CN105634782B

CN105634782B - A kind of method and network element management device instantiating VNF

Info

Publication number: CN105634782B
Application number: CN201410621561.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 冯爱娟; 侯建星
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2014-11-06
Filing date: 2014-11-06
Publication date: 2019-03-01
Anticipated expiration: 2034-11-06
Also published as: WO2016070729A1; CN105634782A

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention discloses a kind of methods and network element management device for instantiating VNF.Wherein, which comprises network element management device receives the instantiation VNF request message that VNF manager VNFM is sent；Resource needed for the network element management device determines execution instantiation VNF according to the resource allocation information stored in the instantiation VNF request message and the network element management device；Resource that the network element management device is determined according to instantiates VNF.After implementing the embodiment of the present invention, it is not required to the instruction again by relevant parameter in VNFD or process, script, completes corresponding movement step by step, avoid the life cycle management process excessively mechanization of instantiation VNF and lacks flexibility.

Description

VNF instantiation method and network element management equipment

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a method for instantiating a VNF and a network element management device.

Background

In 2012 13 Top operators (AT & T, Verizon, VDF, DT, T-Mobile, BT, Telefornica, etc.) initiated a establishment ETSI NFV ISG with the goal of being based on the modern virtualization technology, and network devices may be based on general hardware, such as standard-based high-capacity Server, storage and ethernet, and applications provided by different vendors are remotely and automatically deployed on a unified cloud virtualization infrastructure in a software form; thereby reducing cost, improving efficiency and increasing agility.

The reference frame of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) defined in the NFV ISG is shown in fig. 1, and includes: service Support System (OSS), data warehouse (service, VNF and Infrastructure Description), Element Management System (EMS), Virtualized Network Function (VNF), NFV Infrastructure layer (NFV Infrastructure, NFVI), NFV Orchestrator (NFV architect, NFVO), VNF Manager (VNFManager), virtualized Infrastructure management System (VIM), wherein:

besides the traditional management function, the OSS interacts with the Orchester to complete the operation and maintenance of the network aiming at the virtualized application.

And the data warehouse comprises related templates, VNF software images and the like.

The NFV architector mainly functions to implement Network Service (NS) lifecycle management (such as deployment/capacity expansion/capacity reduction/offline) in an operator domain (1 or multiple data centers), and NFVI resource orchestration, policy management, and other functions; the NFV Orchester decomposes the requirements of each VNF according to an information model description template (NS Descriptor, NSD) of the NS, and realizes the deployment of the VNF by matching with the VNFM.

The VNFM mainly functions to implement life cycle management of the VNF, such as automation capabilities of deployment/capacity expansion/capacity reduction/offline; the VNFM decomposes the demand for virtual resources such as a virtual machine according to a VNF Descriptor (VNFD) template and a VNF capacity demand of the VNF, and completes instantiation of the VNF in cooperation with the NFV editor and the VIM.

The VIM functions primarily to manage and monitor the resources of the entire infrastructure layer, including computing, storage, and network resources.

Currently, VNFs are purchased by operators from vendors (venders) who provide input of VNFD parameters in a format understandable by NFV editor, and associated software packages that the operators register in nfvorseparator's Catalog (Catalog).

Current NFV specifications for VNFD definition in great detail (table 1 for reference only), refer to the NVF MAN001GS document for details.

Table 1:

in the prior art, VNFM is responsible for the management process of the life cycle of VNF, and each Vendor manufacturer in each process has a difference in implementation, so that VNFD provided by each Vendor must cover each process and be standardized to fail to reflect the difference of each Vendor in order to achieve uniform management. Moreover, when the VNFM receives a Lifecycle (Lifecycle) management operation (the trigger may be NFVO, the VNFM itself, EMS, etc.), the VNFD is analyzed, and then corresponding actions are completed step by step according to the indication of corresponding parameters, or procedures, scripts, etc. in the VNFD, so that the Lifecycle management process of the VNF is very mechanized and lacks flexibility.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the invention provides a method for instantiating a VNF and network element management equipment, which can simplify the process of instantiating the VNF by the VNF and support the network element management equipment of each provider to perform difference management of the VNF instantiation.

A first aspect of the invention provides a method of instantiating a virtualized network function, VNF, that may comprise:

the network element management equipment receives an instantiation VNF request message sent by a VNF manager VNFM;

the network element management equipment determines resources required for executing the instantiated VNF according to the instantiated VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment;

and the network element management equipment instantiates the VNF according to the determined resource.

In combination with the first aspect, in a first possible embodiment,

the determining, by the network element management device according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a resource required for executing the instantiation VNF specifically includes:

the network element management equipment determines a Virtual Deployment Unit (VDU) list required by the instantiated VNF and Virtual Machine (VM) resources required by each VDU in the VDU list according to the instantiated VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment;

the instantiating, by the network element management device, the VNF according to the determined resource specifically includes:

the network element management equipment generates a command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list;

the network element management equipment requests a virtual machine VM (virtual machine) resource required by each VDU in the command list to a virtual infrastructure management system (VIM) in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, and loads software and performs basic data configuration on each VDU in the VDU list according to the distribution result of the VIM to the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list;

after the network element management device completes the execution of the deployment commands of all VDUs in the VDU list, notifying the VNFM that the instantiation VNF is completed.

In combination with the first possible implementation of the first aspect, in a second possible implementation,

in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, the network element management device requests the VM resources of the virtual machine required by each VDU in the command list from the VIM, and loading software and configuring basic data for each VDU in the VDU list according to the result of allocating the VM resources of the virtual machine required by each VDU in the command list by the VIM specifically includes:

the network element management equipment executes the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, requests the VIM to allocate the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, loads software for each VDU according to the resource allocated to each VDU by the VIM, and loads software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the virtual machine VM resource required by the allocation of each VDU by the VIM and performs basic data configuration.

A second aspect of the present invention provides a network element management apparatus, which may include:

a receiving module, configured to receive an instantiation VNF request message sent by a VNF manager VNFM;

a determining module, configured to determine, according to the instantiation VNF request message received by the receiving module and resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a resource required for executing instantiation VNF;

an instantiation module, configured to instantiate the VNF according to the resource determined by the determination module.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, a network element management device receives an instantiation VNF request message sent by a VNF manager VNFM; determining resources required for executing the instantiated VNF according to the instantiated VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment; in the specific implementation of instantiating the VNF according to the determined resource, the network element management device and the VNF belong to the same vendor, and the network element management devices between different vendors do not need to be standardized and unified, so the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor executes the instantiation of the VNF, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in different vendors may be different, and specific processes of instantiating the VNF according to the determined resource in different vendors may also be different. In addition, the embodiment of the invention transfers the life cycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management equipment, so that the VNFD does not need to set complete parameters or scripts which can cover the life cycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the instantiated VNF, the network element management equipment is not required to be instructed by corresponding parameters, flows or scripts in the VNFD any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the condition that the life cycle management process of the instantiated VNF is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a frame of reference for Network Function Virtualization (NFV) defined by the NFV ISG;

fig. 2 is a schematic flow chart of a method of instantiating a virtualized network function VNF according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S111 of the method flow shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S112 of the method flow shown in FIG. 2;

fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a method for capacity expansion of a VNF instance according to the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S211 in the method flow shown in FIG. 5;

fig. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a method for capacity expansion of a VNF instance according to another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S221 of the method flow shown in FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S212 in the method flow shown in FIG. 5 or FIG. 7;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a method for VNF instance capacity reduction according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S311 in the method flowchart shown in FIG. 10;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating a method for scaling an instance of a VNF according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S321 in the method flow shown in FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S312 of the method flowchart shown in FIG. 10 or FIG. 12;

figure 15 is a schematic flow diagram of a method of terminating a VNF instance of an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 16 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of step S411 in the method flowchart shown in FIG. 15;

FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating one embodiment of step S412 of the method flowchart shown in FIG. 15;

fig. 18 is a schematic structural component diagram of an embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 19 is a schematic diagram of the structure of one embodiment of the determination module 11 in FIG. 18;

FIG. 20 is a block diagram illustrating the structural components of one embodiment of instantiation module 12 of FIG. 18;

fig. 21 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 22 is a schematic diagram illustrating the structural components of one embodiment of the determination module 21 in FIG. 21;

FIG. 23 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary configuration of the expansion module 22 of FIG. 21;

fig. 24 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 25 is a schematic diagram of the structural components of one embodiment of the determination module 24 of FIG. 24;

fig. 26 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 27 is a schematic diagram of the structure of one embodiment of the determination module 31 in FIG. 26;

FIG. 28 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the capacity reduction module 32 in FIG. 26;

fig. 29 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 30 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the structure of one embodiment of the determination module 34 of FIG. 29;

fig. 31 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 32 is a schematic diagram illustrating the structure of one embodiment of the determination module 41 in FIG. 31;

FIG. 33 is a schematic diagram illustrating the structure of one embodiment of termination module 42 of FIG. 31;

fig. 34 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 35 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 36 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 37 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 38 is a schematic flow chart diagram of a VNF instantiation process of the present invention;

figure 39 is a schematic flow diagram of the VNF termination example process of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for instantiating a virtualized network function VNF according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 2, it may include:

in step S110, the network element management device receives an instantiation VNF request message sent by the VNF manager VNFM.

In a specific implementation, the network Element Management device and the VNF of the embodiment of the present invention are provided by the same vendor, and may include, but are not limited to, an Element Management System (EMS) or a Local Management Unit (LMU) of the VNF. The network element management device may receive an instantiation VNF request message from the VNFM through a Ve-Vnfm interface with the VNFM.

Step S111, the network element management device determines, according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a resource required for executing instantiation VNF. In a specific implementation, the network element management device determines, according to the instantiation VNF request message and resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a list of virtual deployment unit VDUs required by instantiating a VNF, and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the list of VDUs. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resources required for executing the instantiated VNF determined by the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 3, as an embodiment, the step S111 may include the following steps:

step S1110, the network element management device determines the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request for instantiating the VNF.

In a specific implementation, in step S1110, the network element management device may describe template VNFD index information and a capacity specification according to an information model of a VNF carried in the instantiated VNF request, and query, in a corresponding VNFD, a type, a version number, and a capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed. For example, assuming that the index of the VNFD carried in the request for instantiating the VNF is the index xx of the VNFD in table 1, and the capacity specification is "deployment specification 1" in table 1, in step S1110, the network element management device may find the VNFD in table 1 according to the index xx, and further may query the type (corresponding to "VNFid" in table 1), the version number (corresponding to "VNF version" in table 1), and the capacity specification (corresponding to "deployment specification 1" in table 1) of the VNF to be deployed in table 1. In a specific implementation, the capacity specification may be carried only with the capacity specification number (corresponding to number 1 of deployment specification 1 in table 1), and may also be carried with the capacity size of the capacity specification (corresponding to capacity 500kcaps in table 1).

Alternatively, in step S1110, the network element management device may determine the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried in the instantiation VNF request. For example, the type of the VNF carried by the request to instantiate the VNF is CSCF, the version number is 1, and the capacity specification is deployment specification 1 (corresponding to the list entry listed in deployment specification 1). In a specific implementation, the capacity specification may be carried only with the capacity specification number (e.g., number 1 of deployment specification 1 in table 1), and may also be carried with the capacity size of the capacity specification (e.g., capacity 500kcaps of deployment specification 1 in table 1). Thus, in step S1110, it may be determined that the type of VNF to be deployed is CSCF, version number is 1, and capacity specification is 500kcaps capacity.

In a specific implementation, the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiated VNF request are registered in the VNFD or registered in an information model description template NSD of a network service.

Step S1111, the network element management device determines, according to a matching relationship between the capacity specification in the resource configuration information and a VDU of a virtual deployment unit, a VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed.

In this embodiment of the present invention, the resource configuration information stored by the network element management device includes a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the virtual deployment unit VDU (for example, "1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C" in the VDU list entry in table 1), and therefore, in step S1111, the network element management device may determine that the capacity specification numbered 1 or the VDU list corresponding to the capacity specification with the capacity of 500kcaps is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C according to the corresponding relationship between the stored capacity of 500kcaps and the VDU list 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C. Therefore, the embodiment of the invention can simplify the specific content of the capacity specification in the VNFD, and the information of the VDU list can be no longer needed in the column of the capacity specification in the VNFD. Wherein VDU _ A, VDU _ B and VDU _ C represent different types of VDUs.

