Cisco Technology, Inc.

Om Prakash Suthar

Aeneas Sean Dodd-Noble

Rajiv Asati

Vivek Agarwal

Santanu Dasgupta

Arghya T Mukherjee

Ian McDowell Campbell

Michael David Geller

Raghavendra Suryanarayanarao Vidyashankar

Ammar Rayes

Arun Gunasekaran

Raghavendra Vidyashankar Suryanarayanarao

Padmaraj Ramanoudjam

Carlos M Pignataro

Paul Anthony Polakos

Ryo Watanabe

Baljit Singh

Pablo Camarillo Garvia

Ianik Semco

Fei Gao

Anwin P Kallumpurath

Santhosh Shenoy Panambur

Chandragupta Ganguly

Ajay Kalambur

John Wei-I Wu

Raghavendra Suryanarayana Rao Vidyashankar

Nagendra Kumar Nainar

Ian James Wells

Anil Bhikuayya Jangam

Yichen Wang

Amarnath Sury Arvind

Vinod Pandarinathan

Bincy Baburaj Narath

Yoshitaka Nagami

Devendra Kumar Vishwakarma

Irfan Ali

Ravi Kiran Guntupalli

Arun C Alex

Mark Ammar Rayes

Rajaneesh Sudhakar Shetty

Michael Yeung

Alec Hothan

Elie El Ajaltouni

Tae Ryoung Hur

Ahmad Said Farid

Yves Jean-René Do Régo

Blockchain technology is used to provide distributed authentication, entitlements and trust among different virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) elements. An enterprise blockchain with interfaces enables multi-vendor vRAN deployment across multiple service providers. In another embodiment, a method is provided for authenticating entities in a virtualized radio access network to ensure various entitles are in fact entitled to participate in various radio access network operations.

Authenticating radio access network components using distributed ledger technology

Embodiments provide for assuring policy based alerting, via clustering, via a first neural network, operational data reported from a network into a plurality of anomalies organized into several clusters; correlating, via the first neural network, alerts received from devices in the network according to the several clusters; determining, via the second neural network, anomaly impacts in the several clusters from the filtered alerts; in response to determining that the anomaly impacts for a first cluster exceed an alerting threshold: identifying a first shared node in the first cluster; identifying a second cluster including a second shared node matching the first shared node that has not been determined to exceed the alerting threshold; and transmitting an alert for the first cluster and the second cluster; and in response to receiving a response to the alert, updating, via the second neural network, the first neural network.

Assurance of policy based alerting

In one example, a first connectivity request for a first network connection between a user equipment and a first network is obtained. A control plane serving gateway node for the first network connection is selected. The control plane serving gateway node is co-located with a control plane packet data network gateway node configured to support a second network connection between the user equipment and a second network that is different from the first network. A second connectivity request for the second network connection is obtained. The second network connection is established with the control plane serving gateway node and the control plane packet data network gateway node.

Optimized serving gateway node selection for interworking networks

In one embodiment, a method includes determining first configuration information for configuring a first user plane device of a first network slice associated with a control plane device, generating a first configuration identifier based on the first configuration information, sending the first configuration identifier and the first configuration information, releasing an association with the first user plane device, receiving a first request to establish the association from the first user plane device comprising a first local configuration identifier, and determining whether the first user plane device is configured using second configuration information by comparing the first local configuration identifier and a second configuration identifier generated based on the second configuration information, where the second configuration information is latest configuration information for the first user plane device.

Integrity verification for managing network configurations

A first virtual machine executing on a centralized management node provides a first image file to a first computing entity arranged within a first point of delivery. The first image file includes a first boot configuration file or a first ramdisk file. A second virtual machine provides a second image file to a second computing entity arranged within a second point of delivery different from the first point of delivery. The second image file includes a second boot configuration file or a second ramdisk file. The first virtual machine provides a third image file to the first computing entity. The third image file comprises a first operating system installation file. The second virtual machine provides a fourth image file to the second computing entity. The fourth image file comprises a second operating system installation file.

Centralized management, provisioning and monitoring of cloud infrastructure

Techniques are provided to inform a mobile packet core of the access network/radio access technology (AN/RAT) change with the use of in-band signaling along the user plane and hence reduce signaling between radio access network and mobile packet core network. A new extension header content is defined to signal the AN/RAT change information, Cell Group changes and acknowledging the same. Further still, a method is provided to handle AN change notification for split bearer scenarios by introducing a split bearer flag for the mobile packet core to be notified of the predominant access type serving the subscriber data session in 5G Non-Stand Alone (NSA) Option-3, Option-3A and Option-3X, so that static or dynamic configurations can be applied by the mobile core network accordingly.

