CN110430607B

CN110430607B - Method and device for processing service continuity

Info

Publication number: CN110430607B
Application number: CN201910413200.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 熊春山; 魏鑫鹏; 时晓岩
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2013-12-30
Filing date: 2013-12-30
Publication date: 2021-04-09
Anticipated expiration: 2033-12-30
Also published as: WO2015100553A1; CN105009673B; CN110430607A; CN105009673A

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention provides a method and equipment for processing service continuity.A Mobility Management Entity (MME) determines whether PDN connection needs to keep service continuity according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection by acquiring the service continuity information of the PDN connection of User Equipment (UE); and if the PDN connection does not need to keep continuous service, the MME selects a new PGW for the UE, and if the PDN connection needs to keep continuous service, the MME keeps the connection between the UE and the original PGW. The method can ensure that the service of the UE needing to maintain the service continuity is normally continuous, and can select a more suitable PGW for the UE needing not to ensure the service continuity on the premise of not influencing the service continuity of the service in the PDN connection, so that the path of the UE is better, and the routing resource is also saved.

Description

Method and device for processing service continuity

Technical Field

The present invention relates to communications technologies, and in particular, to a method and a device for processing service continuity.

Background

Service continuity (service continuity) in a network refers to a characteristic of guaranteeing that ongoing network services are not interrupted, and especially guaranteeing service continuity in a mobile network is an important characteristic of the network. The continuity of the network service may be implemented in various ways, for example, may be ensured through a relevant mechanism of an application layer, or may be ensured through a mechanism of a network layer, for example, an Internet Protocol (IP) layer. Some services are continuously implemented by ensuring that the IP address of a User Equipment (UE) remains unchanged during the whole service session. In order to ensure that The IP address of The UE does not change, it is required that The IP address anchor used by The UE in any state does not change, and The IP address anchor herein generally refers to some Gateway in The network, such as a packet data Gateway (PDN Gateway, PGW) in The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP) network.

In the existing 3GPP Network, in order to ensure continuity of Network service of a user, in a first prior art, a Network selects a PGW for a UE to connect to a specific Packet Data Network (PDN), and then the UE uses the PGW used before to connect to a PDN Network regardless of how the UE moves, that is, a Network service flow of the UE is first routed to the PGW used before and then enters the PDN Network through the PGW regardless of how the UE moves. For example, the UE starts to be located in beijing, for which the network has selected a PGW located in beijing when the UE initially connects to a certain PDN network; after that, the UE moves to the state of guangzi, but the network still uses the PGW located in beijing to ensure the continuity of the UE service, instead of selecting a PGW located in the state of guangzi to access the PDN network. In fact, not all services on the UE need to maintain service continuity, and when no service that needs to maintain service continuity exists on a certain PDN connection, it is not necessary to maintain service continuity for the UE on the PDN connection. For a UE that does not need to maintain service continuity, if the network selects a PGW used before, when the UE moves to a location far away from the original PGW, the traffic flow between the UE and the PDN network takes a long transmission path, which results in a great waste of routing resources.

In order to solve the problem of routing resource waste in the prior art, a new Selected IP Traffic Offload (SIPTO for short) is introduced into the 3GPP network. The basic idea of SIPTO is that for connections between a UE and some PDN networks, the network may select a PGW for the UE that is located closer to the UE, so that traffic flows between the UE and the PDN network may be transmitted over a shorter path. However, SIPTO only provides a method for reducing a traffic flow transmission path, which does not consider the continuity characteristic of the traffic flow, as long as the subscription information of the user and the operator specifies that the user can use the SIPTO mechanism when accessing a certain PDN network, the network can select a PGW closer to the user for the user during the moving process of the user, the change of the PGW may cause the change of the IP address of the UE, and at this time, if there is a service that requires the IP address not to change before the UE exists, the service before the user is interrupted after the SIPTO is used.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and an apparatus for processing service continuity, which can ensure that a service of a UE that needs to maintain service continuity is normally continuous, and can select a more suitable PGW for the UE that does not need to ensure service continuity, so that a path of the UE is better.

