency is usually within the range of the latency required by the other services. In this way, the multi-access edge computing network can meet the latency requirements of the user equipment when requesting services for the target service with higher latency requirements and the other services with lower latency requirements, respectively.

[0008] In a possible implementation, the target service can be a 5G service. Of course, in other implementations, the target service can also be other types of services with higher latency requirements.

[0009] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device can identify, from the plurality of service requests, a target service request with an identifier of a 5G service and a quality of service (QoS) of low latency, so that the forwarding device can preferentially forward, from the plurality of service requests, the service request with the identifier of the 5G service and the QoS of low latency.

[0010] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device can preferentially forward, from the plurality of service requests, a target service request with the highest priority according to priorities of the service requests. Specifically, the forwarding device is specifically configured to determine, according to an identifier of a 5G service and a quality of service (QoS) of low latency carried by the target service request, that the target service request has a higher priority than other service requests in the plurality of service requests, or determine, according to the identifier of the 5G service carried by the target service request, that the target service request has a higher priority than other service requests in the plurality of service requests, or determine, according to the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request, that the target service request has a higher priority than other service requests in the plurality of service requests, so that the forwarding device preferentially forwards the target service request based on the priority.

[0011] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device is further configured to acquire a bandwidth for preferentially forwarding the target service request, so as to forward the target service request by using the acquired bandwidth.

[0012] In a possible implementation, the bandwidth of the forwarding device for forwarding the target service request is higher than the bandwidth of the forwarding device for forwarding other service requests, that is, for the target service request with higher latency requirements, the forwarding device can use a higher bandwidth to forward the target service request, so as to further reduce the transmission latency of the target service request.

[0013] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device is further configured to preempt bandwidth used for forwarding other service requests to forward the target service request, so that the transmission delay of the target service request can be further reduced by allocating more bandwidth to the forwarding device.

[0014] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device is further configured to acquire the location of the user equipment that sends the service request, and reject forwarding the target service request when the location of the user equipment is out of the service range of the forwarding device. In this way, the target service request sent by the user equipment can be prevented from being transmitted through a long-distance network, so as to avoid excessive network transmission delay and affect the delay of the multi-access edge computing network in providing services for the target service.

[0015] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device can include a gateway and a container subnet. The gateway can be configured to receive the target service request and forward the target service request to the container subnet, and the container subnet can be configured to receive the target service request and forward the target service request to the target application instance. In this case, the gateway and the container subnet can forward the target service request in the following manners: only the gateway preferentially forwards the target service request, only the container subnet preferentially forwards the target service request, or both the gateway and the container subnet preferentially forward the target service request. In other examples, the forwarding device can include only the gateway or only the container subnet, or the forwarding device can be another device or the like.

[0016] In a possible implementation, the user plane function network element configured to send the target service request to the forwarding device is configured to receive the target service request from a radio access network network element, that is, the radio access network network element can send the target service request to the forwarding device through the user plane function network element.

[0017] In a possible implementation, the user plane function network element is configured to receive the target service request from the user equipment, that is, the user equipment can send the target service request to the multi-access edge computing network through the user plane function network element, so that the multi-access edge computing network can provide corresponding service for the user equipment based on the target service request.

[0018] In a possible implementation, the application instance is specifically an application container.

[0019] In a possible implementation, the multi-access edge computing network further includes an information collection network element configured to establish a protocol data unit session for the user equipment, so that the user equipment can send the target service request based on the protocol data unit session, and the forwarding device can receive the target service request based on the protocol data unit session.

[0020] In a second aspect, the present application provides a network, which can comprise the multi-access edge computing network in the first aspect or any implementation manner of the first aspect.

[0021] In a possible implementation manner, the network can further comprise a user plane function network element, configured to send the target service request to the forwarding device.

[0022] In a possible implementation manner, the network can further comprise a radio access network network element, configured to send the target service request to the user plane function network element.

[0023] In a possible implementation manner, the network can further comprise a user equipment, configured to send the target service request to the radio access network network element, so that the user plane function network element obtains the target service request sent by the user equipment through the radio access network network element.

[0024] In a third aspect, the present application provides another multi-access edge computing network, which comprises a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is configured to process a target service with a latency requirement lower than a target threshold; the forwarding device is configured to receive a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element, and forward a target service request belonging to the target service from the plurality of service requests using a first channel, and the first channel is different from a second channel used to send other service requests to other application instances; and the target application instance is configured to process the target service request of the target service. In this way, for the target service request of the target service with the latency requirement lower than the target threshold, the forwarding device can forward the target service request using the separate first channel, which makes the target service request not need to wait for other service requests to be forwarded first by the forwarding device, thereby reducing the transmission latency of the target service request, and further reducing the latency of the MEC network in providing services for the target service.

[0025] In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a traffic processing method applied to a multi-access edge computing network, the multi-access edge computing network comprising a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is configured to process a target service with a latency requirement lower than a target threshold, and the method comprises: the forwarding device receiving a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element; the forwarding device preferentially forwarding a target service request belonging to the target service from the plurality of service requests; and the target application instance processing the target service request of the target service.

[0026] In a possible implementation manner, the target service is a fifth generation mobile communication technology (5G) service.

[0027] In a possible implementation, the method further includes: identifying, by the forwarding device, the target service request with an identifier of a 5th generation mobile communication technology (5G) service and a quality of service (QoS) of low latency from the plurality of service requests.

[0028] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device preferentially forwards the target service request belonging to the target service from the plurality of service requests, including: determining, by the forwarding device, that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the identifier of the 5G service and the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request, or determining that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the identifier of the 5G service carried by the target service request, or determining that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request; and preferentially forwarding, by the forwarding device, the target service request based on the priority.

[0029] In a possible implementation, the method further includes: obtaining, by the forwarding device, a bandwidth for preferentially forwarding the target service request.

[0030] In a possible implementation, the bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than that for forwarding other service requests.

[0031] In a possible implementation, the method further includes: preoccupying, by the forwarding device, the bandwidth for forwarding other service requests to forward the target service request.

[0032] In a possible implementation, the method further includes: rejecting, by the forwarding device, to forward the target service request when the location of a user equipment (UE) sending the target service request is out of the service range of the forwarding device.

[0033] In a possible implementation, the forwarding device includes a gateway and a container subnet, and the forwarding device preferentially forwards the target service request belonging to the target service from the plurality of service requests, including: receiving, by the gateway, the target service request and forwarding the target service request to the container subnet; receiving, by the container subnet, the target service request and forwarding the target service request to the target application instance; and wherein the gateway preferentially forwards the target service request, or the container subnet preferentially forwards the target service request, or both the gateway and the container subnet preferentially forward the target service request.

[0034] In a possible implementation, the application instance is an application container.

