Centralized Policy Management for Gateway Packet Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing number of gateways in LTE networks leads to a significant increase in network operation and maintenance costs due to the need for extensive configuration, updating, and maintenance of policy libraries across multiple gateways.
Innovation Solution
A centralized approach where a gateway control device manages a policy library and sends processing policies to gateway forwarding devices based on packet characteristic information, eliminating the need for forwarding devices to store policy libraries and allowing for centralized policy matching and execution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If policy libraries are deployed in each gateway to enable local packet processing, then packet processing capability is improved, but network operation and maintenance costs increase due to extensive configuration and updating across multiple gateways
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the gateway into two functional components: a gateway control device that stores and manages the policy library, and gateway forwarding devices that execute packet processing. This segmentation centralizes policy management while distributing processing capabilities, resolving the contradiction between maintaining packet processing capability and reducing operational complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway control device acts as an intermediary between the centralized policy library and multiple forwarding devices. It receives packet information from forwarding devices, performs policy matching, and returns processing instructions, thereby eliminating the need for each forwarding device to maintain its own policy library while preserving local processing capabilities.
2Adaptability or versatility
If gateway quantity is increased to meet user requirements, then service coverage is improved, but maintenance workload increases due to homogenous maintenance across many gateways
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway control device serves as a universal policy management unit that can serve multiple forwarding devices simultaneously. By centralizing the policy library in the control device, the same policy management infrastructure supports an arbitrary number of forwarding devices, enabling service expansion without proportionally increasing maintenance complexity.
3Speed
If policy libraries are stored in each gateway forwarding device, then processing speed is improved, but configuration and updating becomes inefficient due to homogenous maintenance work
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway control device pre-loads and caches frequently accessed policy information in its local memory. This preliminary action allows the control device to quickly retrieve and return policy matching results to forwarding devices, maintaining fast processing speeds while enabling centralized updates without requiring synchronization across multiple distributed policy libraries.
Data Source
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AI summary
Embodiments of the present invention provide a packet processing method, apparatus, and system, and relate to the commutations field. A policy library is deployed on a gateway control device in a centralized manner, and packet identification and policy execution are deployed on each gateway forwarding device, to effectively control network operation and maintenance costs. The solution includes: receiving, by a gateway control device, packet characteristic information that is of a first packet and that is sent by a gateway forwarding device, where the packet characteristic information is obtained after the gateway forwarding device performs packet inspection on the first packet; searching, by the gateway control device according to the packet characteristic information of the first packet, a prestored policy library for a first processing policy corresponding to the packet characteristic information; and sending, by the gateway control device, the first processing policy to the gateway forwarding device, so that the gateway forwarding device executes a packet processing action in the first processing policy.