A first aspect of the present invention provides a method for processing service continuity, including:

a mobility management entity acquires service continuity information of packet data network connection of User Equipment (UE);

when the triggering condition is met, the mobility management entity determines the service continuity level of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of the packet data network connection;

if the UE is in the first level, the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE, and the new packet data gateway is used for establishing new packet data network connection with the UE; the mobility management entity instructs the UE to disconnect from an original packet data gateway serving the UE and instructs the UE to establish a new packet data network connection with the new packet data gateway;

if the level is the second level, the mobility management entity keeps the connection between the UE and the original packet data gateway;

the selecting, by the mobility management entity, a new packet data gateway for the UE includes:

and the mobility management entity determines whether a new packet data gateway needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection strategy.

In a first possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of a packet data network connection of a user equipment UE includes:

and the mobility management entity receives the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network equipment, wherein the service continuity information of the packet data network connection is determined by the network equipment according to the continuity information of each service loaded on the packet data network connection.

In a second possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the network device is any one of a policy control rule making entity, the original packet data gateway, and a serving gateway serving the UE.

In a third possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, when the network device formulates an entity for the policy control rule and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a gprs tunnel tag protocol, the receiving, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network device includes:

and the mobile management entity receives the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the policy control rule making entity through the original packet data gateway and the service gateway.

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol PMIPv6 protocol version6, the receiving, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network device includes:

and the mobility management entity receives the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the policy control rule making entity through the service gateway.

In a fifth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the original packet data gateway, the receiving, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network device includes:

and the mobility management entity receives the service continuity information of the packet data network connection, which is sent by the original packet data gateway through the service gateway.

In a sixth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, when the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of packet data network connection of a user equipment UE includes:

and the mobility management entity receives the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the service gateway.

In a seventh possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, service continuity information of a packet data network connection of a user equipment UE includes:

and the mobility management entity acquires the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection and acquires the service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection.

In an eighth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, and acquiring, according to the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, service continuity information of the packet data network connection includes:

the mobility management entity acquires the continuity information of each bearer connected to the packet data network, and judges whether each bearer connected to the packet data network needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer connected to the packet data network;

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the mobility management entity determines that the service continuity of the packet data network needs to be kept continuous;

and if all the bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, the mobility management entity determines the service continuity of the packet data network as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a ninth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, and acquiring, according to the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, service continuity information of the packet data network connection includes:

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the mobility management entity determines whether the packet data network connection meets a first operator selection policy;

if the packet data network connection meets the first operator selection policy, the mobility management entity determines that the service continuity of the packet data network needs to be kept continuous;

if all the bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one of the bearers on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, but the packet data network connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the mobility management entity determines that the service continuity of the packet data network does not need to be kept continuous.

With reference to the first aspect of the present invention and the first to ninth possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection includes:

and the mobility management entity receives the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, which is sent by a serving gateway or a packet data gateway serving the UE.

With reference to the first aspect and the first to tenth possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

With reference to the first aspect of the present invention and the first to eleventh possible implementation manners of the first aspect, in a twelfth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the selecting, by the mobility management entity, a new packet data gateway for the UE includes:

the mobility management entity obtains relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to an access point to which the original packet data network connection belongs, wherein the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point comprises: the distance information between each packet data gateway and the UE, the time delay information between each packet data gateway and the UE, and the load information of each packet data gateway;

and the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE from all the packet data gateways according to the relevant information of all the packet data gateways corresponding to the access point and the actual requirement of the UE.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, distance information between each packet data gateway and the UE, where the original packet data network connection belongs to the access point, includes:

the mobility management entity sends a domain name system server query request to a domain name system server, and the domain name system server query request is used for querying information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point;

and the mobility management entity receives the Internet Protocol (IP) address of each packet data gateway sent by the domain name system server, and determines the distance between each packet data gateway and the UE according to the IP address of each packet data gateway.