[0035] In a possible implementation, the multi-access edge computing network further comprises an information collection network element, and the method further comprises: the information collection network element establishing a protocol data unit session for a user equipment, so that the forwarding device receives the target service request of the user equipment.

[0036] In a fifth aspect, the present application provides another traffic processing method, which is applied to a multi-access edge computing network, and the multi-access edge computing network comprises a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is used to process target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold, and the method comprises: the forwarding device receiving a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element; the forwarding device forwarding a target service request belonging to the target service in the plurality of service requests using a first channel, the first channel being different from a second channel used to send other service requests to other application instances; and the target application instance processing the target service request of the target service.

[0037] In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a traffic processing apparatus, which is applied to the forwarding device, and the traffic processing apparatus comprises various modules for implementing the traffic processing method performed by the forwarding device in the fourth aspect or any possible implementation of the fourth aspect.

[0038] In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a traffic processing apparatus, which is applied to the forwarding device, and the traffic processing apparatus comprises various modules for implementing the traffic processing method performed by the forwarding device in the fifth aspect.

[0039] In an eighth aspect, the present application provides a forwarding device, which comprises a processor and a memory; the memory is used to store instructions, and when the forwarding device is running, the processor executes the instructions stored in the memory, so that the forwarding device performs the traffic processing method in the fourth aspect or any implementation of the fourth aspect. It should be noted that the memory can be integrated in the processor or independent of the processor. The forwarding device can further comprise a bus. The processor is connected to the memory through the bus. The memory can comprise a readable memory and a random access memory.

[0040] In a ninth aspect, the present application provides a forwarding device, which comprises a processor and a memory; the memory is used to store instructions, and when the forwarding device is running, the processor executes the instructions stored in the memory, so that the forwarding device performs the traffic processing method in the fifth aspect. It should be noted that the memory can be integrated in the processor or independent of the processor. The forwarding device can further comprise a bus. The processor is connected to the memory through the bus. The memory can comprise a readable memory and a random access memory.

[0041] In a tenth aspect, the present application provides a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed on a forwarding device, cause the forwarding device to perform the method performed by the forwarding device in the fourth aspect or any implementation manner of the fourth aspect.

[0042] In an eleventh aspect, the present application provides a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed on a forwarding device, cause the forwarding device to perform the method performed by the forwarding device in the fifth aspect.

[0043] In a twelfth aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when executed on a forwarding device, cause the forwarding device to perform the method performed by the forwarding device in the fourth aspect or any implementation manner of the fourth aspect.

[0044] In a thirteenth aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising instructions which, when executed on a forwarding device, cause the forwarding device to perform the method performed by the forwarding device in the fifth aspect.

[0045] On the basis of the implementation manners of the aspects provided by the present application, further combinations can be made to provide more implementation manners. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0046] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application, the drawings needed in the embodiment description will be briefly introduced. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments described in the present application, and other drawings can be obtained by those skilled in the art according to these drawings.

[0047] Figure 1 It is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a MEC network;

[0048] Figure 2 It is a schematic diagram of a network architecture of a MEC network provided by the embodiment of the present application;

[0049] Figure 3 It is a schematic diagram of a flow of a traffic processing method provided by the embodiment of the present application;

[0050] Figure 4 It is a schematic diagram of a flow of creating a session message for a user equipment 210 provided by the embodiment of the present application;

[0051] Figure 5 It is a schematic diagram of a flow of another traffic processing method provided by the embodiment of the present application;

[0052] Figure 6Another network architecture diagram of a MEC network provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0053] Figure 7 A structure diagram of a traffic processing device provided by an embodiment of the present application;

[0054] Figure 8 A structure diagram of a forwarding device provided by an embodiment of the present application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0055] The terms "first", "second", etc. in the description and claims of the present application and in the above drawings are used to distinguish similar objects, and do not necessarily have to be used to describe a specific order or sequence. It should be understood that the terms thus used can be interchanged, as appropriate, and are merely used to distinguish the objects of the same attribute in the description of the embodiments of the present application.

[0056] Referring to Figure 1 , a specific architecture of a MEC network. As shown in Figure 1 , the MEC network can include a forwarding device 100 and a plurality of application instances 103 (two application instances are exemplarily shown in Figure 1 ). The application instances 103 can carry one or more application programs, and the application programs on the application instances 103 can provide corresponding services for user equipment (UE) 210 accessing the network. Exemplarily, in actual application scenarios, the application instances 103 can be application containers.

[0057] It is worth noting that Figure 1 , the MEC network includes part of network elements or network modules. In actual applications, the MEC network further includes other network elements or network modules, such as a MEC platform 104, a virtualization infrastructure 105, and a MEC platform management 106. The MEC platform 104 can be used to manage edge computing devices with multiple accesses; the virtualization infrastructure 105 can be constructed by using one or more virtualization technologies, including computing virtualization, network virtualization, storage virtualization, etc.; the MEC platform management 106 runs on the virtualization infrastructure 105 and is used to manage one or more MEC platforms 104. The present application does not further elaborate on this part.

[0058] The user equipment 210 can request a corresponding service from the application instance 103 in the MEC network when performing a service (hereinafter referred to as a target service), and specifically, the user equipment 210 can send a service request for requesting the application instance 103 to process the target service. The service request can be transmitted to the application instance 103 in turn through the radio access network element 220, the user plane function element 230, and the forwarding device 100, so that the application program on the application instance 103 can provide a corresponding service for the target service.

[0059] When multiple user equipment 210 simultaneously request services from the MEC network, the forwarding device 100 in the MEC network usually forwards the service request to the corresponding application instance 103 according to the order in which the service request is received. However, in actual applications, different services performed by different user equipment 210 can have different requirements for the latency of services provided by the MEC network. For example, when the target service performed by the user equipment 210 is a service with high requirements for latency (hereinafter referred to as a latency-sensitive service), such as a 5th generation mobile networks (5G) service, the MEC network is usually required to provide a service with a small latency, such as a latency of less than 20 ms. For other user equipment 210 performing a service with low requirements for latency, the MEC network can provide a service with a latency of 1 second or longer to meet the requirements of the service. At this time, if the forwarding device 100 in the MEC network receives a service request A sent by the user equipment 210 for the latency-sensitive service later than a service request B sent by other user equipment 210 for a non-latency-sensitive service, the service request A can need to wait for the forwarding device 100 to complete the transmission of the service request B first. In this way, the latency from when the user equipment 210 sends the service request for the latency-sensitive service to when the MEC network provides a service for the latency-sensitive service based on the application instance 103 can exceed the latency requirement of the latency-sensitive service because the service request waits for the forwarding device 100 to forward other service requests during transmission.

[0060] Further, when there are many user equipment 210 simultaneously requesting services from the MEC network, due to the limited processing capacity of the forwarding device 100 in the MEC network, there can be a service request blocking and queuing phenomenon when forwarding multiple service requests, which is more likely to cause the latency of the MEC network providing a service for the latency-sensitive service to not meet the latency requirement of the latency-sensitive service.

