SMF Fail Open Mechanism for N10 Interface Degradation
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Solution Overview
Problem
The 5G core network's N10 interface between the Unified Data Management Function (UDM) and the Session Management Function (SMF) often experiences degradations or failures, leading to delays or inability to establish sessions for user equipment (UE), causing unnecessary retries and noise, which conventional systems address by retrying until a response is received, but this is inefficient and noisy.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a fail open mechanism where the SMF creates and stores default profiles locally when the maximum retry threshold is reached, allowing it to establish sessions using these profiles instead of waiting for a response from the UDM, thereby reducing noise and ensuring session establishment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the SMF retries until a response is received from the UDM, then the system attempts to recover from interface degradation, but this causes unnecessary retries and generates noise
Solution Approach 1:
The SMF creates and stores default profiles locally in advance before the N10 interface fails. When degradation is detected, the SMF uses these pre-stored profiles to establish sessions immediately, eliminating the need for continuous retry attempts and reducing signal noise while maintaining session establishment reliability.
2Reliability
If the SMF retries until a response is received from the UDM, then the system attempts to recover from interface degradation, but this causes unnecessary retries and delays session establishment
Solution Approach 1:
Default profiles are created and stored locally at the SMF before interface failure occurs. When degradation is detected, the SMF immediately uses these pre-stored profiles to establish sessions without waiting for UDM response, significantly reducing session establishment time while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the essential session profile information from the UDM and stores it locally at the SMF. This extraction allows the SMF to operate independently of the UDM during interface degradation, eliminating delays caused by continuous retry attempts while maintaining session establishment capability.
3Productivity
If the SMF waits for UDM response, then the system maintains normal operation, but this prevents session establishment during interface degradation
Solution Approach 1:
The SMF becomes self-sufficient by storing default profiles locally, enabling it to establish sessions independently without requiring UDM response. This self-service capability maintains both productivity and reliability during interface degradation, as the SMF can operate autonomously using stored profiles.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided for providing communication sessions to user equipment (UE) over a telecommunications network. Specifically, communication sessions can be established for the UE despite a degraded N10 interface between a Unified Data Management function (UDM) and a Session Management function (SMF) in a 5G core network. One or more profiles comprising one or more profile parameters can be stored locally at the SMF so the one or more profile parameters can be provided to establish a communication session for a UE without receiving a response from the UDM. A locally stored profile on the SMF can be utilized when the N10 interface fails, when the UDM is experiencing congestion over a predetermined threshold, etc. Criteria that may impact the ability of the UDM to respond to queries can be identified to trigger a fetch of the profile parameters and the creation of a local profile at the SMF.