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to an access point to which the original packet data network connection belongs includes:

and the mobility management entity inquires the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point to which the original packet data network connection belongs from a pre-configured database.

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the first aspect of the present invention, the second operator selection policy is: selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in an EPS connection management IDLE state ECM-IDLE, or selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in any state, or selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity.

A second aspect of the present invention provides a method for processing service continuity, including:

the network equipment acquires the service continuity information of each service borne on the packet data network connection;

the network equipment acquires the service continuity information of the grouped data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection;

and the network equipment sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobile management entity mobility management entity.

In a first possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the network device, the service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried on the packet data network connection includes:

the network equipment judges whether all the services need to be kept connected or not according to the service continuity information of all the services borne on the grouped data network connection;

if any one of the services carried on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the network equipment determines that the service continuity of the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous;

if all services carried on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, the network equipment determines the service continuity of the packet data network connection as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a second possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the acquiring, by the network device, the service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried on the packet data network connection includes:

the network equipment judges whether all the services need to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of all the services borne on the grouped data network connection;

if any one of the services carried on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the network equipment determines whether the packet data network connection meets a first operator selection policy;

if the packet data network connection meets the first operator selection policy, the network device determines that the service continuity of the packet data network needs to be kept continuous;

if all bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to remain continuous, or any one bearer on the packet data network connection needs to remain continuous, but the packet data network connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the network device determines that the traffic continuity of the packet data network does not need to remain continuous.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a third possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the acquiring, by the network device, service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection includes:

the strategy control rule making entity receives the service flow characteristic information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF;

and the strategy control rule making entity determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the service flow characteristic information of each service includes: quintuple information of the service or application layer information of the service.

With reference to the third and fourth possible implementation manners of the second aspect of the present invention, in a fifth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the determining, by the policy control rule making entity, service continuity of each service according to the service flow feature information of each service includes:

and the strategy control rule making entity determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service and the service continuity characteristic information of each service type which is prestored or obtained from an external database.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a sixth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the acquiring, by the network device, service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection includes:

and the policy control rule making entity receives the service continuity information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF, wherein the service continuity information of each service is determined by the TDF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a seventh possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and a serving gateway is a general packet radio service technology tunnel tag protocol;

the network device sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobility management entity, which includes:

and the strategy control rule making entity sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the packet data gateway and the service gateway.

With reference to the second aspect and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in an eighth possible implementation manner of the second aspect, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol;

and the strategy control rule making entity sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the service gateway.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a ninth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection, including:

the packet data gateway receives service continuity information of each service borne on the packet data network connection, which is sent by a policy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the packet data network connection is determined by the policy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service;

and the packet data gateway sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through a serving gateway serving the UE.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection, including:

when a new service is initiated or ended on the packet data network connection, the packet data gateway acquires service flow characteristic information of each service;

and the packet data gateway determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

With reference to the second aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the second aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection, where the method includes:

and the service gateway receives the service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection, which is sent by a strategy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the grouped data network connection is determined by the strategy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

In a twelfth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the acquiring, by the network device, service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection includes:

the service gateway receives service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection, which is sent by a strategy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the grouped data network connection is determined by the strategy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service;

the network device obtains the service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the packet data network connection, and the method comprises the following steps:

the service gateway determines the continuity of each service loaded on the grouped data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the grouped data network connection;

the service gateway judges whether each bearer on the grouped data network connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer on the grouped data network connection;

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the service gateway determines that the service continuity of the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous;

if all the bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, the serving gateway determines the service continuity of the packet data network connection as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the acquiring, by the network device, service continuity information of each service carried over a packet data network connection includes:

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to remain continuous, the serving gateway determining whether the packet data network connection satisfies a first operator selection policy;

if the packet data network connection meets the first operator selection policy, the serving gateway determining that service continuity of the packet data network needs to be maintained;

if all bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to remain continuous, or any one bearer on the packet data network connection needs to remain continuous, but the packet data network connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy, the serving gateway determines that traffic continuity of the packet data network does not need to remain continuous.

