Cisco Technology, Inc.

Ian McDowell Campbell

Konstantin Livanos

Aeneas Sean Dodd-Noble

Ravi Shekhar

Om Prakash Suthar

Michael David Geller

Ammar Rayes

Ameo Ghosh

Hendrikus G P Bosch

Humberto Jose La Roche

Ajeet Pal Singh Gill

David Alan Johnson

Malgorzata Kaczmarska-Wojtania

Prasannakumar Murugesan

James Neil Guichard

Paul M Quinn

Alessandro Duminuco

Robert Michael Batz

Jeffrey Michael Napper

Surendra M Kumar

Irfan Ali

Swapna Anandan

Robert Glenn Smith

Charles C Wolfinger

Sharad Chandra

Mark Grayson

Srinath Gundavelli

John T Chapman

Timothy Peter Stammers

Rajesh S Pazhyannur

Vimal Srivastava

Alon Shlomo Bernstein

Bart A Brinckman

Ravi Kiran Guntupalli

Alon Ben Ami

Mark Ammar Rayes

Ravi Sankar Mantha

Ravi Shankar Mantha

Hendrikus Gp Bosch

Ravinandan Arakali

David A Johnson

The present technology is directed to establishing a connection between a client device within a 2G or 3G network and 5G core through an interworking function. The present technology can perform establishing a Gn-4G interworking function (IWF) between a client access network and a packet anchor network and performing one or more network functions through the Gn-4G IWF in providing a client of the client access network access to network services through the packet anchor network. The one or more network functions appear as one or more Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) functions from the client access network (e.g., 2G or 3G network). The one or more network functions concurrently appear as one or more S4 Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) functions from the packet anchor network (e.g., 4G or 5G network).

Interworking function to connect a device within a 2G or 3G network to a 5G network

Methods and apparatus for use in establishing a group session in a mobile network for subscribers associated with a group are described. In one illustrative example, an access and mobility management function (AMF) entity receives, from a user equipment (UE), a request for registration which includes network slice selection assistance information (NSSAI). The NSSAI includes a group identifier associated with a group of subscribers. The AMF entity sends, to a unified data management (UDM) entity, a request for subscriber data which includes the group identifier. The AMF entity receives, from the UDM, a response to the request for subscriber data which includes a plurality of subscriber identifiers corresponding to the subscribers of the group. For a group session, the AMF entity creates a context associated with the group identifier and stores the context locally.

Methods and apparatus for establishing a group session in a mobile network for subscribers associated with a group

In one illustrated example, automated or semi-automated system operations for Massive IoT (MIoT) deployment may involve the automatic assignment of external IDs, subscriber IDs (e.g. IMSIs), and mobile network IDs (e.g. MSISDNs) to IoT devices of a group, followed by the provisioning of assigned identities at the relevant network nodes and the IoT devices themselves. The process may continue seamlessly with network slice orchestration for the creation of a network slice instance (NSI) and the provisioning of its associated Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (NSSAI) and NSI ID at the relevant network nodes. Network Slice Selection Policies (NSSP) may be derived and sent to a policy function and subsequently to IoT devices of the group. Signaling efficiency may be achieved by performing operations on a group basis.

Method and apparatus for zero-touch bulk identity assignment, provisioning and network slice orchestration for massive IoT (MIoT) deployments

A network slice controller obtains health information of an active network slice provided by a first vendor and health information of a set of backup network slices provided by a second vendor. The network slice controller evaluates, using a set of policies corresponding to management of the active network slice, the health information of the active network slice to determine whether the active network slice has failed. As a result of the failure of the active network slice, the network slice controller identifies one or more backup network slices of the set of backup network slices to serve as new active network slices. The network slice controller activates these one or more backup network slices to serve as the new active network slices for the network.

Failover and management of multi-vendor network slices

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for managing service calls over a network may include a signal routing engine with a maintained forwarding table for various network functions and micro-services in a services back end for the network. The signal routing engine can include a call conversion service for converting REST API calls to an internal network call protocol for increasing network function processing speeds, decreasing bandwidth usage, and improving network responsiveness and manageability.

System and method for message management across a network

A method is provided in one example embodiment and may include maintaining, by a Diameter Routing Agent (DRA), an availability status for a plurality of network elements; receiving a request associated with a user equipment (UE) session, wherein a first network element of the plurality of network elements is serving the UE session; determining that the first network element serving the UE session is unavailable; and re-establishing the UE session at a second network element of the plurality of network elements that is available, wherein the re-establishing is performed without terminating the UE session.

