NF Discovery Profile Overrides for Geo-Redundant Failover Connections
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Solution Overview
Problem
Consumer NFs and SCPs in 5G networks face latency and dropped messages due to the lack of pre-established HTTP connections with alternate producer NFs when the primary NF fails, as traffic distribution is based on preferred locality, leading to egress message queues and inefficiencies during failover.
Innovation Solution
The method involves overriding the preferred locality attribute value by using preferred location and traffic distribution attribute values to facilitate a desired traffic distribution among producer NFs, by modifying NF profiles to include fake capacity values based on traffic distribution percentages, allowing for pre-established connections with geo-redundant NFs to handle failover efficiently.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traffic distribution is based on preferred locality attribute values, then network function selection follows locality preferences, but HTTP connections are not pre-established with alternate producer NFs causing latency and message drops during failover
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-establishing HTTP connections with alternate producer NFs during the NF discovery phase. When the NRF returns multiple NF profiles in response to a discovery request, the consumer NF or SCP establishes HTTP connections with all returned NFs in advance, not just the most preferred one. This ensures that when the primary NF fails, the connection is already established and traffic can be redirected immediately without connection setup latency.
2Device complexity
If HTTP connections are established only with the most preferred producer NF, then connection management is simplified, but egress message queues grow and messages are dropped when the primary NF fails
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making the connection establishment behavior dependent on the specific NF profile characteristics returned by the NRF. Each NF profile in the discovery response is evaluated and connections are established with NFs based on their individual attributes and the traffic distribution requirements. This allows the system to establish connections with multiple NFs when needed while maintaining simplified management through automated NRF-driven profile selection.
3Loss of time
If multiple HTTP connections are pre-established with alternate producer NFs, then failover latency is reduced, but connection management complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces the NRF as an intermediary that manages the complexity of connection establishment. The NRF provides NF profiles with attributes that guide the consumer NF or SCP in determining which connections to establish. The intermediary approach allows the system to pre-establish multiple connections when needed while offloading the complex decision-making about which NFs to connect to the NRF's profile management capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for overriding a preferred locality attribute value using preferred location attribute values and traffic distribution attribute values to facilitate a desired traffic distribution among producer NFs includes receiving, from a query originator, an NF discovery request including a target NF type attribute value and a preferred locality attribute value. The method further includes selecting NF profiles that have an NF type attribute value that matches the target NF type attribute value and a locality attribute value that matches a preferred location attribute value mapped to the preferred locality attribute value. The method further includes modifying at least one attribute value in the NF profiles according to traffic distribution attribute values to achieve a predetermined distribution of SBI request message traffic among producer NFs by the query originator. The method further includes generating and sending an NF discovery response including the NF profiles.