In-band signaling of access network information along the user-plane for differentiated charging

Presented herein are certificate-based techniques through which a Radio Interface Unit may be securely onboarded to a service provider network. In one example, a method is provided that includes obtaining, by a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, an address assignment request for the, wherein the address assignment request comprises a vendor device certificate, a signed nonce, a non-encrypted serial number for the RIU, a signed serial number for the RIU, and a vendor identifier; validating the vendor device certificate, the signed nonce, and the signed serial number for the RIU based on a vendor root certification authority certificate; validating the non-encrypted serial number for the RIU; and generating an address assignment response based on validating the non-encrypted serial number for the RIU, the vendor device certificate, the signed nonce, and the signed serial number for the RIU.

Certificate-based techniques to securely onboard a radio interface unit

In one embodiment, a method includes determining a first configuration information for configuring a user plane device of the first network slice associated with the control plane device, generating a first configuration identifier based on the first configuration information, sending, to the user plane device of the first network slice, the first configuration identifier and the first configuration information, receiving, from the user plane device of the first network slice, a second configuration identifier, wherein the second configuration identifier is generated by the user plane device of the first network slice based on the first configuration information received from the control plane device, and verifying, by comparing the first configuration identifier and the second configuration identifier, that the user plane device of the first network slice is configured using the first configuration information.

A network function (NF) entity in a communication network receives User Plane Function (UPF) registration information for a plurality of UPFs, the registration information including a respective network attribute for each UPF. The NF entity associates each UPF with a corresponding network based on the respective network attribute, and map one or more User Equipment (UE) to the corresponding network based on a security policy to create a UE-to-network table. The NF further receives a request to establish a session for a subsequent UE, the request including a subsequent UE identifier, and determine an access permission for the subsequent UE to access the corresponding network based on the subsequent UE identifier and the UE-to-network table. The NF selects one UPF from the plurality of UPF to service the session for the subsequent UE based on the access permission, and an association between the one UPF and the corresponding network.

Selecting a user plane function (UPF) for layer 2 networks

When a packet data session is established for a user equipment (UE), a comparative assessment of load information factors from different sets of load information factors associated with a plurality of user plane function (UPF) instances may be performed. Each set of load information factors of a UPF instance may include predicted load information factors indicative of a predicted load at the UPF instance. A UPF instance may be selected for the packet data session of the UE based on the comparative assessment. The comparative assessment may additionally consider a predicted load contribution of the packet data session to be established for the UE. A data analytics function may utilize a model (e.g. a multiple linear regression model) to calculate predicted load contribution factors, where the model is derived based on historical usage data from previous sessions of one or more UEs, for example, data from charging data records (CDRs).

User plane function (UPF) selection based on predicted load information

A solution for selecting an optimal user Plane entity (with Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS)) per UE during seamless roaming. In one embodiment, a method is provide that is performed by a control plane entity in a mobile core network that supports inter public land mobile network (PLMN) roaming among two or more PLMNs. The method includes obtaining a create session request from an entity in a second PLMN to which a user equipment has roamed from a first PLMN; selecting a particular user plane entity among a plurality of user plane entities based on one or more user equipment related parameters; and establishing a session with the particular user plane entity to serve user plane traffic in the mobile core network for the user equipment.

Efficient user plane function selection with S10 roaming

A system is provided that includes one management cluster to manage network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) resources lifecycle in more than one edge POD locations, where resources include hardware and/or software, and where software resources lifecycle includes software development, upgrades, downgrades, logging, monitoring etc. Methods are provided for decoupling storage from compute and network functions in each virtual machine (VM)-based NFVI deployment location and moving it to a centralized location. Centralized storage could simultaneously interact with more than one edge PODs, and the security is built-in with periodic key rotation. Methods are provided for increasing NFVI system viability by dedicating (fencing) CPU core pairs for specific controller operations and workload operations, and sharing the CPU cores for specific tasks.

Virtual infrastructure manager enhancements for remote edge cloud deployments

A system and method are provided to derive Virtual Network Function (VNF) infrastructure and networking requirements from the virtual network function descriptor and network services descriptor definitions (extended). This results in a fully automated system for VIM creation and VNF onboarding in order to prepare the infrastructure for VNF instantiation.

Methods to extract cloud infrastructure requirements from virtualized applications and autodeploy

In one example, a Network Functions Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) obtains a radio service descriptor defining communication parameters for a radio in a virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN). Based on the radio service descriptor, the NFVO determines whether a virtual Distributed Unit (vDU) that is configured in accordance with the communication parameters and a virtual Centralized Unit (vCU) that is configured in accordance with the communication parameters are already instantiated in the vRAN. If it is determined that the vDU or the vCU is not already instantiated, the NFVO automatically instantiates the vDU or the vCU in the vRAN.

Automated provisioning of radios in a virtual radio access network

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Bolingbrook, IL, United States of America

Om Prakash Suthar