System and method to facilitate network element failure detection and session restoration in a network environment

One embodiment is a method including extending a policy server to provide per subscriber policies to a cable modem (CM) and a cable modem termination system (CMTS), receiving, at the policy server, a request for a policy profile from a cable modem termination system (CMTS), accessing a subscriber database to determine the policy profile, and communicating the policy profile to the CMTS. In an example, the policy server is a packet cable multimedia policy server of a cable network.

Policy architecture for cable networks

A method is provided in one example embodiment and may include receiving load information for a plurality of cells of a Radio Access Network (RAN); determining, for each of a plurality of user equipment (UE) in each cell, identification information for each UE and an Access Point Name (APN) to which each UE is connected; identifying, from a plurality of policy servers, each policy server that serves each APN to which each UE in each cell of the plurality of cells is connected; and sending, to each of a particular policy server, congestion information comprising: an identity for each cell having UE that are connected to each APN served by the particular policy server; the corresponding congestion level for each of the cells; and a per-cell UE list identifying each of a plurality of UE connected to each of APNs served by the particular policy server.

System and method to facilitate group reporting of user equipment congestion information in a network environment

Various implementations disclosed herein enable blockchain programming in NB-IoT devices. In various implementations, a method of blockchain authentication is performed by a computing device including one or more processors, and a non-transitory memory. In various implementations, the method includes maintaining a blockchain for a machine-to-machine network, wherein the machine-to-machine network is a narrowband internet of things network. In some implementations, the method includes receiving a request for a first set of data from the blockchain by a second device. In some implementations, the method includes determining based on the request, the first set of data from the blockchain by traversing a series of blocks from the blockchain. In some implementations, the method includes packaging the first set of data from the blockchain according to a protocol into a packaged data unit and transmitting the packaged data unit to the second device.

Blockchain-based NB-IoT devices

In accordance with various implementations, a method is performed at a data plane node with one or more processors, non-transitory memory, and a control interface between a network function module associated with the data plane node and a switch associated with the data plane node. The method includes determining whether an offload capability is available for a data flow received at an ingress network interface of the data plane node. The method also includes determining whether the data flow satisfies offload criteria in response to determining that the offload capability is available. The method includes bypassing the network function module associated with the data plane node and providing the data flow to at least one of the switch associated with the data plane node or an egress network interface associated with the data plane node in response to determining the offload capability is available and the offload criteria is satisfied.

Method and device for offloading processing of data flows

Single sign-on (SSO) techniques of the present disclosure provide for enterprise application user identities that are bound to a mobile identity (e.g. IMSI) associated with a user equipment (UE) for authentication, using general bootstrapping architecture (GBA)/general authentication architecture (GAA) functionality in combination with identity provider (IDP) functionality (e.g. OpenID Connect), all of which may be provided in an enterprise network. The present techniques need not rely on GBA/GAA infrastructure of a mobile network operator (MNO), and have little or no impact or effect on the mobile network.

Mobile identity for single sign-on (SSO) in enterprise networks

Method and apparatus for zero-touch bulk identity assignment, provisioning and network slice orchestration for massive IOT (MIOT) deployments

A policy enforcement technique may be performed at a network node configured for exposure of services and capabilities, such as a service and capability exposure function (SCEF) or a network exposure function (NEF). In one illustrative example, the network node may receive a message which includes a request for background data transfer from an application server (AS) to a plurality of UEs of a group. The message may include mobile-terminated (MT) data to be delivered, a group ID associated with the group, a total bandwidth for the background data transfer for the group, and a transfer policy ID associated with a transfer policy. The network node may verify whether the total bandwidth for the background data transfer for the group is within a predefined aggregate bandwidth limit indicated in the transfer policy data. The network node may cause the background data to be sent to each one of the plurality of UEs via the mobile network, if the total bandwidth is within the predefined aggregate bandwidth limit. In some implementations, the network node may be configured to facilitate background data transfers and perform policy enforcement for transfers involving both IP data delivery and non-IP data delivery (NIDD).

Policy enforcement methods and apparatus for background data transfers involving multiple UEs

Growing community of inventors

Littleton, CO, United States of America

Ian McDowell Campbell