Step S1112, the network element management device determines, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information, the software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

Step S1113, the network element management device determines, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the Virtual Machine (VM) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required by each VDU. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. Examples are as follows:

the VM specifications required for 1 VDU _ a include: 1 VM _ A corresponding to 4-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth;

the VM specifications required for 1 VDU _ B include: 1 VM _ B corresponding to 4-core vCPU +16G memory +2G bandwidth;

the VM specifications required for 1 VDU _ C include: and 1 VM _ C corresponding to 2 cores of vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth.

Step S1114, the network element management device determines, according to the network interworking relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirement of each link, the respective requirement of each VM for the link.

For example, the interworking relationship and bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored inside the network element management device may be as follows:

VDU _ A and VDU _ B are intercommunicated (namely VM _ A and VM _ B are intercommunicated), and the bandwidth needs to be 2G;

VDU _ B and VDU _ C are interworked (namely VM _ B and VM _ C are interworked), and the bandwidth needs to be 2G;

the link requirement determined in step S1114 may be that a virtual link needs to be established between VM _ a and VM _ B, and a virtual link needs to be established between VM _ B and VM _ C.

In a specific implementation, the steps S1112 and S1113 to S1114 may not have a sequential execution order.

In a specific implementation, in other embodiments, step S111 may further include step S1115, where the network element management device determines the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information. For example, the VDU isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device may be as follows:

VMs of the VDU _ A and the VDU _ C are deployed on the same physical server;

the same type of VDU is deployed on different physical servers.

Therefore, in step S11115, the affinity and the isolation of each VM may be determined according to the VDU isolation and the affinity stored in the network element management device, that is, VM _ a and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server, and multiple VM _ a are deployed on different physical servers, for example, the types of VM _1 and VM _2 are both VM _ a, but VM _1 and VM _2 need to be deployed on different physical servers when deployed.

In a specific implementation, after receiving an instantiation VNF request message, the embodiment of the present invention may create, in a network element management device, an instance identifier for a VNF instance requested to be created by the instantiation VNF request message, and create a correspondence between a version number, a type, and a capacity specification of the VNF instance and the instance identifier.

Step S112, the network element management device instantiates a VNF according to the determined resource.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 4, as an embodiment, the step S112 may specifically include the following steps:

step S1120, the network element management device generates a command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list.

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, in step S1120, the network element management device may generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and a set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms a VDU deployment command list. As an example, the embodiment of the present invention may generate a VDU deployment command list (corresponding VDU list is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C) as follows:

ADD VDU: VDU _1 (number representing VDU deployed), VDU _ a (type representing VDU deployed);

ADD VDU: VDU _2 (number representing VDU deployed), VDU _ B (type representing VDU deployed);

ADD VDU: VDU _3 (number indicating VDU deployed), VDU _ C (indicating VDU type deployed);

step S1121, the network element management device, in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, requests the VIM for the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the command list, and loads software and performs basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list according to the allocation result of the VIM on the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the command list.

In a specific implementation, in step S1121, the VM resource and the link resource determined in the processes of steps S1110 to S1115 may be used to request the VIM to allocate a corresponding resource, and to load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list. In a specific implementation, the performing of the basic data configuration refers to recording information, such as the allocation results of the software loaded for each VDU and the VM resources allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device, and associating each VDU with the identifier of the VNF instance including the VDU, so as to serve as subsequently available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device manages the VNF instance and the VDU in the instance based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the embodiment of the invention automatically completes the basic data configuration in the process of executing the VNF instantiation, and solves the technical problem that the basic data configuration needs to be manually performed in the network element management equipment in the prior art.

As an embodiment, the network element management device may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, request, during the execution of the deployment command of each VDU, to allocate, to the VIM, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU, and load software for each VDU according to the resource allocated by the VIM to the VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the virtual machine VM resource required by the VIM to allocate to each VDU, and perform basic data configuration.

Certainly, as another implementation manner, in step S1121, the embodiment of the present invention may request VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list from the VIM at one time, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU at one time after the request is completed.

Step S1122, after the network element management device completes the execution of the deployment command of all VDUs in the VDU list, notifying the VNFM that the instantiation VNF is completed.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, before step S1120, the embodiment of the present invention may further include the following steps:

the Network element management device initiates an operation authorization request for instantiating a VNF to a Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) via a VNF Manager (VNFM), and receives a response of the operation authorization for instantiating the VNF from the NFVO via the VNFM, where the response of the operation authorization for instantiating the VNF is sent after the NFVO determines that resources required for executing the instantiated VNF exist and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources;

in this case, in step S1121, the network element management device requests the VIM to allocate VM resources and link resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, which specifically includes:

and the network element management equipment forwards the request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM through the VNFM.

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, the step S1121, where the requesting, by the network element management device, the VIM of allocating the VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list includes:

and the network element management equipment forwards a request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM through the VNFM and the NFVO in sequence. This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment in that the NFVO initiates the resource allocation request directly to the VIM, whereas the previous embodiment further includes an operation authorization request and a response to determine that there is a relevant resource in the network before initiating the resource allocation request.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, a network element management device receives an instantiation VNF request message sent by a VNF manager VNFM; determining resources required for executing the instantiated VNF according to the instantiated VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment; and instantiating a VNF according to the determined resource. The embodiment of the invention transfers the life cycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management equipment, so that the VNFD does not need to set complete parameters or scripts which can cover the life cycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the instantiated VNF, the network element management equipment is not required to be instructed by corresponding parameters, flows or scripts in the VNFD any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the condition that the life cycle management process of the instantiated VNF is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor performs the instantiation of the VNF, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes of instantiating the VNF by network element management devices of different vendors according to the determined resources may also be different.

Correspondingly, fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method for expanding the capacity of the VNF instance according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment of the present invention, the VNF instance extension may be performed independently from the above-described VNF instantiation process, or after the aforesaid VNF instantiation process of the present invention. As illustrated in fig. 5, it may include:

step S210, the network element management device obtains the performance parameters reported by the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the performance parameter reported by the VNF obtained in the embodiment of the present invention may include a CPU occupancy rate, or any other performance parameter that can be reported by the VNF.

Step S211, the network element management device determines, according to the reported performance parameter and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance and a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, in the embodiment of the present invention, a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information may be maintained in resource configuration information stored in a network element management device, or a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information and a piece of VNF instance capacity reduction policy information may be maintained in the resource configuration information, where the VNF instance capacity expansion policy may include: when the performance parameter reported last time is lower than a second threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is greater than or equal to the second threshold value, executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, namely deploying one or more VDUs of the specified type on the basis of the existing VNF instance capacity specification; the VNF instance capacity reduction policy may include: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type in the VNF instance.

For example: assuming that the performance parameter reported by the VNF is the CPU occupancy (certainly, other performance parameters may be used in specific implementation), the VNF instance capacity expansion and reduction policy information in the resource configuration information in the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include (the first 2 pieces are VNF instance capacity expansion policies, and the second 2 pieces are VNF instance capacity reduction policies):

1. when the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is lower than 20 percent and the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is 20 percent, expanding a VDU with the type of A;

2. when the current CPU occupancy rate reported is lower than 60% (corresponding to the second threshold), and the CPU occupancy rate > reported this time is 60%, expanding a VDU of type B;

3. when the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is higher than 60 percent and the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is less than (60 to 5 percent), a VDU with the type of A is reduced and held;

4. and when the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is higher than 20 percent (corresponding to the first threshold value) and the CPU occupancy rate reported at the current time is less than (20 to 5 percent (corresponding to the buffer parameter)), the VDU with the type B is condensed.

Thus, in step S211, when the CPU occupancy reported by the VNF meets the 1 st policy or the 2 nd policy of the 4 policies, it may determine a VDU list to be deployed for executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, for example, when the policy 1 is met, it may determine that a VDU of type a needs to be deployed again on the basis of the original instance of the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and a virtual machine, or a network interworking relationship and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in step S211, after determining the VDU list to be deployed, the embodiment of the present invention may further determine, according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resource determined by the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

As an implementation manner, as shown in fig. 6, step S211 in the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include:

step S2110, the network element management device determines, according to the reported performance parameter and VNF instance capacity expansion policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing VNF instance capacity expansion. For determining the VDU list, reference is made to the foregoing description, and details are not described herein.

Step S2111, the network element management device determines, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information, software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list to be deployed for performing the volume expansion of the VNF instance.

Step S2112, the network element management device determines, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the Virtual Machine (VM) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required by each VDU in the VDU list to be deployed for performing the volume expansion of the VNF instance. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. Examples are as follows:

Step S2113, the network element management device meets the requirements of the VM on the links according to the network interworking relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirements of each link.

in a specific implementation, the steps S2111 and S2112-S2113 may not have a sequential execution order. In a specific implementation, in other embodiments, step S211 may further include step S2114, where the network element management device determines the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information. For example, the VDU isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device may be as follows:

VMs of the VDU _ A and the VDU _ C are deployed on the same physical server;

the same type of VDU is deployed on different physical servers.

Therefore, in step S2114, the affinity and the isolation of each VM may be determined according to the VDU isolation and the affinity stored in the network element management device, that is, VM _ a and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server, and multiple VM _ a are deployed on different physical servers, for example, the types of VM _1 and VM _2 are both VM _ a, but VM _1 and VM _2 need to be deployed on different physical servers when deployed.

As an alternative, in a specific implementation, as shown in fig. 7, steps S210 to S211 of the embodiment of the present invention may be replaced by the following process:

step S220, the network element management equipment receives a VNF instance capacity expansion request from the VMFM;

step S221, the network element management device determines, according to the received VNF instance capacity expansion request and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing capacity expansion of the VNF instance and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list.

As shown in fig. 8, as an embodiment, step S221 may include:

step S2210, the network element management device determines, according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance expansion request and the expanded capacity specification, a VDU list to be deployed;

step S2211, the network element management device determines, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information, software corresponding to each VDU in a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance;

step S2212, the network element management device determines, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs and Virtual Machines (VMs) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required for each VDU in a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance;

step S2213, the network element management device determines, according to the network interworking relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirements of each link, the respective requirements of the VMs on the link.

In a specific implementation, the steps S2211 and S2212 to S2213 may not have a sequential execution order.

In addition to the above steps, the method may further include step S2114, where the network element management device determines the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information.

Steps S2211 to S2214 are respectively the same as steps S2111 to S2114, and therefore, detailed implementation of steps S2211 to S2214 is not described herein.

Step S212, the network element management device executes VNF instance expansion according to the determined VDU list and the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 9, as an embodiment, the step S212 may specifically include the following steps:

step S2120, the network element management device generates a VDU deployment command list according to the determined VDU list. It is assumed that the VDU list determined in step S211 or S221 includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified to: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, in step S2120, the network element management device may generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and a set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms a VDU deployment command list. As an example, when the determined VDU list is: 1, VDU _ a, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following VDU deployment command list:

step S2121, in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, the network element management device requests, to the VIM, a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list, and loads software and performs basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list according to a result of allocating, by the VIM, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list.

In a specific implementation, the performing of the basic data configuration refers to recording information, such as the allocation results of the software loaded for each VDU and the VM resources allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device, and associating each VDU with the identifier of the VNF instance including the VDU, so as to serve as subsequently available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device manages the VNF instance and the VDU in the instance based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the basic data configuration is automatically completed in the process of executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, and the technical problem that the basic data configuration needs to be manually performed in the network element management equipment in the prior art is solved.

As an embodiment, in step S2121, the network element management device may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, and in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM to allocate virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU to the VIM, and load software for the VDU according to the resources allocated by the VIM to the VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the VM resources required by the VIM to the VDU, and perform basic data configuration on each VDU.

Certainly, as another implementation manner, in step S2121, in the embodiment of the present invention, VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list may be requested from the VIM at one time, and after the request is completed, software is loaded and basic data configuration is performed for each VDU at one time.

Step S2122, after the network element management device completes execution of the deployment commands of all VDUs in the VDU list, notify the VNFM that the capacity expansion of the VNF instance is completed.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, before step S2120, the embodiment of the present invention may further include the following steps:

in this case, in step S2121, the requesting, by the network element management device, the VIM to allocate, to the VDU list, the VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list includes:

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, the step S2121 of requesting, by the network element management device, to allocate, to the VIM, the VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list includes:

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network element management device obtains the performance parameter reported by the VNF or the received VNF instance capacity expansion request; determining a VDU list to be deployed for performing VNF instance expansion and a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list according to the reported performance parameter or the received VNF instance expansion request and resource configuration information stored in the network element management device; and executing VNF instance capacity expansion according to the determined resources. The embodiment of the invention transfers the life cycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management equipment, so that the VNFD does not need to set complete parameters or scripts which can cover the life cycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance expansion, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed, and corresponding actions are finished step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance expansion is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor performs the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific flows of performing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance by network element management devices of different vendors according to the determined resources may also be different.

Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a VNF example capacity reduction method according to an embodiment of the present invention. The VNF instance contraction process in the embodiment of the present invention may be performed independently from the above-described VNF instantiation process, or may be performed after the above-described VNF instantiation process of the present invention. As illustrated in fig. 10, it may include:

step S310, the network element management equipment acquires the performance parameters reported by the VNF;

Step S311, the network element management device determines, according to the reported performance parameter and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated for performing VNF instance capacity reduction and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type.

For example:

assuming that the performance parameter reported by the VNF is the CPU occupancy (certainly, other performance parameters may be used in specific implementation), the VNF instance capacity expansion and reduction policy information in the resource configuration information in the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include (the first 2 pieces are VNF instance capacity expansion policies, and the second 2 pieces are VNF instance capacity reduction policies):

Thus, in step S311, when the CPU occupancy reported by the VNF meets the 3 rd policy or the 4 th policy of the 4 policies, it may determine the VDU list that needs to be terminated for executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, for example, when the policy 3 is met, it is determined that a VDU of type a needs to be terminated on the basis of the original instance of the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and the virtual machine, a network interworking relationship, and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in step S311, after determining the VDU list to be terminated, the embodiment of the present invention may further determine, according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the virtual machine VM resource required to be released by each VDU in the VDU list and the software that each VDU needs to be deleted. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, in step S311, the embodiment of the present invention may further determine a VDU to be terminated that has an affinity and isolation relationship with the determined VDU to be terminated.

As an implementation manner, as shown in fig. 11, step S311 in the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include:

step S3110, the network element management device determines, according to the reported performance parameter and VNF instance capacity reduction policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to terminate execution of VNF instance capacity reduction. How to determine in detail is described in the foregoing description, and is not repeated herein.

Step S3111, the network element management device determines, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link related to the VM to be released.

In specific implementation, the VM specifications corresponding to different types of VDUs may be different. Examples are as follows:

For example, when it is determined that 1 VDU _ a needs to be terminated, it may be determined that 1 VM _ a needs to be deleted, and deleting the VM _ a is specifically expressed as needing to release 4-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth.

For another example, assume that the interworking relationship and bandwidth requirements of the network elements in the resource configuration information stored inside the network element management device are as follows:

therefore, in step S3111, the embodiment of the invention may determine that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released according to the above interworking relationship.

In a specific implementation, after deleting software corresponding to each VDU, a VM specification to be released, and a link related to the VM to be released, the basic data of the VDU configured in the network element management unit may also be deleted, for example, removing an association relationship between the VDU and an identifier of a VNF instance, deleting stored information about the association relationship between the VDU and the software, deleting the correspondence relationship between the VDU and the VM specification, deleting information about the link related to the VM of the VDU, and the like.

In other embodiments, step S311 may further include step S3112, where the network element management device determines, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, the VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with the VDU in the VDU list. For example, the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored by the network element management device may be as follows:

VM _ A and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server;

the VMs of the same type are deployed on different physical servers.

Therefore, for example, assuming that it is determined that the VDU _ a needs to be terminated, when terminating the VDU of type VDU _ a and number VDU _1 located on the physical server 1, the VDU of type VDU _ C and number VDU _3 located on the physical server 1 is also terminated.

As an alternative, as shown in fig. 12, in a specific implementation, steps S310 to S311 may be replaced by the following process:

step S320, the network element management device receives a capacity reduction VNF instance request from the VNFM;

step S321, the network element management device determines, according to the received capacity reduction VNF instance request and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to terminate executing the capacity reduction of the VNF instance and VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list.

As shown in fig. 13, as an embodiment, step S321 may include:

step S3210, the network element management device determines, according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the received capacity reduction VNF instance request and the capacity specification after capacity reduction, a VDU list on which the execution of the VNF instance capacity reduction needs to be terminated;

step S3211, the network element management device determines, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link related to the VM to be released.

In other embodiments, step S311 may further include step S3212, where the network element management device determines, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, the VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with the VDU in the VDU list.

Steps S3211 to S3212 are the same as steps S3111 to S3112, and the detailed implementation of steps S3211 to S3212 is not repeated here.

Step S312, the network element management device executes VNF instance reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an example, as shown in fig. 14, step S312 includes:

step S3121, the network element management device generates a command list for deleting the VDU according to the determined VDU list to be terminated. Assume that the list determined in step S311 includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified to: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, such as a deployment command ADD VDU, in the network element management device; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, in step S3120, the network element management device may generate a deletion command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and a set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms a VDU deletion command list. As an example, when the determined VDU list is: 1, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following list of VDU deletion commands:

RMV VDU: VDU _1 (number indicating terminated VDU), VDU _ a (type indicating terminated VDU);

step S3122, in the process of executing the VDU deletion command in the command list for deleting the VDU, the network element management device unloads software of each VDU, requests the VIM to release the virtual machine VM resource related to each VDU through the VNFM, and deletes basic data related to the VDU in the network element management device.

Step S3123, after the network element management device executes all VDU delete commands in the command list for deleting VDU, notifying the VNFM that the instantiated scaling of the VNF is completed.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, the network element management device obtains the performance parameters reported by the VNF; determining a VDU list to be terminated for executing VNF instance reduction and VM specification resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list according to the reported performance parameters and the VNF instance reduction policy in the resource configuration information, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than a first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of specified types; and executing VNF instance capacity reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list. The embodiment of the invention transfers the life cycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management equipment, so that the VNFD does not need to set complete parameters or scripts which can cover the life cycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance capacity reduction, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance capacity reduction is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor executes the VNF instance reduction, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in the network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes for the network element management devices of different vendors to execute the VNF instance reduction according to the determined resources may also be different. In addition, the ping-pong elastic expansion and contraction of the VNF is reduced by a buffer parameter in the VNF instance capacity reduction strategy of the embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 15 is a flowchart illustrating a method for terminating a VNF instance according to an embodiment of the present invention. The process of terminating the VNF instance in the embodiment of the present invention may be executed independently from the process of instantiating the VNF, or may be executed after the VNF instantiation process described above in the embodiment of the present invention. As illustrated in fig. 15, it may include:

in step S410, the network element management device receives a VNF instance termination request message sent by the VNF manager VMFM.

Step S411, the network element management device determines, according to the VNF instance termination request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to terminate the termination VNF instance and VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an embodiment, as shown in fig. 16, step S411 may specifically include:

step S4110, the network element management device determines, according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance termination request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VNF instance to be terminated and a VDU list to be terminated;

step S4111, the network element management device determines, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link related to the VM to be released.

Therefore, in step S4111, the VM to be deleted may be determined according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification. For example, when it is determined that the list of VDUs to be terminated is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C, it may be determined that 1 VM _ a needs to be deleted, and deleting the VM _ a is specifically expressed as needing to release 4-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth; deleting 1 VM _ B, wherein the deletion of the VM _ B is embodied as releasing 4-core vCPU +16G memory +2G bandwidth; and deleting 1 VM _ C, wherein the deletion of the VM _ C is embodied as releasing 2-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth.

For another example, the interworking relationship and bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device may be as follows:

therefore, in step S4111, the embodiment of the present invention may determine that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released, and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released according to the above intercommunication relationship. In a specific implementation, in other embodiments, step S411 may further include step S4112, where the network element management device determines, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with a VDU in the VDU list. For example, the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored by the network element management device may be as follows:

VM _ A and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server;

the VMs of the same type are deployed on different physical servers.

Step S412, the network element management device executes VNF instance termination according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an example, as shown in fig. 17, step S412 includes:

step S4121, the network element management device generates a command list for deleting a VDU according to the determined VDU list to be terminated. Assume that the list determined in step S411 is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C.

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, in step S4120, the network element management device may generate a deletion command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms a VDU deletion command list.

As an example, when the list determined in step S411 is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following list of VDU deletion commands:

RMV VDU: VDU _2 (number indicating terminated VDU), VDU _ B (type indicating terminated VDU);

RMV VDU: VDU _3 (number indicating terminated VDU), VDU _ C (type indicating terminated VDU).

Step S4122, in the process of executing the VDU deletion command in the command list for deleting the VDU, the network element management device unloads the software of each VDU, requests the VIM to release the virtual machine VM resource related to each VDU through the VNFM, and deletes the basic data related to the VDU in the network element management device. For example, the association relationship between the VDU and the identifier of the VNF instance is released, the stored information about the correspondence between the VDU and the software is deleted, the correspondence between the VDU and the VM specification is deleted, and the related link information about the VM of the VDU is deleted. Step S4123, after the network element management device executes all VDU delete commands in the command list for deleting VDU, notifying the VNFM that the VNF instantiation is terminated.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiment of the present invention, a network element management device receives a VNF instance termination request message sent by a VNF manager VMFM; determining, according to the request message for terminating the VNF instance and resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to terminate executing the terminated VNF instance and VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list, where the VDU list that is required to be terminated includes one or more VDUs that are required to be terminated, and executing VNF instance termination according to the determined VDU list that is required to be terminated and the VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list. The embodiment of the invention transfers the life cycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management equipment, so that the VNFD does not need to set complete parameters or scripts which can cover the life cycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance termination, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance termination is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor executes the VNF instance termination, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes for the network element management devices of different vendors to execute the VNF instance termination according to the determined resources may also be different.

It can be seen that, compared to the prior art in which a VNFM (which may be a VNFM in the architecture shown in fig. 1) completely depends on a VNFD to perform corresponding VNF lifecycle management, the embodiments of the present invention have the following advantages:

the VNFD provided by each Vendor is not required to cover all the management processes of each life cycle any more, the standardization of the VNFD is not required, and the difference of each Vendor can be reflected among network element management devices of different vendors. And after the network element management device receives a life cycle (Lifecycle) management operation, corresponding actions are finished step by step without strictly according to corresponding parameters or instructions of a flow and a script in the VNFD, so that the life cycle management process of the VNF is very flexible.

After the method of the embodiment of the present invention, the final VNFD can be simplified as follows:

simplified mode 1: only basic information such as a vendor (the vendor corresponding to the parameter array in table 1 and the corresponding parameter value), a VNF type (the VNF id corresponding to the parameter array in table 1 and the corresponding parameter value), a version (the VNF version corresponding to the parameter array in table 1 and the corresponding parameter value), a capacity specification (the capacity corresponding to the parameter array in table 1 and the corresponding parameter value) and the like are reserved in the VNFD. While no other information in the prior art VNFD needs to be retained.

Simplified mode 2: the entire VNFD is removed, but the NSD template needs to be modified appropriately, so that the Vendor, the VNF type, the version information, the capacity specification and the like which can be obtained by associating the VNFD can be reflected in the NSD.

In summary, no matter which simplified method is adopted, the interface of NFVO- > VNFM when the method of the embodiment of the present invention is executed may include the following information:

vendor + VNF type: the VNFM is used for judging and forwarding the request to correct network element management equipment;

VNF type, VNF version number, capacity specification: and forwarded by the VNFM to the element management device, so that the element management device instantiates which version of the VNF to deploy to what specification.

In a specific implementation, when the entity performing the VNF lifecycle management is the LMU, the embodiment of the present invention further needs to reserve the parameters and scripts of the LMU in the VNFD or NSD, so that the embodiment of the present invention can deploy the LMU first before performing the VNF lifecycle management through the LMU. In a specific implementation, the deployment flow of the LMU is consistent with the deployment flow of the VDU through the VNFD in the prior art, which is not described herein again.

Correspondingly, the embodiment of the invention also provides network element management equipment for implementing the methods. The following describes, by way of example, a structural configuration of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention with reference to a specific embodiment and a drawing.

Fig. 18 is a schematic structural composition diagram of an embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 18, it may include: a receiving module 10, a determining module 11 and an instantiating module 12, wherein:

a receiving module 10, configured to receive an instantiation VNF request message sent by a VNF manager VNFM.

In a specific implementation, after receiving an instantiation VNF request message, the embodiment of the present invention may create, in a network element management device, an instance identifier for a VNF instance requested to be created by the instantiation VNF request message, and create a correspondence between a version number, a type, and a capacity specification of the VNF instance and the instance identifier. In a specific implementation, the network element Management device and the VNF of the embodiment of the present invention are provided by the same vendor, and may include, but are not limited to, an Element Management System (EMS) or a Local Management Unit (LMU) of the VNF. The receiving module 10 of the network element management device may receive an instantiation VNF request message from the VNFM through a Ve-VNFM interface with the VNFM.