[0061] Based on this, in the process that the MEC network provides services based on service requests, the forwarding device 100 can preferentially forward target service requests belonging to target services in the multiple service requests to target application instances in the multiple application instances 103, such as the left application instance in Figure 1 (or the right application instance in Figure 1 ), where the target services are services with a latency requirement lower than a target threshold. In this way, the target service requests of the target services can be preferentially forwarded by the forwarding device 100, so that the MEC network can preferentially provide services for the target services (which can be latency-sensitive services), thereby meeting the latency requirement of the user equipment 210 for processing the target services; and for non-latency-sensitive services, even if the latency of the MEC network for providing services for the services is large, it is usually within the latency range required by the non-latency-sensitive services. In this way, the MEC network can meet the latency requirement of the user equipment 210 when requesting services.

[0062] Further, even if there are many user equipment 210 simultaneously requesting services from the MEC network, the MEC network can still preferentially provide services for latency-sensitive services, thereby ensuring the stability of the MEC network for serving latency-sensitive services as much as possible.

[0063] For ease of understanding, the embodiments of the present application are described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

[0064] Referring to Figure 2 and Figure 3 , Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of an exemplary MEC network provided by an embodiment of the present application, Figure 3 is a flowchart of a traffic processing method provided by an embodiment of the present application. In the MEC network shown in Figure 2 , the MEC network can be applied to an edge network based on the 5th generation mobile networks (5G), and accordingly, the services processed by the MEC network can include 5G services with a higher latency requirement; and in the MEC network shown in Figure 1 , Figure 2 , an information collection network element 107 is added to the MEC network shown in Figure 1 , and the forwarding device 100 in Figure 2The MEC network shown can include a gateway 101, a container network 102, and a new queuing module 1011 and a filtering module 1012 in the gateway 101, and a new queuing module 1021 in the container network 102. In actual application, the information collection network element 107 can be integrated with an existing network element into one network element, such as being integrated and deployed with the gateway 101 or the container network 102, or can be independently deployed. For ease of illustration, the information collection network element 107 is independently deployed in the MEC network in this embodiment.

[0065] In actual deployment, the new information collection network element 107, the queuing module 1011, and the queuing module 1021 can be implemented by software, for example, a computer program running on a network element, or can be implemented by hardware, such as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or a programmable logic device (PLD). The PLD can be a complex programmable logical device (CPLD), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a generic array logic (GAL), or any combination thereof to implement the functions of the above network elements or modules.

[0066] Based on Figure 2 The MEC network shown, Figure 3 The traffic processing method shown can specifically include:

[0067] S301: When the user equipment 210 is executing a target service, the user equipment 210 sends a target service request for the target service to the radio access network element 220, and the target service request is used to request the application instance 103 in the MEC network to provide services for the user equipment 210 for the target service by using the application program running thereon.

[0068] For example, in an artificial intelligence (AI) scenario in combination with edge computing, the user equipment 210 can perform an identity authentication service, at this time, the user equipment 210 can send an identity authentication request (i.e., the aforementioned target service request) to the radio access network element 220, the identity authentication request can include to-be-authenticated information (such as user fingerprint information, face image, etc.) used to indicate the user identity, so that after the identity authentication request is transmitted to the MEC network, the application instance 103 in the MEC network can complete the authentication of the user identity according to the identity authentication request, and feed back the identity authentication result to the user equipment 210. It should be understood that the above scenario is only an exemplary illustration, and the embodiments of the present application can also be applied to other applicable scenarios, such as any scenario in combination with edge computing, such as live streaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), cloud gaming, etc., which are not limited by the present embodiment.

[0069] In general, the target service request can include related information of the user equipment 210, such as including the identifier of the user equipment 210, the identifier of the target service performed by the user equipment 210 (such as the service name), etc. For example, the identifier of the user equipment 210 can be any one or more of the name of the user equipment 210, the Internet Protocol (IP) address, the media access control address (MAC), etc. In actual application, the target service request can also include more other contents, such as the service type, the requested service name, etc., which are not limited by the present embodiment.

[0070] S302: The radio access network element 220 forwards the target service request to the user plane function element 230.

[0071] S303: The user plane function element 230 forwards the target service request to the gateway 101 in the MEC network.

[0072] Generally, after receiving a target service request, the gateway 101 forwards the target service request to the container subnet 102 in the MEC network, so that the container subnet 102 arranges the corresponding application instance 103 to provide corresponding services according to the target service request. However, in actual application, the gateway 101 usually receives multiple service requests from multiple user equipment, and forwards the service requests to the container subnet 102 one by one. It should be understood that, since the time delay required by different service requests usually exists difference, if the gateway 101 forwards the multiple service requests one by one according to the order of receiving the service requests, for the service request corresponding to part of the time delay sensitive service (such as the target service request), the waiting process of the service request for other service requests to be forwarded may increase the time delay of the MEC network to provide services for the time delay sensitive service, thereby causing the time delay to not meet the requirements of the time delay sensitive service.

[0073] Therefore, in this embodiment, when the gateway 101 receives multiple service requests, the gateway 101 can identify the target service request belonging to the target service in the multiple service requests, and the target service is a service requiring a time delay lower than a preset threshold, so that the gateway 101 can preferentially forward the target service request. In actual application scenarios, most 5G services have high requirements for the time delay to be processed, such as requiring the time delay to be processed for part of the 5G services to be less than 28 milliseconds. Based on this, in some examples, the gateway 101 can determine whether there is a target service request with a 5G service identifier in the multiple service requests received by the gateway 101, if there is, it indicates that the target service request belongs to the service request of the 5G service, then the gateway 101 can preferentially forward the target service request, and if not, the gateway 101 can forward each service request in turn according to the order of receiving each service request, etc. Further, the gateway 101 can identify the target service request with the identifier of the 5G service and the quality of service (QoS) of low time delay from the multiple service requests, and preferentially forward the target service request.

[0074] In other examples, the gateway 101 can also determine the order of forwarding each service request according to the priority of each service request, at this time, the priority of the target service request is the highest among the priorities of the multiple service requests.

[0075] For ease of understanding, the gateway 101 determines the forwarding order according to the priority of each service request as an example for example description, then the gateway 101 can specifically continue to perform the following step S304 after receiving multiple service processing requests, in order to determine the forwarding order of the multiple service requests.

[0076] S304: The gateway 101 sends an information feedback request to the information collection network element 107 in the MEC network, and the information feedback request is used to request the information collection network element 107 to feed back the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service, and the time delay indication information is used to indicate the time delay of the target service processed on the user equipment 210.

