NRF Status Notification Subscriptions for 5G NF Re-Registration
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Solution Overview
Problem
The Network Repository Function (NRF) in the 5G core network lacks the ability to notify network functions (NFs) about its own status changes or changes in registration on an ad-hoc basis, leading to unnecessary re-registration and re-subscription attempts.
Innovation Solution
NFs can subscribe to the NRF to receive status change notifications, including events such as registration expiration, heartbeat timer changes, availability time updates, and subscription expiration, thereby facilitating timely updates and reducing unnecessary re-registration attempts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the NRF does not provide status change notifications to NFs, then the system complexity remains low, but unnecessary re-registration and re-subscription attempts occur, reducing network efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the NRF actively notifies subscribed NFs about its own status changes and registration changes through event notifications. This feedback loop prevents NFs from making unnecessary re-registration attempts by keeping them informed of actual status changes, thereby improving network efficiency without requiring complex architectural changes to the NRF itself
Solution Approach 2:
The NRF enables itself to be monitored by NFs through a subscription mechanism. NFs can subscribe to NRF events and receive notifications when the NRF status or registration information changes. This self-service approach allows the system to automatically manage status notifications without requiring external control or complex manual intervention, resolving the contradiction between simplicity and efficiency
2Loss of energy
If the NRF notifies NFs about status changes on an ad-hoc basis, then resource wastage is reduced, but the implementation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by having NFs subscribe to NRF events in advance. When NFs subscribe to the NRF, they pre-register their interest in specific events such as NRF status changes or registration changes. This preliminary subscription setup enables the NRF to efficiently notify only relevant NFs about status changes without requiring complex real-time decision-making or ad-hoc coordination, thus reducing resource wastage while maintaining implementation simplicity
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for notifying a network function (NF) regarding the status change of a network repository function (NRF) are disclosed. According to an implementation, the NRF may receive via a network and from an NF, a request to create a subscription to an event of the NRF. In the subscription data, the NF may identify the NRF of which, the status is requested to be monitored. The NF may also indicate one or more types of events on the NRF that are requested to be notified. The NRF may create, in a data storage, the subscription and assign a subscription ID to the subscription. The NRF may send a response to the request along with the subscription ID. Upon detecting an occurrence of the event that the NF subscribes to, the NRF may send a notification to the NF based on the subscription associated with the subscription ID.