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, the sending, by the network device, service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobility management entity, includes:

and the network equipment determines that the service continuity of the packet data network connection changes, and the network equipment sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity.

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the second aspect of the present invention, if the packet data network connection is just established, the sending, by the network device, service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobility management entity, includes:

and after the preset duration, the network equipment sends the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity.

A third aspect of the present invention provides a mobility management entity, including:

the system comprises an acquisition module, a processing module and a processing module, wherein the acquisition module is used for acquiring the service continuity information of the packet data network connection of User Equipment (UE);

the determining module is used for determining the service continuity level of the grouped data network connection according to the service continuity information of the grouped data network connection when the triggering condition is met;

a gateway selection module, configured to select a new packet data gateway for the UE when a determination result of the determination module is a first level, where the new PGW is used for establishing a new packet data network connection with the UE; the mobility management entity instructs the UE to disconnect from an original packet data gateway serving the UE and instructs the UE to establish a new packet data network connection with the new packet data gateway;

a connection maintaining module, configured to maintain the connection between the UE and the original packet data gateway when the determination result of the determining module is a second level;

the gateway selection module is specifically configured to:

and determining whether a new packet data gateway needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection strategy.

In a first possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the obtaining module is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network equipment, wherein the service continuity information of the packet data network connection is determined by the network equipment according to the continuity information of each service loaded on the packet data network connection.

In a second possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the network device is any one of a policy control rule making entity, the original packet data gateway, and a serving gateway serving the UE.

In a third possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the policy control rule making entity and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a tunnel tag protocol of a general packet radio service technology, the obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the policy control rule making entity through the original packet data gateway and the service gateway.

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol, the obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the policy control rule making entity through the service gateway.

In a fifth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the original packet data gateway, the obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the original packet data gateway through the service gateway.

In a sixth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, when the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, the obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the service gateway.

In a seventh possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the determining module is specifically configured to:

and acquiring the continuity information of each bearer connected with the packet data network, and acquiring the service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the continuity information of each bearer connected with the packet data network.

In an eighth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the determining module is specifically configured to:

acquiring continuity information of each bearer connected to the packet data network, and judging whether each bearer connected to the packet data network needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer connected to the packet data network;

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, determining the service continuity of the packet data network as the continuity needs to be kept;

and if all the bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining the service continuity of the packet data network as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a ninth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the determining module is specifically configured to:

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be maintained continuously, determining whether the packet data network connection meets a first operator selection policy;

determining that service continuity of the packet data network needs to be maintained if the packet data network connection meets the first operator selection policy;

determining that traffic continuity of the packet data network does not need to remain continuous if all bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to remain continuous or any one bearer on the packet data network connection needs to remain continuous but the packet data network connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy.

With reference to the third aspect and the first to ninth possible implementation manners of the third aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the determining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection, which is sent by a serving gateway or a packet data gateway serving the UE.

With reference to the third aspect and the first to tenth possible implementation manners of the third aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

With reference to the third aspect and the first to eleventh possible implementation manners of the third aspect, in a twelfth possible implementation manner of the third aspect, the gateway selection module includes:

an obtaining unit, configured to obtain relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to an access point to which the original packet data network connection belongs, where the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point includes: the distance information between each packet data gateway and the UE, the time delay information between each packet data gateway and the UE, and the load information of each packet data gateway;

and the determining unit is used for selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE from each packet data gateway according to the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point and the actual requirement of the UE.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the obtaining unit is specifically configured to:

sending a domain name system server query request to a domain name system server, wherein the domain name system server query request is used for querying the information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point;

and receiving the Internet Protocol (IP) address of each packet data gateway sent by the domain name system server, and determining the distance between each packet data gateway and the UE according to the IP address of each packet data gateway.

