NFV Control Device Mapping Service Availability Levels
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current NFV frameworks face challenges in managing end-to-end service availability and reliability, particularly due to incompatibilities in Service Availability Levels (SAL) between vendors and service providers, and lack of visibility and orchestration capabilities for virtual resource availability and reliability attributes, leading to inefficient resource allocation and recovery mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
A control device and resource manager that derive and map service availability levels from descriptors to commissioning values, enabling policy-based orchestration of resource requests and assignments that meet specific service reliability and availability requirements, thereby addressing SAL incompatibilities and enhancing resource management across multiple vendors and service flows.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If service availability levels are defined by vendors in descriptors, then service deployment is enabled, but incompatibilities arise between vendor definitions and service provider requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary mapping mechanism that translates between vendor-defined SAL metadata in descriptors and commissioning values required by service providers. This mediator layer resolves incompatibilities without requiring changes to either vendor descriptors or service provider requirements, enabling seamless service deployment while maintaining reliability compatibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms the SAL parameter representation by deriving metadata from descriptors and mapping it to commissioning values. This parameter transformation allows the same service availability level concept to be expressed in different formats suitable for different system components, resolving compatibility issues while maintaining the essential service level agreements.
2Device complexity
If uniform service availability level is applied to all services, then system simplicity is maintained, but resource over-provisioning occurs for low-availability services
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables different service availability levels to be assigned to different services based on their specific requirements. By deriving SAL metadata from individual service descriptors and mapping to appropriate commissioning values, the system applies localized quality measures where each service receives the appropriate availability level, preventing uniform over-provisioning while maintaining manageable complexity through automated derivation.
3Ease of operation
If service availability management is not orchestrated, then system operation is simple, but end-to-end service availability cannot be ensured
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where the control device derives SAL metadata from service descriptors, maps it to commissioning values, and uses this information to orchestrate resource allocation and service availability management. This closed-loop approach ensures end-to-end service availability while maintaining ease of operation through automated derivation and mapping processes that eliminate manual configuration complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A control device configured to receive a service request that comprises a request for a resource associated with a network function or a network service in the communication system, obtain a descriptor based on the service request, derive a metadata of a service availability level from the descriptor, obtain a commissioning value, wherein the commissioning value is associated with requirements for a service, map the commissioning value with the metadata of the service availability level, derive the service availability level for the resource associated with the network function or the network service based on the mapped commissioning value with the metadata of the service availability level. A corresponding resource manager derives an assigned resource corresponding to the resource associated with the network function or the network service and the assigned resource fulfills the derived service availability and reliability requirement for the resource.