A determining module 11, configured to determine, according to the instantiation VNF request message received by the receiving module and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a resource required for executing instantiation VNF.

In a specific implementation, the determining module 11 may specifically determine, according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a list of virtual deployment unit VDUs required by instantiating a VNF, and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the list of VDUs. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resources required for executing the instantiated VNF determined by the determining module 11 of the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 19, as an embodiment, the determining module 11 may include: a specification determination module 110, a VDU list determination module 111, a software determination module 112, a VM specification determination module 113, and a link determination module 114, wherein:

a specification determining module 110, configured to determine a type, a version number, and a capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request for instantiating the VNF received by the receiving module 10.

In a specific implementation, the specification determining module 110 may describe template VNFD index information and capacity specification according to an information model of a VNF carried in the instantiated VNF request, and query the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed in the corresponding VNFD. Examples of how to find the corresponding VNFD through the VNFD index and query the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are detailed in step S1110, which is not described herein again.

Alternatively, the specification determining module 110 may determine the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiation VNF request. An example of how to determine the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried in the request is described in detail in method flow S1110, and is not described herein again.

A VDU list determining module 111, configured to determine, according to a matching relationship between the capacity specification in the resource configuration information and a VDU of a virtual deployment unit, a VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the specific means of the VDU list determining module 111 determining the VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed may be the same as that in step S1111, and is not described herein again.

A software determining module 112, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs in the resource configuration information and software, software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

A VM specification determining module 113, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between the VDU and a Virtual Machine (VM) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required by each VDU. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. An example of the VM specification required for the VDU can be the example given in step S1113, which is not described herein.

A link determining module 114, configured to determine, according to the network interworking relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirement of each link, the respective requirement of each VM for the link.

In a specific implementation, the means for determining the link requirement of each VM by the link determining module 114 may be the same as the method step S1114, which is not described herein again.

In a specific implementation manner, in other embodiments, the determining module 11 may further include an isolation affinity determining module 115, configured to determine the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information.

The means for determining the link requirement of each VM by the isolation affinity determining module 115 may be the same as the method step S1115, and is not repeated here.

An instantiation module 12, configured to instantiate the VNF according to the resource determined by the determining module.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 20, as an embodiment, the instantiation module 12 may specifically include: a generation module 120, a deployment module 121, and a notification module 122, wherein:

a generating module 120, configured to generate a command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list.

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the generating module 120 can generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deployment command list. The example of the VDU deployment command list that can be generated in this embodiment may be the example given in step S1120, and is not described herein again.

A deployment module 121, configured to execute the VDU deployment command in the command list for deploying the VDU generated by the generation module 120, and in a process of executing the VDU deployment command in the command list, request, to the VIM, a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list according to a result of allocating, by the VIM, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list.

In a specific implementation, the deployment module 121 may request the VIM to allocate corresponding resources according to the VM resources and the link resources determined by the determination module 11, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list. In a specific implementation, the performing of the basic data configuration refers to recording information, such as the allocation results of the software loaded for each VDU and the VM resources allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device, and associating each VDU with the identifier of the VNF instance including the VDU, so as to serve as subsequently available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device manages the VNF instance and the VDU in the instance based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the embodiment of the invention automatically completes the basic data configuration in the process of executing the VNF instantiation, and solves the technical problem that the basic data configuration needs to be manually performed in the network element management equipment in the prior art. As an embodiment, the deployment module 121 may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, and in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM to allocate the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU, and load software for each VDU according to the resources allocated by the VIM to each VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the VM resources required by the VIM to each VDU, and perform basic data configuration.

Of course, as another embodiment, the deployment module 121 may also request VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list from the VIM at one time, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU at one time after the request is completed.

A notifying module 122, configured to notify the VNFM that the instantiating VNF is completed after the deploying module 121 completes executing the deployment command of all VDUs in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, the Network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention may further include an operation authorization processing module, configured to initiate an operation authorization request for instantiating a VNF to a Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO) via a VNF Manager (Virtual Network Function Manager, VNFM), and receive a response of operation authorization for instantiating the VNF from the NFVO via the VNFM, where the response of operation authorization for instantiating the VNF is sent after the NFVO determines that resources required for executing the instantiated VNF exist and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources;

in this case, the deployment module 121 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources and link resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, and specifically forwards the request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM via the VNFM.

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, the deployment module 121 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, and is specifically configured to forward, to the VIM, a request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list in sequence through the VNFM and the NFVO. This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment in that the NFVO initiates the resource allocation request directly to the VIM, whereas the previous embodiment further includes an operation authorization request and a response to determine that there is a relevant resource in the network before initiating the resource allocation request. As can be seen from the above, after the network element management device transfers the lifecycle management work of the VNFM to the network element management device, the VNFD does not need to set a complete parameter or script that can cover the lifecycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the instantiated VNF, the network element management equipment is not required to be instructed by corresponding parameters, flows or scripts in the VNFD any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the condition that the life cycle management process of the instantiated VNF is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor performs the instantiation of the VNF, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes of instantiating the VNF by network element management devices of different vendors according to the determined resources may also be different.

Additionally, the network element management device of this embodiment may further include:

an obtaining module (not shown) configured to obtain a performance parameter reported by the VNF;

the determining module 11 is further configured to determine, according to the reported performance parameter and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated for performing VNF instance capacity reduction and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type.

The network element management device of this embodiment may further include: a capacity reduction module (not shown) configured to execute VNF instance capacity reduction according to the VDU list to be terminated determined by the determining module 11 and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

Fig. 21 is a schematic structural composition diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 21, it may include: the system comprises an acquisition module 20, a determination module 21 and a capacity expansion module 22, wherein:

an obtaining module 20, configured to obtain the performance parameter reported by the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the performance parameter reported by the VNF acquired by the acquisition module 20 in the embodiment of the present invention may include a CPU occupancy rate, or any other performance parameter that can be reported by the VNF.

A determining module 21, configured to determine, according to the performance parameter reported by the VNF and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance and a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, for example, the VNF scaling strategy stored in the embodiment of the present invention and the performance parameter reported by the VNF, refer to the related description in step S211, which is not described herein again.

Thus, when the occupancy rate of the CPU reported by the VNF meets the 1 st policy or the 2 nd policy of the 4 policies, the determining module 21 may determine to execute a VDU list to be deployed for the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, for example, when the policy 1 is met, determine to deploy a VDU of type a again on the basis of the original VNF instance.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and a virtual machine, or a network interworking relationship and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, after determining the VDU list to be deployed, the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list can be further determined according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resource determined by the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

As an implementation manner, as shown in fig. 22, the determining module 21 according to the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include: a VDU list determination module 211, a software determination module 212, a VM specification determination module 213, and a link determination module 214, wherein:

a VDU list determining module 211, configured to determine, according to the performance parameter reported by the VNF and the VNF instance capacity expansion policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing VNF instance capacity expansion. For determining the VDU list, reference is made to the foregoing description, and details are not described herein.

A software determining module 212, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between VDU and software in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, software corresponding to each VDU in a VDU list that needs to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance.

A VM specification determining module 213, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs and Virtual Machines (VMs) in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VM specification required by each VDU in a VDU list that is to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. The corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification can be illustrated in the related description of step S2112, which is not described herein again.

A link determining module 214, configured to determine, according to the network interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of each link in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the respective requirements of the VMs on the links.

In a specific implementation, examples of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device may be as described in step S2113, which is not described herein again.

In a specific implementation, in other embodiments, the determining module 21 may further include an isolation affinity determining module 215, configured to determine the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device. In a specific implementation, examples of the relationship between the VDU isolation degree and the affinity degree in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device may be as described in step S2114, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the isolation affinity determining module 215 may determine, according to the VDU isolation and affinity stored in the element management device, that the affinity and the isolation of each VM are that VM _ a and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server, and multiple VM _ a are deployed on different physical servers, for example, the types of VM _1 and VM _2 are VM _ a, but VM _1 and VM _2 need to be deployed on different physical servers when deploying.

In a specific implementation, referring to fig. 23, as an embodiment, the capacity expansion module 22 may specifically include:

a generating module 221, configured to generate a command list for deploying VDUs according to the VDU list determined by the determining module 21. It is assumed that the VDU list determined in step S211 or S221 includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified to: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the generating module 221 of the network element management device may generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and a set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deployment command list. In a specific implementation, the example of the VDU deployment command list generated in this embodiment may be the same as the example in step S2120, which is not described herein again.

A deployment module 222, configured to execute a deployment command of a VDU in the command list, request, from the VIM, a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list in a process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, and load software and perform basic data configuration on each VDU in the VDU list according to a result of allocating, by the VIM, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list.

In a specific implementation, the performing of the basic data configuration refers to recording information, such as the allocation results of the software loaded for each VDU and the VM resources allocated to each VDU, and the type of each VDU, into the network element management device as subsequently available resource configuration information, and associating each VDU with the identifier of the VNF instance including the VDU as subsequently available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device manages the VNF instance and the VDU in the instance based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the basic data configuration is automatically completed in the process of executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, and the technical problem that the basic data configuration needs to be manually performed in the network element management equipment in the prior art is solved.

As an embodiment, the deployment module 222 may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, and in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM to allocate the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU, and load software for each VDU according to the resources allocated by the VIM to each VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the VM resources required by the VIM to each VDU, and perform basic data configuration.

Of course, as another embodiment, the deployment module 222 may also request VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list from the VIM at one time, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU at one time after the request is completed.

A notification module 223, configured to notify the VNFM that the capacity expansion of the VNF instance is completed after the deployment module 222 executes the deployment command of all VDUs in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, the embodiment of the present invention may further include:

an operation authorization processing module (not shown) configured to initiate an operation authorization request for VNF instance expansion to a network function virtualization orchestrator NFVO via a VNF manager VNFM, and receive a response of the operation authorization for VNF instance expansion from the NFVO via the VNFM, where the response of the operation authorization for VNF instance expansion is sent after the NFVO determines that there are resources required to perform the VNF instance expansion and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources.

In this case, when the deployment module 222 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, it is specifically configured to forward the request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM via the VNFM.

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, when the deployment module 222 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, it is specifically configured to forward, to the VIM, a request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list through the VNFM and the NFVO in sequence. This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment in that the NFVO initiates the resource allocation request directly to the VIM, whereas the previous embodiment further includes an operation authorization request and a response to determine that there is a relevant resource in the network before initiating the resource allocation request.

As an alternative, in a specific implementation, as shown in fig. 24, an element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention may include: a receiving module 23, a determining module 24, and a capacity expanding module 22, wherein the capacity expanding module 22 is the capacity expanding module shown in fig. 21 or fig. 23, and details thereof are omitted herein, and wherein,

a receiving module 23, configured to receive a VNF instance capacity expansion request from the VMFM;

a determining module 24, configured to determine, according to the VNF instance capacity expansion request received by the receiving module 23 and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing capacity expansion of the VNF instance and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list.

As shown in fig. 25, as an embodiment, the determining module 24 may include: a VDU list determination module 241, a software determination module 242, a VM specification determination module 243, and a link determination module 244, wherein:

a VDU list determining module 241, configured to determine a VDU list to be deployed according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance expansion request and the capacity specification after expansion;

a software determining module 242, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs and software in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, software corresponding to each VDU in a VDU list that needs to be deployed for performing volume expansion of a VNF instance;

a VM specification determining module 243, configured to determine, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs and Virtual Machines (VMs) in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VM specification required by each VDU in a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance;

a link determining module 244, configured to determine, according to the network interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of each link in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the respective requirements of the VMs on the links.

In other embodiments, in addition to the above modules, the determining module 24 may further include an isolation affinity determining module 245, configured to determine the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device.

The software determining module 242, the VM specification determining module 243, the link determining module 244, and the isolation affinity determining module 245 are respectively the same as the software determining module 212, the VM specification determining module 213, the link determining module 214, and the isolation affinity determining module 215, and therefore detailed description of specific implementations thereof is omitted here.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiments of the present invention, after the lifecycle management work of the VNFM is transferred to the network element management device, it is not necessary to set a complete parameter or script in the VNFD, which can cover the lifecycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance expansion, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed, and corresponding actions are finished step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance expansion is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor performs the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific flows of performing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance by network element management devices of different vendors according to the determined resources may also be different.