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the obtaining unit is specifically configured to:

and inquiring the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point to which the original packet data network connection belongs from a pre-configured database.

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the third aspect of the present invention, the second operator selection policy is: selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in an EPS connection management IDLE state ECM-IDLE state, or selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in any state without selecting the new packet data gateway for the UE, or selecting the new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity.

A fourth aspect of the present invention provides a network device, including:

the first acquisition module is used for acquiring the service continuity information of each service borne on the packet data network connection;

a second obtaining module, configured to obtain service continuity information of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried over the packet data network connection;

and the sending module is used for sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobile management entity mobility management entity.

In a first possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the second obtaining module is specifically configured to:

judging whether all the services need to be kept connected or not according to the service continuity information of all the services loaded on the packet data network connection;

if any one of the services carried on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, determining the service continuity of the packet data network connection as the continuity needs to be kept;

and if all services carried on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining the service continuity of the packet data network connection as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a second possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the second obtaining module is specifically configured to:

judging whether all the services need to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of all the services loaded on the packet data network connection;

if any one of the services carried on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, determining whether the packet data network connection meets a first operator selection strategy;

With reference to the fourth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in a third possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the first obtaining module includes:

a receiving unit, configured to receive service flow characteristic information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF;

and the determining unit is used for determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the service flow characteristic information of each service includes: quintuple information of the service or application layer information of the service.

With reference to the third and fourth possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect of the present invention, in a fifth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the determining unit is specifically configured to:

and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service and service continuity characteristic information of each service type which is pre-stored or obtained from an external database.

With reference to the fourth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in a sixth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the first obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving service continuity information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF, wherein the service continuity information of each service is determined by the TDF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

With reference to the fourth aspect and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in a seventh possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and a serving gateway is a general packet radio service technology tunnel tag protocol;

the sending module is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the packet data gateway and the service gateway.

With reference to the fourth aspect and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in an eighth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol;

the sending module is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the service gateway.

With reference to the fourth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in a ninth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the second obtaining module is specifically configured to:

receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection, which is sent by a strategy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the grouped data network connection is determined by the strategy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service;

the sending module is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through a serving gateway serving the UE.

With reference to the fourth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the first obtaining module is specifically configured to:

when a new service is initiated or ended on the packet data network connection, acquiring service flow characteristic information of each service;

and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

With reference to the fourth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the fourth aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the first obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection, which is sent by a strategy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the grouped data network connection is determined by the strategy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

In a twelfth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, where the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, the first obtaining module is specifically configured to:

the second acquisition module includes:

a bearer continuity determining unit, configured to determine continuity of each bearer on the packet data network connection according to service continuity information of each service borne on the packet data network connection;

a judging unit, configured to judge whether each bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of each bearer on the packet data network connection;

a packet data network connection continuity determining unit, configured to determine whether the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous according to a determination result of the determining unit;

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, the continuity determining unit of the packet data network connection determines that the service continuity of the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous;

if all the bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to be kept continuous, the continuity determination unit of the packet data network connection determines the service continuity of the packet data network connection as not needing to be kept continuous.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, where the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, the first obtaining module is specifically configured to:

the second acquisition module includes:

a determining unit, configured to determine whether the packet data network connection meets a first operator selection policy when the bearer continuity determining unit determines that any one of bearers on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous;

if the packet data network connection meets the first operator selection policy, the continuity determination unit of the packet data network connection determines that the service continuity of the packet data network is required to be kept continuous;

if all bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to remain continuous, or any one bearer on the packet data network connection needs to remain continuous, but the packet data network connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy, the continuity determination unit of the packet data network connection determines that the service continuity of the packet data network does not need to remain continuous.

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, the sending module is specifically configured to:

and when determining that the service continuity of the packet data network connection changes, sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity.