[0077] In this embodiment, the gateway 101 can determine the priority of forwarding the target service request according to the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service, and the time delay indication information is used to indicate the time delay of the target service processed. In actual application, the gateway 101 can obtain the time delay indication information corresponding to each service request through the information collection network element 107, so as to determine the forwarding order of the multiple service requests according to the time delay indication information corresponding to each service request. The time delay indication information corresponding to other service requests except the target service request is obtained in a similar manner as the gateway 101 obtains the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service request, and this embodiment will not be described in detail.

[0078] S305: The information collection network element 107 feeds back the time delay indication information to the gateway 101.

[0079] As an implementation example, the information feedback request sent by the gateway 101 to the information collection network element 107 can carry the identifier of the user equipment and the identifier of the target service, so that the information collection network element 107 can determine the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service executed by the user equipment 210 according to the identifier of the user equipment and the identifier of the target service carried in the information feedback request. Wherein, the information collection network element 107 can collect the time delay indication information corresponding to each service executed by the user equipment 210 in the process of establishing a session of the user equipment 210, and the specific process of establishing a session can be referred to the specific description below, which will not be described here.

[0080] S306: The gateway 101 determines the priority of the target service request according to the received time delay indication information.

[0081] S307: The gateway 101 forwards the target service request in the multiple service requests to the container subnet 102 in priority according to the priority of the target service request.

[0082] In a possible implementation, the latency indication information received by the gateway 101 can be, for example, a network slice and a service quality that the user equipment 210 adopts when performing the target service. Different types of network slices can indicate different sizes of latency. For example, when the user equipment 210 adopts a 5G slice to send a service request, the type of the 5G slice can include, for example, a default slice, a public slice, and other slices. When the type of the 5G slice adopted to send the service request is the default slice or the public slice, the corresponding latency can be 1000 ms (milliseconds), and when the type of the 5G slice is the other slice, the corresponding latency can be any value less than 1000 ms, such as 200 ms.

[0083] For example, the queuing module 1011 in the gateway 101 can calculate the priority of the service request according to the latency corresponding to the network slice and the 5QI corresponding to the service quality, using the following formula (1):

[0084] priority = latency * 5QI (1)

[0085] The smaller the value of priority, the higher the priority of the service request, and the smaller the latency corresponding to the service requirement.

[0086] For each received service request, the queuing module 1011 in the gateway 101 can calculate the priority value corresponding to the service request using the above process, sort the priority values corresponding to the multiple service requests in order from small to large, and use the order as the order in which the gateway 101 forwards the service requests (the service request with the smallest priority value is forwarded first). In this way, the target service request corresponding to the latency-sensitive service (i.e., the target service) has a smaller priority value, and accordingly, the gateway 101 can preferentially send the service request corresponding to the latency-sensitive service, so that the latency of the MEC network providing services for the latency-sensitive service can be reduced due to the preferential sending of the service request corresponding to the service by the gateway 101.

[0087] The gateway 101 can temporarily determine the forwarding order of the service requests as the order in which the gateway 101 receives the service requests, and then determine the priority of each service request according to the time delay indication information, and requeue the service requests according to the priority, and the requeue order is the forwarding order of the service requests. Of course, in other examples, the gateway 101 can directly determine the forwarding order of the service requests according to the priority of each service request after receiving the service requests, and the embodiment is not limited in this regard.

[0088] Of course, the above process is only described as an example, and in other possible implementations, the time delay indication information obtained by the gateway 101 can also be a service type, and different service types correspond to different time delay requirements, such as a game service time delay that can be less than a video playback service time delay, and the like, so that the gateway 101 can preferentially forward service requests with higher time delay requirements according to the service type corresponding to each service request. The correspondence between the service type and the time delay can be pre-set. In the embodiment, the specific implementation of how the gateway 101 determines the forwarding order of the service requests according to the time delay indication information is not limited.

[0089] In further possible implementations, the gateway 101 can also determine whether to forward the service request sent by the user equipment 210 in combination with the location of the user equipment 210 when forwarding the service request. Specifically, when requesting the time delay indication information from the information collection network element 107, the gateway 101 can also request the location of the user equipment 210 from the information collection network element 107, so that the filtering module 1012 in the gateway 101 can further determine whether the location of the user equipment 210 is within a preset location range, which can be a location range served by the gateway 101, for example. When the location of the user equipment 210 is within the preset location range, the gateway 101 can forward the service request according to the priority; and when the location of the user equipment 210 is not within the preset location range, the filtering module 1012 can filter the service request, so that the gateway 101 can refuse to forward the service request, and accordingly, the user equipment 210 can change the request target and resend the service request. In this way, it is possible to avoid the service request sent by the user equipment 210 from experiencing a long network transmission process and causing the time delay of the MEC network to be too long.

[0090] As some examples, the location of the user equipment 210 may, for example, be at least one of: a cell, a cell list, a TA (tracking area), a TA list, MR (measurement report) location information, LCS (location services) location information, and the like network location information; or may be geographic location information represented by latitude and longitude, administrative region, or the like; or may be identification information of a base station accessed by the user equipment 210, and in actual applications, since the location of the base station is generally fixed, when the user equipment 210 accesses the base station, the location corresponding to the base station (or the base station identification) can be taken as the location (geographic location or network location) of the user equipment 210.

[0091] In actual applications, the gateway 101 may, when forwarding the service request (including the target service request), also allocate bandwidth for the service request. Taking forwarding the target service request as an example, the gateway 101 may obtain the network slice type used by the user equipment 210 when executing the target service, and thus determine the bandwidth for forwarding the target service request according to the network slice type. For example, when the user equipment 210 executes the target service using a 5G network slice to transmit the target service request, if the type of the 5G network slice is a default slice or a public slice, the gateway 101 may, by default, allocate a bandwidth of 10% of the total bandwidth for the target service request; and if the type of the 5G network slice is another slice, the gateway 101 may allocate the bandwidth for the target service request according to a preset bandwidth allocation strategy. Alternatively, when the total bandwidth of the gateway 101 is not fully allocated, different service requests may preempt the remaining bandwidth, that is, the gateway 101 may continue to allocate bandwidth for different service requests from the remaining bandwidth, so as to increase the bandwidth allocated for one or more service requests by the gateway 101. Alternatively, the gateway 101 may preempt the bandwidth used for forwarding other service requests, and use the bandwidth preempted to forward the target service request; or increase the bandwidth used for forwarding the target service request by preempting the bandwidth used for forwarding other services; or the gateway 101 may allocate a bandwidth higher than that allocated for any other service request for the target service request, and so on, so that the gateway 101 may reduce the transmission delay of the target service request based on a larger bandwidth.

[0092] S308: The container subnet 102 sends an information feedback request to the information collection network element 107, and the information feedback request is used to request the information collection network element 107 to feed back the delay indication information corresponding to the processing of the target service by the user equipment 210.

[0093] S309: The information collection network element 107 feeds back the delay indication information to the container subnet 102.

