Graph Database for Network Service Provisioning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Deploying and managing network services in computer networks is time-consuming and costly due to the need for manual provisioning and evaluation of resources, especially in response to network events like failures, which requires substantial human resources and time.
Innovation Solution
A graph database is used to represent services, network resources, and their relationships, enabling a software-defined networking (SDN) controller to validate and provision services efficiently by querying available resources and automatically reconfigure them in real-time in response to network events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If manual provisioning of services is used, then services can be deployed with existing techniques, but the process requires substantial time and human resources to determine network resource availability and evaluate multiple resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical provisioning processes with an automated electronic system. The SDN controller automatically queries the graph database to evaluate network resource availability and provisions services without human intervention, substituting the manual evaluation process with automated computational queries that traverse the graph database to determine resource availability and service feasibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service provisioning where the SDN controller autonomously determines resource availability, evaluates multiple network resources, and provisions services independently. The graph database structure allows the system to self-evaluate resource capabilities and relationships, eliminating the need for human operators to manually assess each resource's suitability for service deployment.
2Reliability
If manual re-provisioning is performed in response to network events, then services can be re-configured after failures, but the process requires time-consuming evaluation of alternative network resources and their capabilities
Solution Approach 1:
The graph database pre-structures all network resource information, capabilities, and relationships in a query-optimized format before failures occur. When network events happen, the SDN controller can immediately query the pre-organized graph database to evaluate alternative resources without needing to gather or organize data during the re-provisioning process, enabling rapid failover while maintaining reliable service restoration.
3Ease of operation
If conventional data modeling techniques are used, then services can be managed with traditional approaches, but the validation and provisioning requests for network services is slower compared to graph database techniques
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from traditional hierarchical or tabular data models to a graph-based dimensional structure that naturally represents network resource relationships. This dimensional change allows the SDN controller to traverse relationships between services, resources, and constraints in parallel through graph queries, significantly accelerating validation and provisioning speeds while maintaining comprehensive service management capabilities through the graph's ability to model complex interconnections.
Data Source
AI summary
In general, techniques are described for representing services, network resources, and relationships between such services and resources in a graph database with which to validate, provision, and manage the services in near real-time. In one example, a controller device includes at least one processor; and at least one memory to store a graph database comprising a graph that represents network resources and relationships between network resources. The controller device receives, at an application programming interface, a data-interchange formatted message that indicates a service request to configure a network service; queries, at least a portion of the plurality of the graph, to determine whether a set of the plurality of network resources can satisfy the service request to provision the network service within the network; and configures the set of the plurality of network resources to provide the network service.