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the fourth aspect of the present invention, if the packet data network connection is just established, the sending module is specifically configured to:

and after the preset time length, sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity.

A fifth aspect of the present invention provides a mobility management entity, including:

the system comprises a receiver, a receiver and a processing unit, wherein the receiver is used for acquiring service continuity information of packet data network connection of User Equipment (UE);

a processor, configured to determine a service continuity level of the packet data network connection according to the service continuity information of the packet data network connection when a trigger condition is satisfied;

if the current level is the first level, the processor selects a new packet data gateway for the UE, and the new PGW is used for establishing a new packet data network connection between the UE and the new PGW; the mobility management entity instructs the UE to disconnect from an original packet data gateway serving the UE and instructs the UE to establish a new packet data network connection with the new packet data gateway;

if the level is the second level, the processor keeps the connection between the UE and the original packet data gateway;

the processor is specifically configured to:

In a first possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

and receiving the service continuity information of the packet data network connection sent by the network equipment, wherein the service continuity information of the packet data network connection is determined by the network equipment according to the continuity information of each service loaded on the packet data network connection.

In a second possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the network device is any one of a policy control rule making entity, the original packet data gateway, and a serving gateway serving the UE.

In a third possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the policy control rule making entity and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a gprs tunnel tag protocol, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between the original packet data gateway and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a fifth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the network device is the original packet data gateway, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a sixth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a seventh possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In an eighth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a ninth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

With reference to the fifth aspect and the first to ninth possible implementation manners of the fifth aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

With reference to the fifth aspect and the first to tenth possible implementation manners of the fifth aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

With reference to the fifth aspect and the first to eleventh possible implementation manners of the fifth aspect, in a twelfth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect, the processor is specifically configured to:

acquiring relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to an access point to which the original packet data network is connected, wherein the relevant information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point comprises: the distance information between each packet data gateway and the UE, the time delay information between each packet data gateway and the UE, and the load information of each packet data gateway;

and selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE from the packet data gateways according to the relevant information of the packet data gateways corresponding to the access point and the actual requirement of the UE.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the method further includes:

the transmitter is used for sending a domain name system server query request to a domain name system server and for querying the information of each packet data gateway corresponding to the access point;

the receiver is further configured to: receiving the internet protocol IP address of each packet data gateway sent by the domain name system server;

the processor is specifically configured to: and determining the distance between each packet data gateway and the UE according to the IP address of each packet data gateway received by the receiver.

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the processor is specifically configured to:

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the fifth aspect of the present invention, the second operator selection policy is: selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in an EPS connection management IDLE state ECM-IDLE, or selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE is in any state, or selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE when the packet data network connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity.

A sixth aspect of the present invention provides a network device, comprising:

the receiver is used for acquiring the service continuity information of each service borne on the packet data network connection;

a processor: the service continuity information of the grouped data network connection is obtained according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the grouped data network connection obtained by the receiver;

a transmitter, configured to send the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to a mobility management entity.

In a first possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the processor is specifically configured to:

In a second possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the processor is specifically configured to:

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in a third possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

receiving service flow characteristic information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF;

In a fourth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the service flow characteristic information of each service includes: quintuple information of the service or application layer information of the service.

With reference to the third and fourth possible implementations of the sixth aspect of the present invention, in a fifth possible implementation of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the receiver is specifically configured to:

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in a sixth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in a seventh possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and a serving gateway is a general packet radio service technology tunnel tag protocol;

the transmitter is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the packet data gateway and the service gateway.

With reference to the sixth aspect and the first to sixth possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in an eighth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect, the network device is a policy control rule making entity, and a protocol between a packet data gateway serving the UE and the serving gateway is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol;

the transmitter is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through the S-GW.

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in a ninth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

the transmitter is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the packet data network connection to the mobility management entity through a serving gateway serving the UE.

