MME Failover via Active-Active Heartbeat Coordination
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Solution Overview
Problem
As Evolved Packet Core (EPC) networks increase in size and complexity, efficiently handling control signaling becomes challenging, particularly in scenarios where one Mobility Management Entity (MME) device becomes unavailable, leading to potential network disruptions and resource bottlenecks during failover processes.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an active-active MME configuration with periodic heartbeat messages to detect unavailability and facilitate seamless failover, along with data backup and selective UE registration to manage network resources effectively, allowing other active MME devices to take over without significant disruption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If an active-standby MME configuration is used, then network reliability is improved during failover, but processing delays increase and network efficiency deteriorates due to the standby device being idle
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from a static active-standby configuration to a dynamic active-active configuration where both MME devices continuously process control plane signaling. The system dynamically detects device unavailability through heartbeat messages and automatically redistributes workload, eliminating idle standby periods and reducing processing delays while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary data synchronization between MME devices through periodic database backups and heartbeat messages. This ensures that when failover is needed, the backup device already has current subscriber data, enabling immediate takeover without waiting for data transfer, thus reducing processing delays.
2Productivity
If more MME devices are added to handle increased user load, then network capacity is improved, but device complexity and resource management difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the control plane signaling workload across multiple active MME devices, with each device handling a portion of the total user load. This segmentation allows the network to scale capacity by adding more MME devices while maintaining manageable complexity through standardized heartbeat-based coordination and automatic failover protocols.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent makes all MME devices universal and multi-functional, where each device can handle control plane signaling for any user equipment. Through database synchronization and heartbeat coordination, any MME device can take over any user's signaling tasks, simplifying resource management while increasing overall network capacity.
3Reliability
If database data is continuously synchronized between MME devices, then failover reliability is improved, but network bandwidth consumption and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements periodic database backups and heartbeat messages between MME devices instead of continuous synchronization. This periodic action maintains failover reliability by ensuring data is synchronized at regular intervals while significantly reducing network bandwidth consumption and processing overhead compared to continuous synchronization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates backup copies of subscriber data in synchronized databases across multiple MME devices. This copying approach ensures that when failover occurs, the backup device has the necessary data immediately available without requiring continuous data transmission, thus reducing bandwidth consumption while maintaining reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, performed by a first mobility management entity (MME) device in a network, includes receiving, from a second MME device, standby database information associated with user equipment (UE) registered with the second MME device; detecting that the second MME device has failed or lost connectivity; designating that the UEs registered with the second MME device will be registered with the first MME device, in response to detecting that the second MME device has failed or lost connectivity; detecting a request to activate a particular UE registered with the second MME device; and paging the particular UE to register with the first MME device, using the standby database information and in response to detecting the request to activate the particular UE.