Fig. 26 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 26, it may include: an obtaining module 30, a determining module 31 and a capacity reducing module 32, wherein:

an obtaining module 30, configured to obtain a performance parameter reported by the VNF;

A determining module 31, configured to determine, according to the reported performance parameter obtained by the obtaining module 30 and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list for executing VNF instance capacity reduction, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type.

In a specific implementation, for example, the VNF scaling strategy stored in this embodiment and the performance parameter reported by the VNF may refer to the related description in step S311, which is not described herein again. Thus, when the occupancy rate of the CPU reported by the VNF meets the 3 rd policy or the 4 th policy of the 4 policies, the determining module 31 may determine the VDU list that needs to be terminated for executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, for example, when the policy 3 is met, it determines that a VDU of type a needs to be terminated on the basis of the original instance of the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and the virtual machine, a network interworking relationship, and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, after the determining module 31 determines the VDU list to be terminated, the virtual machine VM resources required to be released by each VDU in the VDU list and the software required to be deleted by each VDU can be further determined according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the determining module 31 in the embodiment of the present invention may further determine the VDU to be terminated, which has an affinity and isolation relationship with the determined VDU to be terminated.

As an implementation manner, as shown in fig. 27, the determining module 31 according to the embodiment of the present invention may specifically include: a VDU list determination module 311 and a released resource determination module 312, wherein:

a VDU list determining module 311, configured to determine, according to the performance parameter reported by the VNF acquired by the acquiring module 30 and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that needs to be terminated when VNF instance capacity reduction is performed. How to determine in detail is described in the foregoing description, and is not repeated herein.

A resource release determining module 312, configured to determine, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted for each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link to be released and related to the VM. In a specific implementation, performing basic data configuration refers to recording information such as the software loaded for each VDU, the allocation result of the VM resource allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device as subsequent available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device performs subsequent management on the VDU based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the basic data configuration of each VDU includes information such as the specification of the corresponding VM of the VDU, the software corresponding to the VDU, and the link of the VM corresponding to the VDU.

In specific implementation, the VM specifications corresponding to different types of VDUs may be different. An example of the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification may be the example in step S3111, which is not described herein again.

In a specific implementation, the example of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device of this embodiment may be as shown in step S3111, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the release resource determining module 312 according to the embodiment of the present invention may further determine, according to the above-mentioned interworking relationship, that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released, and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released.

In a specific implementation, after deleting the software corresponding to each VDU, the specification of the VM to be released, and the link to be released and related to the VM, the resource release determining module 321 may further delete basic data of the VDU configured in the network element management unit, for example, remove an association relationship between the VDU and an identifier of a VNF instance, delete stored information about the correspondence between the VDU and the software, delete information about the correspondence between the VDU and the specification of the VM, delete information about the link to be released and related to the VM of the VDU, and the like.

In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the resource release determining module 312 is further configured to determine, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with a VDU in the VDU list. In a specific implementation, an example of the VM isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in this embodiment may be shown in step S31112, which is not described herein again.

A capacity reduction module 32, configured to execute VNF instance capacity reduction according to the VDU list to be terminated determined by the determination module 31 and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an embodiment, as shown in fig. 28, a capacity reduction module 32 according to an embodiment of the present invention specifically includes:

a generating module 321, configured to generate a command list for deleting a VDU according to the VDU list to be terminated determined by the determining module 31. As an embodiment, the determining module 31 determines that the list includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified to: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the generating module 321 may generate a deletion command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and a set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms a VDU deletion command list. As an example, when the determined VDU list is: 1, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following list of VDU deletion commands:

a deleting module 322, configured to execute the VDU deleting command in the command list for deleting the VDU, uninstall software of each VDU in the process of executing the VDU deleting command in the command list for deleting the VDU, request the VIM to release the virtual machine VM resource associated with each VDU through the VNFM, and delete basic data associated with the VDU in the network element management device.

A notifying module 323, configured to notify the VNFM that the instantiated capacity reduction of the VNF is completed after the deleting module 322 executes all VDU delete commands in the command list of the deleted VDU.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiments of the present invention, after the lifecycle management work of the VNFM is transferred to the network element management device, it is not necessary to set a complete parameter or script in the VNFD, which can cover the lifecycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance capacity reduction, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance capacity reduction is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor executes the VNF instance reduction, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in the network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes for the network element management devices of different vendors to execute the VNF instance reduction according to the determined resources may also be different. In addition, the ping-pong elastic expansion and contraction of the VNF is reduced by a buffer parameter in the VNF instance capacity reduction strategy of the embodiment of the invention.

As an alternative, as shown in fig. 29, in a specific implementation, the network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention may include: a receiving module 33, a determining module 34, and a capacity reduction module 32, where the capacity reduction module 32 is the same as the capacity reduction module in fig. 28 and fig. 26, and is not described herein again, where:

a receiving module 33, configured to receive a VNF instance capacity reduction request from the VNFM;

a determining module 34, configured to determine, according to the capacity reduction VNF instance request received by the receiving module 33 and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to terminate performing capacity reduction of the VNF instance and VM resources that need to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list.

As shown in fig. 30, as an embodiment, the determining module 34 may include: a VDU list determination module 341 and a released resource determination module 342, wherein:

a VDU list determining module 341, configured to determine, according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the capacity reduction VNF instance request received by the receiving module 33 and the capacity specification after capacity reduction, a VDU list in which the execution of the VNF instance capacity reduction needs to be terminated;

a resource release determining module 342, configured to determine, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link to be released and related to the VM.

In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the released resource determining module 342 may further be configured to determine, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with a VDU in the VDU list.

The released resource determining module 342 of this embodiment is the same as the released resource determining module 322 of the previous embodiment, and details of implementation thereof are not repeated here.

Fig. 31 is a schematic structural composition diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As illustrated in fig. 31, it may include: a receiving module 40, a determining module 41, and a terminating module 42, wherein:

a receiving module 40, configured to receive a VNF instance termination request message sent by the VNF manager VMFM.

A determining module 41, configured to determine, according to the request message for terminating the VNF instance received by the receiving module 40 and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that the VNF instance needs to be terminated and the VM resource that needs to be released and corresponds to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an embodiment, as shown in fig. 32, the determining module 41 may specifically include: a VDU list determination module 411 and a released resource determination module 412, wherein:

a VDU list determining module 411, configured to determine, according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance termination request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VNF instance to be terminated and a VDU list to be terminated;

a resource release determining module 412, configured to determine, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information, software to be deleted for each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a VM specification to be released, and a link to be released and related to the VM. In a specific implementation, performing basic data configuration refers to recording information such as the software loaded for each VDU, the allocation result of the VM resource allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device as subsequent available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device performs subsequent management on the VDU based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the basic data configuration of each VDU includes information such as the specification of the corresponding VM of the VDU, the software corresponding to the VDU, and the link of the VM corresponding to the VDU.

In specific implementation, the VM specifications corresponding to different types of VDUs may be different. In a specific implementation, an example of the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification in this embodiment may be the example in step S4111, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the release resource determining module 412 in the embodiment of the present invention may determine the VM to be deleted according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification. For example, when it is determined that the list of VDUs to be terminated is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C, it may be determined that 1 VM _ a needs to be deleted, and deleting the VM _ a is specifically expressed as needing to release 4-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth; deleting 1 VM _ B, wherein the deletion of the VM _ B is embodied as releasing 4-core vCPU +16G memory +2G bandwidth; and deleting 1 VM _ C, wherein the deletion of the VM _ C is embodied as releasing 2-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth.

In a specific implementation, examples of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in this embodiment may be as shown in step S4111, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the release resource determining module 412 in the embodiment of the present invention may determine that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released according to the above interworking relationship. In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the resource release determining module 412 may further determine, according to the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and isolation relationship with a VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, an example of the VM isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device in this embodiment may be shown in step S41112, which is not described herein again.

A termination module 42, configured to execute VNF instance termination according to the VDU list to be terminated determined by the determination module 41 and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an embodiment, as shown in fig. 33, the termination module 42 specifically includes:

a generating module 421, where the network element management device generates a command list for deleting a VDU according to the determined VDU list to be terminated. As an example, it is assumed that the determination module 41 determines the list to be 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C.

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the generating module 421 can generate deletion commands for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deletion command list.

In a specific implementation, the example of the VDU deletion command list generated in this embodiment may be the example in step S4121, which is not described herein again. A deleting module 422, configured to execute the VDU deleting command in the command list for deleting the VDU, uninstall software of each VDU in the process of executing the VDU deleting command in the command list for deleting the VDU, request the VIM to release the virtual machine VM resource associated with each VDU through the VNFM, and delete the basic data associated with the VDU in the network element management device.

A notification module 423, configured to notify the VNFM that the VNF instantiation is terminated after the deletion module 422 completes execution of all VDU deletion commands in the command list for deleting a VDU.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiments of the present invention, after the lifecycle management work of the VNFM is transferred to the network element management device, it is not necessary to set a complete parameter or script in the VNFD, which can cover the lifecycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the VNF instance termination, the indication of corresponding parameters, flows and scripts in the VNFD is not needed any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the problem that the life cycle management process of the VNF instance termination is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor executes the VNF instance termination, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes for the network element management devices of different vendors to execute the VNF instance termination according to the determined resources may also be different.

The above lists an embodiment of functional module composition of the network element management device, and the following exemplifies hardware composition of the network element management device and division cooperation of hardware of each part thereof.

Fig. 34 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 34, it may include: input means 50, output means 51, communication link 52, transceiving means 53, memory 54 and processor 55, wherein:

the input device 50 is configured to receive input data externally input to the network element management apparatus. In a specific implementation, the input device 50 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a keyboard, a mouse, an optical input device, a sound input device, a touch input device, a scanner, and the like. The input data may include various user instructions.

The output device 51 is configured to output the output data of the network element management device to the outside. In a specific implementation, the output device 51 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a display, a speaker, a printer, and the like. The output data may include response data to a user instruction.

The communication link 52 is used for communication with other devices. In particular implementations, the communication link 52 described in embodiments of the present invention may be an example of a propagation medium. Communication media may typically be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes wired media such as a preferred network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, rf, infrared, and the like, for example. In a specific implementation, the communication link 52 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be used to transmit a VNF instantiation request message and a VNF instantiation completion message sent to the VNFM.

The transceiver 53 is configured to transmit data to or receive data from other devices through the communication link 52. The transceiving means 53 of the embodiment of the present invention may be configured to receive a VNF instantiation request message and send a VNF instantiation completion message to the VNFM. In a specific implementation, the transceiver 53 may be a Ve-VNFM interface with the VNFM.

The memory 54 is used for storing program data with various functions. The data stored in memory 54 in embodiments of the present invention includes resource configuration information, as well as program data that is called and run by the processor. In particular implementations, the memory 54 of embodiments of the present invention may be system memory, such as volatile (e.g., RAM), non-volatile (e.g., ROM, flash memory, etc.), or some combination of the two. In particular implementations, the memory 54 of embodiments of the present invention may also be external storage outside the system, such as magnetic disks, optical disks, tape, etc.

The processor 55 is configured to call the program data and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 54, and perform the following operations:

a1: an instantiation VNF request message sent by the VNF manager VNFM is received from the transceiving means 53.

A2: the resources required for executing the instantiated VNF are determined from the instantiated VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 54.

A3: instantiating a VNF according to the determined resource.

In a specific implementation, the network Element Management device and the VNF of the embodiment of the present invention are provided by the same vendor, and may include, but are not limited to, an Element Management System (EMS) or a Local Management Unit (LMU) of the VNF.

In a specific implementation, after receiving the instantiation VNF request message, the processor 55 may create, in the network element management device, an instance identifier for the VNF instance requested to be created by the instantiation VNF request message, and establish a corresponding relationship between the version number, the type, and the capacity specification of the VNF instance and the instance identifier. In a specific implementation, the processor 55 may determine, according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a list of virtual deployment unit VDUs required by instantiating a VNF, and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the list of VDUs. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resources required for executing the instantiated VNF determined by the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

In a specific implementation, when the processor 55 determines, according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 54, to execute the resource required for instantiating the VNF, the following operation is specifically executed:

a21, determining the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request for instantiating the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the processor 55 may describe template VNFD index information and capacity specification according to an information model of a VNF carried in the instantiation VNF request, and query the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed in the corresponding VNFD. Examples of how to find the corresponding VNFD through the VNFD index and query the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are detailed in step S1110, which is not described herein again.