[0094] S310: The container subnetwork 102 calculates the priority of the target service request according to the received time delay indication information.

[0095] S311: The container subnetwork 102 preferentially forwards the target service request in the received multiple service requests to the application instance 103 according to the priority of the target service request.

[0096] In actual application, the container subnetwork 102 can receive one or more service requests forwarded by the gateway, therefore, in the embodiment, the container subnetwork 102 can also sort the received multiple service requests after receiving the multiple service requests, and forwards each service request to the corresponding application instance 103 in sequence according to the order.

[0097] Similar to the gateway 101, the container subnetwork 102 can determine the forwarding order of each service request by using the queuing module 1021, so that the container subnetwork 102 forwards each service request to the corresponding application instance 103 in sequence according to the forwarding order. The specific implementation process of the container subnetwork 102 determining the forwarding order of each service request can be referred to the related description of the gateway 101 determining the forwarding order of each service request, and will not be described here.

[0098] It is worth noting that, in the embodiment, the gateway 101 and the container subnetwork 102 preferentially forward the target service request according to the priority of the target service request, in other possible embodiments, only the gateway 101 can forward the service request according to the priority of the service request, at this time, the container subnetwork 102 can forward each service request in sequence according to the receiving order of the service request (or by using other ways); or, only the container subnetwork 102 can forward each service request according to the priority of the service request, and the gateway 101 can forward each service request in sequence according to the receiving order of the service request (or by using other ways) when forwarding the service request to the container subnetwork 102; or, when the gateway 101 and the container subnetwork 102 both forward the service request according to the priority of the service request, the gateway 101 can also provide the priority information corresponding to the service request to the container subnetwork 102 when forwarding the service request to the container subnetwork 102, for example, the priority information (priority value) can be carried in a specific field of the service request, so that the container subnetwork 102 can no longer need to obtain the time delay indication information from the information collection network element and determine the time delay of the service request.

[0099] It is worth noting that, Figure 2The MEC network shown is an example of forwarding device 100 including gateway 101 and container subnet 102. In other possible embodiments, forwarding device 100 can only include gateway 101, or forwarding device 100 only includes container subnet 102, or forwarding device 100 is specifically other possible devices, and the present embodiment does not limit the specific implementation of forwarding device 100; accordingly, for the forwarding device 100 using other implementation manners, the specific process of forwarding the target service request can refer to the process description above, and the present embodiment will not be described again.

[0100] In addition, Figure 3 The gateway 101 and the container subnet 102 shown in the gateway 101 and the container subnet 102 in the information collection network element 107 obtain the delay indication information (and the location information of the user equipment 210) only as an example embodiment, for example, in other possible embodiments, the user plane function network element 230 can also provide the delay indication information to the gateway 101 and / or the container subnet 102, etc., and in the present embodiment, the specific implementation of the gateway 101 and the container subnet 102 from which network element the delay indication information is obtained is not limited.

[0101] The above Figure 3 In the method embodiment shown, the specific implementation process of the MEC network satisfying the delay requirement of the user equipment 210 requesting service is mainly introduced. In actual application, the user equipment 210 also needs to establish a session for the user equipment 210 before requesting service from the MEC network, so that the user equipment 210 can send a service request to the MEC network based on the session. Next, combined with the accompanying Figure 4 , the specific implementation process of establishing a session for the user equipment 210 is introduced in detail. As Figure 4 shown, the specific process of establishing a session can be applied to the network architecture as Figure 2 shown, the process can specifically include:

[0102] S401: The information collection network element 107 subscribes to the session message to the user plane function network element 230.

[0103] Among them, the user plane function network element 230 can be configured with an adapter module 231, as Figure 2As shown, the user plane function network element 230 can utilize the adapter module 231 to implement communication interaction with the information collection network element 107. Further, the user equipment 210 and the application instance 103 can be in different network spaces, and therefore, the adapter module 231 can also convert the source IP / MAC address of the service request when the user equipment 210 subsequently requests services from the application instance 103, such as converting the source IP / MAC address of the user equipment 210 included in the service request to a source IP / MAC address applicable to the network space in which the application instance 103 is located.

[0104] By way of example, the session established for the user plane function network element 230 in this embodiment can be a protocol data unit (PDU) session, or other applicable session, etc.

[0105] S402: The user equipment 210 sends a session establishment request to the 5G control plane network element 240 through the radio access network element 220, and the session establishment request is used to request the 5G control plane network element 240 to establish a session for the user equipment 210.

[0106] In actual application, the user equipment 210 can first complete state activation, such as activation from a dormant state to an active state, etc., and then apply for a session from the 5G control plane network element 240 after completing the state activation.

[0107] In some embodiments, the session establishment request sent by the user equipment 210 to the 5G control plane network element 240 can carry an identifier of the user equipment 210 to inform the 5G control plane network element 240 of the object of the session to be established. In addition, the session establishment request can also include information such as a network slice type used by the user equipment 210 when performing one or more services, quality of service (such as quality of service rules, data packet filtering list), etc. Further, the session establishment request can also include network slice rule information such as a user equipment route selection policy (URSP), etc. Correspondingly, the 5G control plane network element 240 can store one or more types of information carried in the session establishment request.

[0108] S403: The 5G control plane network element 240 issues a traffic rule to the user plane function network element 230.

[0109] As some examples, the traffic rule issued by the 5G control plane network element 240 can be a traffic distribution rule, which is used to determine which traffic (such as service requests) is forwarded to the MEC network and which traffic is forwarded to the data center. Of course, in actual application, the traffic rule issued by the 5G control plane network element 240 can also be other rules, etc., which are not limited in this embodiment.

[0110] S404: The user plane function network element 230 sends a notification message to the information collection network element 107 according to the session message pre-subscribed by the information collection network element 107, to notify the information collection network element 107 that the session for the user equipment 210 has been successfully established.

[0111] Exemplarily, the session message can include the identifier of the user equipment 210.

[0112] S405: The information collection network element 107 collects the network slice type and the quality of service information used by the user equipment 210 when performing one or more services from the 5G control plane network element 240, so as to provide the gateway 101 and / or the container subnet 102 with the information.

[0113] Exemplarily, the information collection network element 107 can send an information acquisition request for the user equipment 210 to the 5G control plane network element 240, so that the 5G control plane network element 240 feeds back the network slice type and the quality of service information of the user equipment 210 to the information collection network element 107 based on the information acquisition request.

[0114] Further, since the user equipment 210 and the application instance 103 can be located in different network spaces, the information collection network element 107 can also acquire the source IP / MAC address of the user equipment 210 and the converted source IP / MAC address of the user equipment 210 by the user plane function network element 230. Based on this, the embodiment can further include the following step S406.

[0115] S406: The information collection network element 107 acquires the source IP / MAC address of the user equipment 210 and the converted source IP / MAC address of the user equipment 210 from the user plane function network element 230.

