Management Node for Application Function Chaining Across Zones
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The existing technologies lack a proposed management and orchestration (MANO) framework for constructing an Application Function Chaining (AFC) environment, which is essential for efficiently deploying and managing application functions across multiple management domains and computing resource bases.
Innovation Solution
A communication device and method that operates as a management node within a network zone, acquiring information from a second zone to calculate the deployment destination of application functions (AFs) based on resource information, enabling efficient deployment and management of Chained-AFs across multiple zones.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If application functions are deployed across multiple management domains and computing resource bases, then resource utilization and service availability are improved, but system complexity and deployment management difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a deployment manager as an intermediary component that centralizes the management of AF deployment across multiple management domains. The deployment manager receives deployment requests, determines optimal destinations by evaluating resource information from multiple domains, and coordinates the deployment process, thereby simplifying the complexity of managing distributed AF deployments while improving resource utilization and service availability.
2Productivity
If AF deployment decisions are made autonomously without centralized management, then deployment speed is improved, but deployment precision and resource optimization deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having the deployment manager pre-establish communication channels with multiple management domains and pre-gather resource information before actual AF deployment. This allows the system to quickly make deployment decisions when requests arrive, maintaining high deployment speed while ensuring precise resource allocation through centralized evaluation of pre-collected resource data from multiple domains.
3Manufacturing precision
If resource information is collected from multiple management domains, then deployment optimization is improved, but information acquisition time and system overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The deployment manager performs preliminary resource information collection from multiple management domains before actual deployment decisions are required. By proactively gathering and caching resource information in advance, the system reduces the time required for information acquisition during actual deployment operations while maintaining accurate and optimized deployment decisions based on comprehensive multi-domain resource data.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a communication device that operates as a management node in a first zone being a management domain on a network, the communication device including a communication unit that executes communication with another node and a control unit that controls communication executed by the communication unit. The control unit operates such that, when having received, from a user, a request regarding an application that chains one or more application functions (AFs) to act on a packet flowing in the network, the control unit acquires information regarding the application from a second zone being a management domain other than the first zone, and then calculates a deployment destination of the AFs in the network including the first zone and the second zone based on the information.