Alternatively, the processor 55 may determine the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiation VNF request. An example of how to determine the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried in the request is described in detail in method flow S1110, and is not described herein again.

A22, determining a VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed according to a matching relationship between the capacity specification in the resource configuration information and a VDU of a virtual deployment unit.

In this embodiment of the present invention, the specific means of the processor 55 determining the list of VDUs required by the VNF to be deployed may be the same as step S1111, and is not described herein again.

And A23, determining the software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information.

A24, determining a VM specification required by each VDU according to a corresponding relationship between the VDU and a Virtual Machine (VM) in the resource configuration information. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. An example of the VM specification required for the VDU can be the example given in step S1113, which is not described herein. A25, determining the requirement of each VM for the link according to the network intercommunication relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirement of each link.

For example, the example shown in step S1114 may be referred to for the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 54, which is not described herein again,

the link requirement determined by the processor 55 may be that a virtual link is to be established between VM _ a and VM _ B, and a virtual link is to be established between VM _ B and VM _ C.

In other embodiments, the processor 55 further determines the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information. In a specific implementation, the VDU isolation and affinity information in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 54 may be the same as the example in step S1115, and will not be described herein again.

Therefore, the processor 55 may determine the affinity and the isolation of each VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity stored in the network element management device, where VM _ a and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server, and multiple VM _ a are deployed on different physical servers, for example, the types of VM _1 and VM _2 are VM _ a, but VM _1 and VM _2 need to be deployed on different physical servers when deploying.

In a specific implementation, when the processor 55 executes to instantiate the VNF according to the determined resource, the following steps may be specifically executed:

a31, generating a command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list.

In a specific implementation, the memory 54 of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, such as a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the processor 55 can generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deployment command list. The example of the VDU deployment command list that can be generated in this embodiment may be the example given in step S1120, and is not described herein again. And A32, in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, requesting the VIM for the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the command list, and loading software and configuring basic data for each VDU in the VDU list according to the allocation result of the VIM to the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the command list.

In a specific implementation, the processor 55 may request the VIM to allocate corresponding resources according to the VM resources and the link resources determined in step B, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU in the VDU list. In a specific implementation, the performing of the basic data configuration refers to recording information, such as the allocation results of the software loaded for each VDU and the VM resources allocated to each VDU, the type of each VDU, and the like, into the network element management device, and associating each VDU with the identifier of the VNF instance including the VDU, so as to serve as subsequently available resource configuration information, so that the network element management device manages the VNF instance and the VDU in the instance based on the basic data configuration. Therefore, the embodiment of the invention automatically completes the basic data configuration in the process of executing the VNF instantiation, and solves the technical problem that the basic data configuration needs to be manually performed in the network element management equipment in the prior art.

As an embodiment, the processor 55 may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, and in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM to allocate the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU, and load software for each VDU according to the resources allocated by the VIM to each VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the VM resources required by the VIM to each VDU, and perform basic data configuration.

Of course, as another embodiment, the processor 55 may request VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list from the VIM at one time, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU at one time after the request is completed.

A33, after the network element management device completes the execution of the deployment command of all VDUs in the VDU list, notifying the VNFM that the instantiation VNF is completed.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, before further performing the step of generating the command list for deploying the VDU according to the determined VDU list, the processor 55 in the embodiment of the present invention further performs the following steps:

initiating, via a VNF Manager (VNFM), an operation authorization request to instantiate a VNF to a Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO), and receiving, via the VNFM, a response to the operation authorization to instantiate the VNF from the NFVO, the response to the operation authorization to instantiate the VNF being sent after the NFVO determines that resources required to execute the instantiated VNF exist and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources;

in this case, the processor 55 requests the VIM to allocate VM resources and link resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, and specifically performs the following steps:

forwarding, via the VNFM, the request to allocate VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM.

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, the processor 55 requests the VIM to allocate VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, and specifically executes the following steps:

and forwarding a request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM through the VNFM and the NFVO in sequence. This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment in that the NFVO initiates the resource allocation request directly to the VIM, whereas the previous embodiment further includes an operation authorization request and a response to determine that there is a relevant resource in the network before initiating the resource allocation request.

As can be seen from the above, in the embodiments of the present invention, after the lifecycle management work of the VNFM is transferred to the network element management device, it is not necessary to set a complete parameter or script in the VNFD, which can cover the lifecycle management process of each VNF. And when the network element management equipment executes the life cycle management of the instantiated VNF, the network element management equipment is not required to be instructed by corresponding parameters, flows or scripts in the VNFD any more, and corresponding actions are completed step by step, so that the condition that the life cycle management process of the instantiated VNF is too mechanized and lacks flexibility is avoided. In addition, the network element management device and the VNF usually belong to the same vendor, and therefore, the embodiment of the present invention can support differences when each vendor performs the instantiation of the VNF, for example, formats of resource configuration information stored in network element management devices of different vendors may be different, and specific processes of instantiating the VNF by network element management devices of different vendors according to the determined resources may also be different.

Fig. 35 is a schematic structural composition diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 35, it may include: input device 60, output device 61, communication link 62, transceiver 63, memory 64, and processor 65, wherein:

the input device 60 is configured to receive input data externally input to the network element management apparatus. In a specific implementation, the input device 60 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a keyboard, a mouse, an optical input device, a voice input device, a touch input device, a scanner, and the like. The input data may include various user instructions.

The output device 61 is configured to output the output data of the network element management device to the outside. In a specific implementation, the output device 61 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a display, a speaker, a printer, and the like. The output data may include response data to a user instruction.

The communication link 62 is used for communication with other devices. In particular implementations, the communication link 62 described in embodiments of the present invention may be an example of a propagation medium. Communication media may typically be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes wired media such as a preferred network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, rf, infrared, and the like, for example. In a specific implementation, the communication link 62 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be used to transmit the performance parameter reported by the VNF and transmit a message that the VNF capacity expansion is completed and is sent to the VNFM, or transmit a VNF capacity expansion request message.

The transceiver 63 is configured to transmit data to or receive data from other devices through the communication link 62. The transceiver 63 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be configured to receive the performance parameter reported by the VNF, the VNF instance capacity expansion request message, and send a message indicating that the VNF instance capacity expansion is completed to the VNFM. In a specific implementation, the transceiver 63 may be a Ve-VNFM interface with the VNFM.

The memory 64 is used for storing program data with various functions. The data stored in memory 64 in embodiments of the present invention includes resource configuration information, as well as program data that is called and run by the processor. In particular implementations, memory 64 of embodiments of the present invention may be system memory, such as volatile (e.g., RAM), non-volatile (e.g., ROM, flash memory, etc.), or some combination of the two. In particular implementations, the memory 64 of embodiments of the present invention may also be external storage outside the system, such as magnetic disks, optical disks, tape, etc.

The processor 65 is configured to call the program data and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 64, and perform the following operations:

b1: and acquiring the performance parameters reported by the VNF or receiving a VNF instance capacity expansion request from the VMFM.

B2: determining a VDU list to be deployed for executing VNF instance capacity expansion and Virtual Machine (VM) resources required by each VDU in the VDU list according to the reported performance parameters and resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment; or, according to the received VNF instance capacity expansion request and the resource configuration information stored by the network element management device, determining a VDU list to be deployed for performing VNF instance capacity expansion and a virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list.

B3: and executing VNF instance expansion according to the determined VDU list and the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 64 according to the embodiment of the present invention, a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information may be maintained, or the resource configuration information may respectively maintain a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information and a piece of VNF instance capacity reduction policy information, where the VNF instance capacity expansion policy may include: when the performance parameter reported last time is lower than a second threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is greater than or equal to the second threshold value, executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, namely deploying one or more VDUs of the specified type on the basis of the existing VNF instance capacity specification; the VNF instance capacity reduction policy may include: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type in the VNF instance.

In a specific implementation, for example, the VNF scaling strategy stored in this embodiment and the performance parameter reported by the VNF may refer to the related description in step S211, which is not described herein again. Thus, when the occupancy rate of the CPU reported by the VNF meets the 1 st policy or the 2 nd policy of the 4 policies, the processor 65 may determine a VDU list to be deployed for performing capacity expansion of the VNF instance, for example, when the policy 1 is met, determine that a VDU of type a needs to be deployed again on the basis of the original VNF instance.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the memory 64 in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and a virtual machine, or a network interworking relationship and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, after determining the VDU list to be deployed, the processor 65 may further determine, according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the VDU list. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the resource determined by the embodiment of the present invention may further include: software corresponding to each VDU and affinity and isolation of each VM.

As an implementation manner, when the processor 65 executes the step of determining, according to the reported performance parameter and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for performing capacity expansion of the VNF instance and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps may be specifically executed:

b21, determining a VDU list to be deployed for performing VNF instance expansion according to the reported performance parameter and VNF instance expansion policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device. For determining the VDU list, reference is made to the foregoing description, and details are not described herein.

B22, determining, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information, the software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list to be deployed for performing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance.

B23, determining, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the Virtual Machine (VM) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required by each VDU in a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance. In a specific implementation, the VM specifications required for different types of VDUs may be different. The corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification can be illustrated in the related description of step S2112, which is not described herein again. B24, according to the network intercommunication relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirement of each link, the VM respectively needs the link.

For example, the example of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 64 may be as shown in step S2113, which is not described herein again.

In other embodiments, the processor 65 determines the affinity and the isolation of the VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information. In a specific implementation, examples of the VDU isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 64 may be as shown in step S2114, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the processor 65 may determine the affinity and the isolation of each VM according to the VDU isolation and the affinity stored in the element management device, that is, VM _ a and VM _ C are deployed on the same physical server, and multiple VM _ a are deployed on different physical servers, for example, the types of VM _1 and VM _2 are VM _ a, but VM _1 and VM _2 need to be deployed on different physical servers when deploying.

As an alternative, in a specific implementation, when determining, according to the received VNF instance capacity expansion request and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list to be deployed for executing capacity expansion of the VNF instance and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, the processor 65 specifically executes the following steps:

b25, determining a VDU list to be deployed according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance capacity expansion request and the capacity specification after capacity expansion;

b26, determining, according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the software in the resource configuration information, the software corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list to be deployed for executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance;

b27, determining, according to a corresponding relationship between VDUs and Virtual Machines (VMs) in the resource configuration information, a VM specification required for each VDU in a VDU list to be deployed for performing volume expansion of the VNF instance;

b28, according to the network intercommunication relationship in the resource configuration information and the bandwidth requirement of each link, the VM respectively needs the link.

In a specific implementation, when the processor 65 executes the step of performing capacity expansion of the VNF instance according to the determined VDU list and the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps are specifically executed:

and B31, generating a command list for deploying the VDU according to the determined VDU list. Assume that the determined VDU list includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the memory 64 of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the processor 65 can generate a deployment command for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deployment commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deployment command list. As an example, when the determined VDU list is: 1, VDU _ a, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following VDU deployment command list:

b32, in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, requesting the VM resources of the virtual machine required by each VDU in the command list from the VIM, and loading software and configuring basic data for each VDU in the VDU list according to the result of the allocation of the VM resources of the virtual machine required by each VDU in the command list by the VIM.

As an embodiment, the processor 65 may execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, and in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM to allocate the virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU, and load software for each VDU according to the resources allocated by the VIM to each VDU and load software for each VDU according to the allocation result of the VM resources required by the VIM to each VDU, and perform basic data configuration.

Of course, as another embodiment, the processor 65 may request VM resources and link resources required by all VDUs in the VDU list from the VIM at one time, and load software and perform basic data configuration for each VDU at one time after the request is completed.

B33, notifying the VNFM that the expansion of the VNF instance is completed after the deployment commands of all VDUs in the VDU list are executed.

In a specific implementation, as an embodiment, before the step of generating the command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list, the processor 65 further performs the following steps:

in this case, when the processor 65 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, it is specifically configured to forward the request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list to the VIM via the VNFM.

In a specific implementation, as another embodiment, when the processor 65 requests the VIM to allocate the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list, it is specifically configured to forward, to the VIM, a request for allocating the VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list through the VNFM and the NFVO in sequence. This embodiment differs from the previous embodiment in that the NFVO initiates the resource allocation request directly to the VIM, whereas the previous embodiment further includes an operation authorization request and a response to determine that there is a relevant resource in the network before initiating the resource allocation request.