[0116] The user plane function network element 230 can specifically implement the conversion of the source IP / MAC address by a pre-configured adapter module 231.

[0117] S407: The information collection network element 107 acquires the location of the user equipment 210 from the radio access network element 220.

[0118] In this way, when the user equipment 210 requests a service from the MEC network, the information collection network element 107 can provide the gateway 101 in the MEC network with the location information of the user equipment 210, so that the gateway 101 can determine whether to filter the service request from the user equipment 210 according to the location information. For example, when the location of the user equipment 210 is beyond the service range of the gateway 101, the gateway 101 can refuse to forward the service request to the container subnet 102, etc.

[0119] S408: Information collection network element 107 reports the successful session creation result to 5G control plane network element 240.

[0120] S409: The 5G control plane network element 240 returns successfully created session information to the user equipment 210.

[0121] In this way, user equipment 210 can successfully create a session, and then user equipment 210 can send the corresponding service request to the MEC network based on the session when performing the target service.

[0122] It is worth noting that the above process for creating a session for user equipment 210 is only an illustrative example. In actual applications, some steps can be added or removed, or the execution order of each step can be adjusted. For example, in other possible session creation processes, only steps S401 to S404 and steps S408 to S409 can be executed; or, if all steps S401 to S409 are executed, the execution order of steps S405 to S407 can be adjusted.

[0123] The above Figure 3 In the illustrated embodiment, gateway 101 and / or container subnet 102 obtain delay indication information from information collection network element 107 to determine the priority of forwarding each service request. In other possible embodiments, gateway 101 and / or container subnet 102 may also directly obtain the delay indication information from the service request. See also Figure 5 This illustrates a flowchart of another traffic processing method. Among them, Figure 5 The flow processing method shown can be applied to Figure 6 In the network architecture shown, and Figure 6 The MEC network includes gateway 101, container subnet 102, application instances 103 (as well as MEC platform 104, virtualization infrastructure 105, and MEC platform management 106), etc. Both gateway 101 and container subnet 102 forward business requests based on the priority of the business requests. Figure 5 The traffic processing method shown may specifically include:

[0124] S501: When user equipment 210 is performing a target service, user equipment 210 sends a target service request for the target service to radio access network element 220. The target service request is used to request application instance 103 in MEC network to use the application running on it to provide user equipment 210 with the service for the target service.

[0125] S502: Wireless access network element 220 forwards the target service request to user plane function element 230.

[0126] S503: The user plane function network element 230 modifies the message header of the target service request, and adds the time delay indication information and the location information of the user equipment 210 and other parameters in the message header.

[0127] For example, the time delay indication information can be a network slice (such as a 5G slice) and quality of service information. In other possible embodiments, the time delay indication information can be a service type and the like, and different service types can be used to indicate different sizes of time delay.

[0128] S504: The user plane function network element 230 forwards the modified target service request to the gateway 101 in the MEC network.

[0129] S505: The gateway 101 parses the location of the user equipment 210 from the message header of the received target service request, and determines whether to filter the target service request originating from the user equipment 210.

[0130] In this embodiment, when the gateway 101 determines that the location of the user equipment 210 is not within the service range of the gateway 101, the gateway 101 can determine to filter the target service request of the user equipment 210, and when the gateway 101 determines that the location of the user equipment 210 is within the service range of the gateway 101, the gateway 101 can determine not to filter the target service request and complete the subsequent forwarding process.

[0131] S506: When it is determined that the target service request of the user equipment 210 is not filtered, the gateway 101 parses the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service executed by the user equipment 210 from the message header of the target service request, and determines the priority of the target service request according to the time delay indication information.

[0132] S507: The gateway 101 forwards the target service request in the multiple service requests received by the gateway 101 to the container subnet 102 according to the priority of the service request.

[0133] In this embodiment, the gateway 101 can calculate the priority corresponding to each service request for each received service request, so as to determine the forwarding order of each service request according to the priority of each service request, and then forward the service request based on the order. When the priority corresponding to the target service request is the highest among the priorities corresponding to the multiple service requests, the gateway 101 preferentially forwards the target service request to the container subnet 102.

[0134] S508: The container subnet 102 parses the time delay indication information corresponding to the target service from the message header of the target service request, and determines the priority of the target service request according to the time delay indication information.

[0135] S509: The container subnet 102 forwards the target service request in the plurality of service requests received by the container subnet 102 to the corresponding application instance 103 according to the priority of the target service request.

[0136] Similar to the gateway 101, the container subnet 102 can also calculate the priority corresponding to each service request according to the time delay indication information carried in the message header of each service request, so as to determine the forwarding order of each service request according to the priority of each service request, and then forward the service request to the corresponding application instance 103 based on the order. When the priority corresponding to the target service request is the highest among the priorities corresponding to the plurality of service requests, the container subnet 102 preferentially forwards the target service request to the application instance 103.

[0137] S510: The application instance 103 provides corresponding services based on the target service request by using the application program carried thereon.

[0138] Wherein, before the user equipment 210 sends the target service request, a session can be established for the user equipment 210, and the specific implementation can refer to the related description of the embodiment shown in Figure 4 , or the existing implementation of establishing a session is used to establish a session for the user equipment 210, and the embodiment will not be repeated here.

[0139] It should be noted that, Figure 3 , Figure 5 In the embodiment shown in the above, the forwarding device 100 (including the gateway 101 and the container subnet 102) can use the same channel (i.e. the path between the forwarding device 100 and the application container 103) to sequentially forward each service request when forwarding the plurality of service requests (including the target service request). In other possible embodiments, the forwarding device 100 and the application container 103 can have multiple channels, such as including a first channel and a second channel. In this way, when the forwarding device 100 is forwarding the plurality of service requests, if the forwarding device 100 determines that the target service request in the plurality of service requests meets the target service condition, such as the highest priority of the target service request, the forwarding device 100 can send the target service request to the application instance 103 through the first channel matched with the target service condition, and the forwarding device 103 can use the second channel to forward the other service requests in the plurality of service requests. In this way, the forwarding device 100 can use different channels to forward different service requests, which can reduce the transmission time delay of each service request, and further reduce the time delay of the MEC network in providing services for the services corresponding to each service request.

[0140] The above is described in combination with Figures 1 to 6The MEC network and the traffic processing method provided by the embodiments of the present application are introduced in detail. The traffic processing device provided by the embodiments of the present application will be introduced from the perspective of functional units in combination with the accompanying drawings.

[0141] Referring to Figure 7 the structural schematic diagram of the traffic processing device, the traffic processing device 700 can be applied to the forwarding device 100 in the MEC network as shown in Figure 2 or Figure 6 The traffic processing device 700 comprises:

[0142] The communication module 701 is configured to receive a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element.