Fig. 36 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 36, it may include: an input device 70, an output device 71, a communication link 72, a transceiver device 73, a memory 74, and a processor 75, wherein:

the input device 70 is configured to receive input data externally input to the network element management apparatus. In a specific implementation, the input device 70 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a keyboard, a mouse, an optical input device, a sound input device, a touch input device, a scanner, and the like. The input data may include various user instructions.

The output device 71 is configured to output the output data of the network element management device to the outside. In a specific implementation, the output device 71 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a display, a speaker, a printer, and the like. The output data may include response data to a user instruction.

The communication link 72 is used for communication with other devices. In particular implementations, the communication link 72 described in embodiments of the present invention may be an example of a propagation medium. Communication media may typically be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes wired media such as a preferred network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, rf, infrared, and the like, for example. In a specific implementation, the communication link 72 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be used to transmit the performance parameter reported by the VNF and transmit a message that VNF capacity reduction is completed and is sent to the VNFM, or transmit a VNF capacity reduction request message.

The transceiver 73 is configured to transmit data to or receive data from other devices through the communication link 72. The transceiver 73 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be configured to receive the performance parameter reported by the VNF, the VNF instance capacity reduction request message, and send a VNF instance capacity reduction completion message to the VNFM. In a specific implementation, the transceiver 73 may be a Ve-VNFM interface with the VNFM.

The memory 74 is used for storing program data with various functions. The data stored in the memory 74 in the embodiment of the present invention includes resource configuration information and program data called and executed by the processor. In particular implementations, memory 74 of embodiments of the present invention may be system memory, such as volatile (e.g., RAM), non-volatile (e.g., ROM, flash memory, etc.), or some combination of the two. In particular implementations, the memory 74 of embodiments of the present invention may also be external storage outside the system, such as magnetic disks, optical disks, tape, etc.

The processor 75 is configured to call the program data and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 74, and perform the following operations:

c1: acquiring performance parameters reported by a VNF or receiving a VNF instance capacity reduction request;

C2: determining a VDU list to be terminated and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list according to the reported performance parameters and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than a first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of specified types; or, according to the received VNF instance capacity reduction request and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, determining a VDU list to be terminated for executing VNF instance capacity reduction and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

C3: and executing VNF instance capacity reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, in the embodiment of the present invention, a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information may be maintained in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 74, or a piece of VNF instance capacity expansion policy information and a piece of VNF instance capacity reduction policy information may be maintained in the resource configuration information, where the VNF instance capacity expansion policy may include: when the performance parameter reported last time is lower than a second threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is greater than or equal to the second threshold value, executing the capacity expansion of the VNF instance, namely deploying one or more VDUs of the specified type on the basis of the existing VNF instance capacity specification; the VNF instance capacity reduction policy may include: and when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than the first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, and terminating one or more VDUs of the specified type in the VNF instance.

In a specific implementation, for example, the VNF scaling strategy stored in this embodiment and the performance parameter reported by the VNF may refer to the related description in step S311, which is not described herein again. Thus, when the CPU occupancy reported by the VNF meets the 3 rd policy or the 4 th policy of the 4 policies, the processor 75 may determine a VDU list that needs to be terminated for executing the VNF instance capacity reduction, for example, when the policy 3 is met, determine that a VDU of type a needs to be terminated on the basis of the original instance of the VNF.

In a specific implementation, the resource configuration information stored in the memory 74 in the embodiment of the present invention may further include information such as a matching relationship between the capacity specification and the VDU of the virtual deployment unit, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and software, a corresponding relationship between the VDU and the virtual machine, a network interworking relationship, and bandwidth requirements of each link. Therefore, in the embodiment of the present invention, after determining the VDU list that needs to be terminated, the processor 75 may further determine, according to the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the virtual machine VM resource that needs to be released by each VDU in the VDU list and the software that needs to be deleted by each VDU. Wherein the virtual machine VM resources may include: the specification of the virtual machine VM required by each VDU, the requirement of each VM on a link and the like. Further, as a supplementary embodiment, the processor 75 of the embodiment of the present invention may also determine a VDU to be terminated that has an affinity and isolation relationship with the determined VDU to be terminated.

As an implementation manner, when determining, according to the reported performance parameter and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated for executing VNF instance capacity reduction and a VM resource to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, the processor 75 in this embodiment of the present invention may specifically perform the following steps:

c21, determining a VDU list to be terminated for executing VNF instance capacity reduction according to the reported performance parameters and VNF instance capacity reduction policy information in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device. How to determine in detail is described in the foregoing description, and is not repeated herein.

And C22, determining the software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, the specification of the VM to be released, and the link to be released and related to the VM, according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information.

In specific implementation, the VM specifications corresponding to different types of VDUs may be different.

An example of the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification may be the example in step S3111, which is not described herein again.

In a specific implementation, the example of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device of this embodiment may be as shown in step S3111, which is not described herein again. Therefore, the processor 75 according to the embodiment of the present invention may determine that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released according to the above-mentioned interworking relationship.

In a specific implementation, after deleting the software corresponding to each VDU, the VM specification to be released, and the link related to the VM to be released, the processor 65 may further delete the basic data of the VDU configured in the network element management unit, for example, remove the association relationship between the VDU and the identifier of the VNF instance, delete the stored information about the correspondence between the VDU and the software, delete the correspondence between the VDU and the VM specification, delete the link information related to the VM of the VDU, and the like.

In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the processor 75 may further determine, according to the VM isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and an isolation relationship with the VDU in the VDU list. In a specific implementation, the example of the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 74 of this embodiment may be as shown in step S31112, which is not described herein again, for example, assuming that it is determined that the VDU _ a needs to be terminated, when terminating the VDU with the type of VDU _ a and the number of VDU _1 located on the physical server 1, the VDU with the type of VDU _ C and the number of VDU _3 located on the physical server 1 needs to be terminated.

As an alternative, when the processor 75 according to the embodiment of the present invention executes the step of determining, according to the received VNF instance capacity reduction request and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated in VNF instance capacity reduction and a VM resource to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps may be specifically executed:

c23, receiving a capacity VNF instance request from the VNFM;

c24, determining a VDU list that is required to terminate executing the VNF instance reduction and VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list according to the received reduction VNF instance request and the resource configuration information stored by the network element management device.

As an embodiment, when the processor 75 determines, according to the received capacity reduction VNF instance request and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a VDU list that is required to be terminated for executing the capacity reduction of the VNF instance and VM resources that are required to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps may be specifically executed:

c241, determining a VDU list to be terminated for executing the VNF instance capacity reduction according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the received capacity reduction VNF instance request and the capacity specification after the capacity reduction;

and C242, determining software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, a specification of a VM to be released, and a link related to the VM to be released according to the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information.

In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the processor 75 may further determine, according to the VM isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and an isolation relationship with the VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, when the processor 75 executes the step of performing VNF instance reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps are specifically executed:

c31, generating a command list for deleting the VDU according to the determined VDU list to be terminated. Assume that the determined list includes 1 VDU of type a (simplified: 1 × VDU _ a).

In a specific implementation, the network element management device of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the processor 75 can generate deletion commands for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deletion command list. As an example, when the determined VDU list is: 1, the embodiment of the present invention may generate the following list of VDU deletion commands:

c32, in the process of executing the VDU deletion command in the command list for deleting VDUs, uninstalling software of each VDU, requesting to release virtual machine VM resources related to each VDU from the VIM through the VNFM, and deleting basic data related to the VDU in the network element management device.

C33, after all VDU delete commands in the command list of the delete VDU are executed, notifying the VNFM that the instantiated capacity reduction of the VNF is completed.

Fig. 37 is a schematic structural component diagram of another embodiment of a network element management device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in fig. 37, it may include: input device 80, output device 81, communication link 82, transceiver 83, memory 84, and processor 85, wherein:

the input device 80 is configured to receive input data externally input to the network element management apparatus. In a specific implementation, the input device 80 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a keyboard, a mouse, an optical input device, a sound input device, a touch input device, a scanner, and the like. The input data may include various user instructions.

The output device 81 is configured to output the output data of the network element management device to the outside. In a specific implementation, the output device 81 according to the embodiment of the present invention may include a display, a speaker, a printer, and the like. The output data may include response data to a user instruction.

The communication link 82 is used for communication with other devices. In particular implementations, the communication link 82 described in embodiments of the present invention may be an example of a propagation medium. Communication media may typically be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes wired media such as a preferred network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, rf, infrared, and the like, for example. In a specific implementation, the communication link 82 according to the embodiment of the present invention may be used to transmit a VNF instance termination request message and transmit a VNF instance termination completion message sent to the VNFM.

The transceiver 83 is configured to transmit data to other devices or receive data from other devices through the communication link 82. The transceiver 83 according to this embodiment of the present invention may be configured to receive a VNF instance termination request message and send a VNF instance termination completion message to the VNFM. In a specific implementation, the transceiver 83 may be a Ve-VNFM interface with the VNFM.

The memory 84 is used for storing program data with various functions. The data stored in the memory 84 in the embodiment of the present invention includes resource configuration information and program data called and executed by the processor. In particular implementations, memory 84 of embodiments of the present invention may be system memory, such as volatile (e.g., RAM), non-volatile (e.g., ROM, flash memory, etc.), or some combination of the two. In particular implementations, the memory 84 of embodiments of the present invention may also be external storage outside the system, such as magnetic disks, optical disks, tape, etc.

The processor 85 is configured to call the program data and the resource configuration information stored in the memory 84, and perform the following operations:

d1: a terminate VNF instance request message sent by the VNF manager VMFM is received.

D2: and determining a list of VDUs to be terminated for executing the terminated VNF instance and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the list of VDUs according to the request message for terminating the VNF instance and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management equipment.

D3: and executing VNF instance termination according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

As an implementation manner, when the processor 85 determines to execute the steps of the VDU list that the terminated VNF instance needs to be terminated and the VM resources that need to be released and correspond to each VDU in the VDU list according to the terminated VNF instance request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, the following steps are specifically executed:

d21, determining a VNF instance to be terminated and a VDU list to be terminated according to the VNF instance identifier carried in the VNF instance termination request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device;

d22, determining the software to be deleted by each VDU in the VDU list to be terminated, the specification of the VM to be released, and the link to be released and related to the VM, based on the basic data configuration information of each VDU in the resource configuration information.

In a specific implementation, an example of the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification in this embodiment may be the example in step S4111, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the processor 85 according to the embodiment of the present invention can determine the VM to be deleted according to the corresponding relationship between the VDU and the VM specification. For example, when it is determined that the list of VDUs to be terminated is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C, it may be determined that 1 VM _ a needs to be deleted, and deleting the VM _ a is specifically expressed as needing to release 4-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth; deleting 1 VM _ B, wherein the deletion of the VM _ B is embodied as releasing 4-core vCPU +16G memory +2G bandwidth; and deleting 1 VM _ C, wherein the deletion of the VM _ C is embodied as releasing 2-core vCPU +8G memory +2G bandwidth.

In a specific implementation, examples of the interworking relationship and the bandwidth requirement of the network element in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 84 of this embodiment may be as shown in step S4111, which is not described herein again.

Therefore, the processor 85 according to the embodiment of the present invention can determine that the link between VM _ a and VM _ B needs to be released and the link between VM _ B and VM _ C needs to be released according to the above interworking relationship. In other embodiments, in a specific implementation, the processor 85 may further determine, according to the VM isolation and the affinity in the resource configuration information, a VDU that needs to be terminated and has an affinity and an isolation relationship with the VDU in the VDU list.

In a specific implementation, examples of the VM isolation and affinity in the resource configuration information stored in the memory 84 in this embodiment may be shown in step S41112, which is not described herein again.

In a specific implementation, when the processor 85 executes the step of terminating the VNF instance according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, the following steps are specifically executed:

and D31, generating a command list for deleting the VDU according to the determined VDU list to be terminated. Assume that the determined list is 1 × VDU _ a +1 × VDU _ B +1 × VDU _ C.

In a specific implementation, the memory 84 of the embodiment of the present invention stores various types of configuration commands, for example, a deployment command ADD VDU; delete command RMV VDU, etc. Therefore, the processor 85 can generate deletion commands for each VDU in the determined VDU list, and the set of deletion commands generated by each VDU in the entire VDU list forms the VDU deletion command list.

In a specific implementation, the example of the VDU deletion command list generated in this embodiment may be the example in step S4121, which is not described herein again. D32, in the process of executing the VDU deletion command in the command list for deleting VDUs, uninstalling software of each VDU, requesting to release virtual machine VM resources related to each VDU from the VIM through the VNFM, and deleting basic data related to the VDU in the network element management device.