[0143] The forwarding module 702 is configured to preferentially forward a target service request belonging to a target service in the plurality of service requests, so that a target application instance processes the target service request of the target service, and the target service requires a processing delay lower than a target threshold.

[0144] In a possible implementation, the target service is a fifth generation mobile communication technology (5G) service.

[0145] In a possible implementation, the traffic processing device 700 further comprises:

[0146] The identification module 703 is configured to identify, from the plurality of service requests, the target service request with an identifier of a fifth generation mobile communication technology (5G) service and a quality of service (QoS) of low latency.

[0147] In a possible implementation, the forwarding module 702 is specifically configured to determine, according to the identifier of the 5G service and the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request, that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests, or determine, according to the identifier of the 5G service carried by the target service request, that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests, or determine, according to the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request, that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests; and preferentially forward the target service request based on the priority.

[0148] In a possible implementation, the traffic processing device 700 further comprises:

[0149] The bandwidth acquisition module 704 is configured to acquire a bandwidth for preferentially forwarding the target service request.

[0150] In a possible implementation, the bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than the bandwidth for forwarding other service requests. In a possible implementation, the bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than the bandwidth for forwarding other service requests. In a possible implementation, the bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than the bandwidth for forwarding other service requests.

[0151] In a possible implementation, the traffic processing apparatus 700 further includes:

[0152] The bandwidth obtaining module 704 is configured to preempt bandwidth used for forwarding other service requests to forward the target service request.

[0153] In a possible implementation, the traffic processing apparatus 700 further includes:

[0154] The rejection forwarding module 705 is configured to reject forwarding the target service request when a location of a user equipment sending the target service request is out of a service range of the forwarding device.

[0155] In a possible implementation, the application instance is an application container.

[0156] The traffic processing apparatus 700 according to the embodiments of the present application can correspond to performing the methods described in the embodiments of the present application, and the above and other operations and / or functions of each module of the traffic processing apparatus 700 are respectively to realize the corresponding procedures of each method performed by the forwarding device in Figure 3 、 Figure 5 In order to be brief, the above will not be described here again.

[0157] In each of the above embodiments, the forwarding device 100 (including the gateway 101 and / or the container subnet 102) involved in the traffic processing process can be implemented in a separate hardware device, and in other possible implementations, it can also be software configured on the forwarding device, and by running the software on the forwarding device, the forwarding device can realize the functions of the above-mentioned forwarding device 100. Next, the forwarding device 100 involved in the traffic processing process will be described in detail.

[0158] Figure 8 A structural schematic diagram of a forwarding device is provided. Figure 8 The forwarding device 100 shown can be specifically used to implement the functions of the forwarding device 100 in the above Figures 2 to 6 embodiments.

[0159] The forwarding device 100 includes a bus 801, a processor 802, a communication interface 803 and a memory 804. The processor 802, the memory 804 and the communication interface 803 communicate through the bus 801. The bus 801 can be a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus or an extended industry standard architecture (EISA) bus, etc. The bus can be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, etc. For the convenience of representation, Figure 8Only one bus or one type of bus might exist, however. The communication interface 803 is used to communicate with external devices such as receiving the target service request sent by the user plane function network element, etc.

[0160] The processor 802 can be a central processing unit (CPU). The memory 804 can include volatile memory (e.g., random access memory (RAM)), non-volatile memory (e.g., read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, HDD, or SSD), or a combination thereof.

[0161] The memory 804 stores executable code that the processor 802 executes to perform the method performed by the forwarding device 100.

[0162] Specifically, in the case of implementing the forwarding device 100 as shown in the embodiment, and Figures 2 to 6 Specifically, in the case of implementing the forwarding device 100 as shown in the embodiment, and Figures 2 to 6 In the case of implementing the forwarding device 100 as described in the embodiment by software, the software or program code required to perform the functions of the forwarding device 100 in the method is stored in the memory 804, and the interaction of the forwarding device 100 with other devices is implemented through the communication interface 803, such as the forwarding device 100 receiving the target service request sent by the user plane function network element 230 through the communication interface 803. The processor is configured to execute the instructions in the memory 804 to implement the method performed by the forwarding device 100. Figures 2 to 6 In addition, the embodiment of the present application further provides a computer readable storage medium, the computer readable storage medium stores instructions, when the instructions are executed on the forwarding device, the forwarding device executes the method described in the above embodiment.

[0163] The embodiment of the present application further provides a computer program product, when the computer program product is executed by a plurality of computers, the plurality of computers execute any one of the foregoing data providing methods. The computer program product can be a software installation package, in the case of needing to use any one of the foregoing data providing methods, the computer program product can be downloaded and executed on the computer.

[0164]

[0165] ​In addition, it should be noted that the apparatus embodiments described above are merely illustrative, wherein the units described as separate components can or can not be physically separate, and the components displayed as units can or can not be physical units, i.e., can be located in one place, or can be distributed on multiple network units. Part or all of the modules can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the embodiment. In addition, the connection relationship between the modules in the apparatus embodiments provided in the present application indicates that there is a communication connection between them, which can be implemented as one or more communication buses or signal lines.

[0166] Through the description of the above embodiments, those skilled in the art can clearly understand that the present application can be realized by means of software and the necessary general hardware, and of course can also be realized by special hardware including special integrated circuits, special CPUs, special memories, special components, etc. Generally, functions completed by computer programs can be easily realized by corresponding hardware, and the specific hardware structure for realizing the same function can also be various, such as analog circuit, digital circuit or special circuit, etc. However, for the present application, software program implementation is a better embodiment. Based on this understanding, the technical solutions of the present application can be embodied in the form of software products, which are stored in readable storage media, such as computer floppy disks, U disks, mobile hard disks, ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks, etc., including a plurality of instructions for making a forwarding device (which can be a personal computer, a training device, or a network device, etc.) execute the methods described in various embodiments of the present application.

[0167] In the above embodiments, all or part can be realized by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof. When realized by software, it can be realized in the form of a computer program product in whole or in part.

[0168] The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer program instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, the processes or functions described in the embodiments of the present application are generated in whole or in part. The computer can be a general-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable devices. The computer instructions can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions can be transmitted from one website, computer, training device or data center to another website, computer, training device or data center through wired (such as coaxial cable, optical fiber, digital subscriber line (DSL)) or wireless (such as infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.). The computer-readable storage medium can be any available medium that can be stored by the computer or a data storage device such as a training device, a data center, etc. integrated with one or more available media sets. The available media can be a magnetic medium (for example, a floppy disk, a hard disk, a magnetic tape), an optical medium (for example, a DVD), or a semiconductor medium (for example, a solid state disk (SSD)), etc.

Claims

1. A multi-access edge computing network, comprising: The multi-access edge computing network comprises a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is configured to process a target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold; The forwarding device is configured to receive a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element, and when a location of a user equipment sending a target service request is within a service range of the forwarding device, preferentially forward a target service request belonging to the target service among the plurality of service requests, and when the location of the user equipment sending the target service request is out of the service range of the forwarding device, reject to forward the target service request, the target service request being configured to request a service for the target service; The target application instance is configured to process the target service request of the target service.