D33, after all VDU delete commands in the command list of the delete VDU are executed, notifying the VNFM that the VNF instantiation is terminated.

The embodiments of the VNF lifecycle management method and the network element management device according to the embodiments of the present invention are listed above, and detailed flows of a VNF instantiation process, a VNF capacity expansion/reduction process, and a VNF instantiation termination process according to the embodiments of the present invention are described below with reference to a specific application scenario.

Figure 38 is a schematic flow diagram of the VNF instantiation process of the present invention. As shown in fig. 38, it may include:

s01, the VNFM receives the request of instantiating VNF, and the requester can be NFVO and the like; the information model of the VNF carried in the request describes template VNFD index information and capacity specification, and the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are queried in the corresponding VNFD. Or the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are determined by the request.

S02, the VNFM determines the EMS (the network element management device used in this example) according to the Vendor/VNF type and other information, and forwards the request to the EMS.

S03, the EMS determines the resource required to execute the instantiated VNF according to the information carried in the request and the stored resource configuration information.

S04, the EMS carries the resources required to execute the instantiation VNF, and initiates an authorization request for instantiating the VNF operation to the VNFM.

S05, the VNFM forwards the authorization request to instantiate the VNF operation to the NFVO.

S06, the NFVO checks the resource condition in the resource pool, and whether the instantiation requirement can be met; if not, the authorization fails; otherwise, executing S07;

s07, the NFVO initiates a resource reservation request to the VIM.

S08, the VIM reserves the corresponding resource for this instantiation request, and replies a response (carrying VIM id) to the NFVO.

S09, the VFVO returns an instantiation VNF operation authorization response to the VNFM.

S10, the VNFM forwards this response to the EMS. The EMS converts the VDU list determined in S03 into a corresponding command list for deploying VDUs. For example, the EMS generates a command list for deploying VDUs as follows:

item 1: ADD VDU: VDU _1(VDU number), VDU _ A (VDU type), …

Item 2: ADD VDU _2(VDU number), VDU _ A (VDU type), …

S11, the EMS executes each command (for example, the 1 st command), internally generates the requirement for the VM specification and the link, and initiates a resource allocation request to the VNFM.

S12, the VNFM initiates a resource allocation request to the VIM determined in S08.

S13, the VIM allocates VM _ A type VM _1 to the request, establishes virtual network connection for VM _1 and peripheral VMs according to the link requirement in the request, and returns VM index (VM _1) after successful allocation.

S14-S15, the VNFM forwards the resource allocation response to the EMS.

S16, the EMS deploys the VDU _ A software on the basis of the VM _1 to complete some basic data configuration, and records the basic data configuration information of the VDU _1 as resource configuration information in the data tables of the EMS and the VNF, so that the EMS can manage the VDU _1 subsequently.

S17, the EM executes each configuration command circularly (i.e. executes S11-S16 circularly) to complete the deployment of each required VDU, and notifies the VNFM of the completion of instantiation after all VDU deployments are completed.

S18, the VNFM informs the NFVO of the completion of instantiation, and the NFVO refreshes the resource usage information of the instance.

In a specific implementation, a process of expanding the volume of the VNF instance is similar to the process of instantiating the VNF, but the difference is that the number of the processed VDUs is different and the policy for determining whether to expand the volume is different, and a specific volume expansion policy is described in the foregoing embodiment. Therefore, the VNF instance capacity expansion flow is not described here.

Figure 39 is a schematic flow diagram of the VNF termination example process of the present invention. As shown in fig. 39, it may include:

s20, the VNFM receives a request for stopping the VNF instance, and the request party is the NFVO;

s21, the VNFM forwards the request to the corresponding EMS.

S22, the EMS determines, according to the stored resource configuration information, a VNF to be terminated and a VDU list included in the VNF, and generates a command list for deleting a VDU, where the list includes a deletion command of a VDU to be deleted corresponding to the VNF instance.

S23, the EMS initiates a request to the VNF to uninstall a VDU, and the VNF uninstalls software corresponding to the VDU.

And S24, after the VDU software is unloaded, the EMS executes a VDU deletion command, and basic data related to the VDU on the EMS is deleted.

S25, the EMS sends a resource release request to the VNFM to release the VM and the link associated with the VDU.

In specific implementation, S24 and S25 are not in sequence, but the identifier of the VM in the resource release request is ensured so that the VIM can be deleted correctly.

S26, the VNFM forwards the request to the corresponding VIM.

S27-S28, the VIM releases the VM and associated link resources and replies with a resource release response.

S29, the VNFM forwards this response to the EMS.

And the EMS circularly executes S23-S29, and releases all VDUs and resources thereof in the VNF to be terminated. If the EMS also has data related to this VNF, it is also deleted.

S30, the EMS replies to the VNFM with a VNF instance termination completion response.

S31, the VNFM deletes the data related to the VNF instance, and replies a VNF instance termination completion response to the NFVO, and the NFVO also deletes the data information related to the VNF instance.

In a specific implementation, the process of VNF instance capacity reduction is similar to the process of terminating the VNF instance, but the number of processed VDUs is different and the policy for determining whether to perform capacity reduction is different, and the specific capacity reduction policy is described in the foregoing embodiments. Therefore, the VNF instance capacity reduction flow is not described here.

In addition, the embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer storage medium, which may store a program, and when the program is executed, the program may perform part or all of the steps of the method according to the embodiment of the present invention. In a specific implementation, a computer storage medium of an embodiment of the present invention includes: computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory, CD-ROM, DVD or other optical storage, magnetic tape, magnetic disk or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by a computer device.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications may be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, insofar as these modifications and variations of the invention fall within the scope of the claims of the invention and their equivalents, the invention is intended to include these modifications and variations.

The above-mentioned embodiments are only examples of the present invention, which should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention, and therefore, the present invention is not limited by the claims.

Claims

1. A method of instantiating a virtualized network function, VNF, comprising:

the network element management equipment instantiates a VNF according to the determined resource;

wherein,

2. The method of claim 1,

3. The method of claim 1,

the determining, by the network element management device, a list of virtual deployment unit VDUs required to instantiate the VNF according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device specifically includes:

the network element management equipment determines the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request of the instantiated VNF;

and the network element management equipment determines a VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed according to the matching relationship information between the capacity specification and the VDU in the resource configuration information.

4. The method of claim 2,

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining, by the element management device, the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed based on the request to instantiate the VNF comprises:

the network element management equipment describes template VNFD index information and capacity specification according to an information model of the VNF carried in the instantiated VNF request, and inquires the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed in the corresponding VNFD;

or, the network element management device determines the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiated VNF request.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining, by the element management device, the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed based on the request to instantiate the VNF comprises:

7. The method of any one of claims 1-6,

before the network element management device generates a command list for deploying VDUs according to the determined VDU list, the method further includes:

the network element management device initiates an operation authorization request message of an instantiated VNF to a network function virtualization orchestrator NFVO via the VNFM, and receives an operation authorization response message of the instantiated VNF from the NFVO via the VNFM, where the operation authorization response message of the instantiated VNF is sent after the NFVO determines that resources required for executing the instantiated VNF exist and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources.

8. The method of any one of claims 1-6, further comprising:

the network element management equipment acquires the performance parameters reported by the VNF;

the network element management device determines, according to the reported performance parameter and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated for performing VNF instance capacity reduction and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than a first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of specified types;

and the network element management equipment executes VNF instance capacity reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

10. The method according to any of claims 1-6, wherein the network element management device comprises a network element management system, EMS, or a VNF local management unit, LMU.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the network element management device comprises a network Element Management System (EMS) or a VNF Local Management Unit (LMU).

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the network element management device comprises a network Element Management System (EMS) or a VNF Local Management Unit (LMU).

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the network element management device comprises a network element management system, EMS, or VNF local management unit, LMU.

14. An element management apparatus, comprising:

an instantiation module for instantiating the VNF according to the resource determined by the determination module;

wherein,

the determining module is specifically configured to determine, according to the instantiation VNF request message and the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device, a virtual deployment unit VDU list required by instantiating a VNF, and virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list;

the instantiation module specifically comprises:

the generating module is used for generating a command list for deploying the VDUs according to the VDU list determined by the determining module;

the deployment module is used for executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, requesting the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list to a virtualization infrastructure management system (VIM) in the process of executing the deployment command of the VDU in the command list, and loading software and configuring basic data for each VDU in the VDU list according to the distribution result of the VIM to the virtual machine VM resource required by each VDU in the command list;

a notification module, configured to notify the VNFM that the instantiating VNF is completed after the deployment module executes the deployment command of all VDUs in the VDU list.

15. The network element management apparatus of claim 14,

the deployment module is specifically configured to execute the deployment command of each VDU in the command list one by one, in the process of executing the deployment command of each VDU, request the VM resource required by each VDU to be allocated to the VIM, load software for each VDU according to the resource allocated to each VDU by the VIM, and load software for each VDU and perform basic data configuration according to the allocation result of the VM resource required by each VDU allocated by the VIM.

16. The network element management apparatus of claim 14,

the determining module is specifically configured to determine, according to the request for instantiating the VNF received by the receiving module, a type, a version number, and a capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed; determining a VDU list required by the VNF to be deployed according to the matching relationship information between the capacity specification and the VDU in the resource configuration information stored in the network element management device; and determining virtual machine VM resources required by each VDU in the VDU list.

17. The network element management apparatus of claim 15,

18. The device according to claim 16, wherein the determining a type, a version number, and a capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request to instantiate the VNF specifically includes: inquiring the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed in the corresponding VNFD according to the VNF information model description template VNFD index information and capacity specification carried in the received instantiation VNF request of the receiving module; or, the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are determined according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiation VNF request received by the receiving module.

19. The device according to claim 17, wherein the determining a type, a version number, and a capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed according to the request to instantiate the VNF specifically includes: inquiring the type, version number and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed in the corresponding VNFD according to the VNF information model description template VNFD index information and capacity specification carried in the received instantiation VNF request of the receiving module; or, the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF to be deployed are determined according to the type, version number, and capacity specification of the VNF carried by the instantiation VNF request received by the receiving module.

20. The network element management device according to any of claims 14-19, further comprising:

an operation authorization processing module, configured to initiate an operation authorization request message of an instantiated VNF to a network function virtualization orchestrator NFVO via the VNFM, and receive an operation authorization response message of the instantiated VNF from the NFVO via the VNFM, where the operation authorization response message of the instantiated VNF is sent after the NFVO determines that resources required for executing the instantiated VNF exist and requests the VIM to reserve corresponding resources.

21. The network element management device according to any of claims 14-19, further comprising:

the acquisition module is used for acquiring the performance parameters reported by the VNF;

the determining module is further configured to determine, according to the reported performance parameter and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information, a VDU list to be terminated for performing VNF instance capacity reduction and VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list, where the VDU list to be terminated includes one or more VDUs to be terminated, and the VNF instance capacity reduction policy in the resource configuration information includes: when the performance parameter reported last time is larger than a first threshold value and the performance parameter reported this time is smaller than the difference value between the first threshold value and a buffer parameter, executing VNF instance capacity reduction and terminating one or more VDUs of specified types;

the network element management device further includes:

and the capacity reduction module is used for executing VNF instance capacity reduction according to the determined VDU list to be terminated and the VM resources to be released corresponding to each VDU in the VDU list.

22. The network element management device of claim 20, further comprising:

the network element management device further includes:

23. A network element management arrangement according to any of claims 14-19, comprising a network element management system, EMS, or a VNF local management unit, LMU.

24. The network element management apparatus of claim 20, comprising a network element management system, EMS, or VNF local management unit, LMU.

25. The network element management apparatus of claim 21, comprising a network element management system, EMS, or VNF local management unit, LMU.

26. The network element management apparatus of claim 22, comprising a network element management system, EMS, or VNF local management unit, LMU.

27. A computer storage medium comprising, in combination,

the computer storage medium may store a program that, when executed, performs the method of any one of claims 1 to 13.

28. An element management apparatus, comprising: input means, output means, a communications link, transceiving means, memory and a processor, wherein:

the input device is used for receiving input data which is externally input into the network element management equipment;

the output device is configured to output the output data of the network element management device to the outside;

the communication link is used for communicating with other equipment;

the transceiver is used for transmitting data to other equipment or receiving data from other equipment through the communication link;

the memory is used for storing program data with various functions;

the processor is configured to call the program data and the resource configuration information stored in the memory, and execute the method of any one of claims 1 to 13.