2. The multi-access edge compute network of claim 1, wherein, The target service is a 5th generation mobile communication technology (5G) service.

3. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The forwarding device is configured to identify the target service request with an identifier of a 5th generation mobile communication technology (5G) service and a quality of service (QoS) of low latency from the plurality of service requests.

4. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The forwarding device is configured to determine that a priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the identifier of the 5G service and the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request, or determine that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of the other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the identifier of the 5G service carried by the target service request, or determine that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of the other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the QoS of low latency carried by the target service request. The forwarding device is configured to preferentially forward the target service request based on the priority.

5. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The forwarding device is configured to acquire a bandwidth for preferentially forwarding the target service request.

6. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than that for forwarding the other service requests.

7. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The forwarding device is configured to preempt the bandwidth for forwarding the other service requests to forward the target service request.

8. The multi-access edge compute network of claim 1, wherein, The forwarding device comprises: A gateway configured to receive the target service request and forward the target service request to a container subnet; The container subnet is configured to receive the target service request and forward the target service request to the target application instance; The gateway preferentially forwards the target service request, or the container subnet preferentially forwards the target service request, or both the gateway and the container subnet preferentially forward the target service request.

9. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein The user plane function network element is configured to receive the target service request from a radio access network element.

10. The multi-access edge computing network of claim 1, wherein the user plane function network element is configured to receive the target traffic request from a user equipment. The application instance is an application container.

11. The multi-access edge compute network of claim 1, wherein, The multi-access edge computing network further comprises:

12. The multi-access edge compute network of any of claims 1 to 11, wherein, An information collection network element configured to establish a protocol data unit session for a user equipment so that the forwarding device receives the target traffic request from the user equipment. The network comprises the multi-access edge computing network of any of claims 1-12.

13. A network, characterized by The network comprises:

14. The network of claim 13, wherein, A user plane function network element configured to send the target traffic request to the forwarding device. The network comprises:

15. The network of claim 14, wherein, A radio access network network element configured to send the target traffic request to the user plane function network element. The network comprises:

16. The network of claim 15, wherein, A user equipment configured to send the target traffic request to a radio access network network element so that the user plane function network element receives the target traffic request from the radio access network network element. The multi-access edge computing network comprises a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance of the plurality of application instances is configured to process a target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold.

17. A multi-access edge compute network, comprising: The forwarding device is configured to receive a plurality of traffic requests from a user plane function network element, and when a location of a user equipment sending a target traffic request does not exceed a service range of the forwarding device, forward a target traffic request of the target service among the plurality of traffic requests using a first channel, the first channel being different from a second channel used to send other traffic requests to other application instances, and when the location of the user equipment sending the target traffic request exceeds the service range of the forwarding device, reject forwarding the target traffic request, the target traffic request being configured to request a service for the target service. The target application instance is configured to process the target traffic request of the target service. The method is applied to a multi-access edge computing network comprising a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance of the plurality of application instances is configured to process a target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold, and the method comprises:

18. A traffic processing method, characterized by, The forwarding device receives a plurality of traffic requests from a user plane function network element. When a location of a user equipment sending a target traffic request does not exceed a service range of the forwarding device, the forwarding device preferentially forwards a target traffic request of the target service among the plurality of traffic requests, and when the location of the user equipment sending the target traffic request exceeds the service range of the forwarding device, the forwarding device rejects forwarding the target traffic request, the target traffic request being configured to request a service for the target service. The target application instance processes the target traffic request of the target service. The target service is a 5th generation, 5G, service.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein, The method further comprises:

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, The forwarding device identifies the target traffic request having an identifier of a 5th generation, 5G, service and a quality of service, QoS, of low latency from the plurality of traffic requests. The forwarding device preferentially forwards a target traffic request of the target service among the plurality of traffic requests comprises:

21. The method of claim 18, wherein, ​ The forwarding device determines that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the 5G service identifier and the low-latency quality of service (QoS) carried by the target service request, or determines that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the 5G service identifier carried by the target service request, or determines that the priority of the target service request is higher than that of other service requests in the plurality of requests according to the low-latency quality of service (QoS) carried by the target service request. The forwarding device preferentially forwards the target service request based on the priority.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein, The method further includes: The forwarding device acquires bandwidth for preferentially forwarding the target service request.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein, The bandwidth for forwarding the target service request is higher than that for forwarding other service requests.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein, The method further includes: The forwarding device preoccupies bandwidth for forwarding other service requests to forward the target service request.

25. The method of claim 19, wherein, The forwarding device includes a gateway and a container subnet, and preferentially forwards a target service request belonging to the target service among the plurality of service requests, including: The gateway receives the target service request and forwards the target service request to the container subnet; The container subnet receives the target service request and forwards the target service request to the target application instance; The gateway preferentially forwards the target service request, or the container subnet preferentially forwards the target service request, or both the gateway and the container subnet preferentially forward the target service request.

26. The method of claim 19, wherein, The application instance is an application container.

27. The method according to any one of claims 19 to 26, characterized in that, The multi-access edge computing network further includes an information collection network element, and the method further includes: The information collection network element establishes a protocol data unit session for a user equipment, so that the forwarding device receives the target service request of the user equipment.

28. A traffic processing method, characterized by, The traffic processing method is applied to a multi-access edge computing network, the multi-access edge computing network includes a forwarding device and a plurality of application instances, wherein a target application instance in the plurality of application instances is used to process a target service requiring a latency lower than a target threshold, and the method includes: The forwarding device receives a plurality of service requests from a user plane function network element; When the location of a user equipment sending a target service request does not exceed the service range of the forwarding device, the forwarding device forwards a target service request belonging to the target service among the plurality of service requests using a first channel, the first channel being different from a second channel used to send other service requests to other application instances, and when the location of the user equipment sending the target service request exceeds the service range of the forwarding device, the forwarding device rejects to forward the target service request, the target service request being used to request a service for the target service; The target application instance processes the target service request of the target service.

29. A computer-readable storage medium, characterized in that, The computer-readable storage medium stores instructions, when executed on a plurality of computing devices, cause the plurality of computing devices to perform the method of any one of claims 18 to 27, or perform the method of claim 28.

30. A forwarding device, comprising: the forwarding device processor and memory; the memory, configured to store computer instructions; the processor, configured to execute the operation steps of the method according to any one of claims 18 to 27, or the operation steps of the method according to claim 28, according to the computer instructions.

31. A computer program product comprising instructions which, when executed on a forwarding device, cause the forwarding device to perform the operation steps of the method according to any one of claims 18 to 27, or the operation steps of the method according to claim 28.

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