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in a tenth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a packet data gateway serving the UE, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

With reference to the sixth aspect of the present invention and the first and second possible implementation manners of the sixth aspect, in an eleventh possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the receiver is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the grouped data network connection, which is sent by a strategy control rule making entity, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the grouped data network connection is determined by the strategy control rule making entity according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

In a twelfth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

the processor is specifically configured to: determining the continuity of each service loaded on the grouped data network connection according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the grouped data network connection;

judging whether each bearer on the grouped data network connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer on the grouped data network connection;

if any bearer on the packet data network connection needs to be kept continuous, determining the service continuity of the packet data network connection as the continuity needs to be kept;

determining that the traffic continuity of the packet data network connection is not required to remain continuous if all bearers on the packet data network connection do not need to remain continuous.

In a thirteenth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the network device is a serving gateway serving the UE, and the receiver is specifically configured to:

In a fourteenth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the present invention, the transmitter is specifically configured to:

In a fifteenth possible implementation manner of the sixth aspect of the invention, if the packet data network connection is just established, the transmitter is specifically configured to:

A seventh aspect of the present invention provides a readable storage medium, where an execution instruction is stored in the readable storage medium, and when at least one processor of a mobility management entity executes the execution instruction, the mobility management entity performs a method for processing service continuity as in any one of the first to fifteenth possible implementation manners of the first aspect.

An eighth aspect of the present invention provides a program product, where the program product includes an execution instruction, where the execution instruction is stored in a readable storage medium, and the execution instruction can be read by at least one processor of a mobility management entity from the readable storage medium, and the execution of the execution instruction by the at least one processor causes the mobility management entity to implement the processing method for service continuity as in any one of the first to the fifteenth possible implementation manners of the first aspect.

The embodiment of the invention provides a method and equipment for processing service continuity.A mobile management entity acquires service continuity information of packet data network connection of UE (user equipment), and determines whether the packet data network connection needs to keep service continuity according to the service continuity information of the packet data network connection; if the packet data network connection does not need to keep the service continuity, the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE, and if the packet data network connection needs to keep the service continuity, the mobility management entity keeps the connection of the UE and the original packet data gateway. The method can ensure that the service of the UE needing to keep the service continuity is normally continuous, and select a more suitable packet data gateway for the UE needing not to ensure the service continuity on the premise of not influencing the service continuity of each service in the packet data network connection, so that the path of the UE is more optimal, and the routing resource is saved.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings needed to be used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly introduced below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a basic architecture of a 3GPP network;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a first embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of a second embodiment of the service continuity processing method according to the present invention;

fig. 4 is a signaling flowchart of a third embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 5 is a signaling flowchart of a fourth embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 6 is a signaling flowchart of a fifth embodiment of the processing method for service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 7 is a signaling flowchart of a sixth embodiment of the service continuity processing method according to the present invention;

fig. 8 is a signaling flowchart of a seventh embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 9 is a signaling flowchart of an eighth embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention;

fig. 10 is a signaling flowchart of a ninth embodiment of the processing method for service continuity according to the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a first embodiment of a mobility management entity;

fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of a mobility management entity according to the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating a first embodiment of a network device;

fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of a mobility management entity;

fig. 15 is a schematic structural diagram of a second network device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some, but not all, embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Before introducing the embodiments of the present invention, an application scenario of the present invention is introduced, the present invention is mainly applied to a 3GPP Network, fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a basic architecture of the 3GPP Network, and as shown in fig. 1, in the architecture, to access a certain Packet Data Network (PDN), a UE needs to connect to a specific PGW, where the specific PGW is responsible for allocating an IP address for the UE to access the PDN Network, and there may be multiple PGWs that can connect to a certain PDN in the 3GPP Network. In a 3GPP network, a network between the UE and the PGW is a network hosted by an operator, and the network mainly includes an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (e-UTRAN), a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a Home Subscriber Server (HSS), a Serving Gateway (SGW), as shown in fig. 1, the 3GPP network may further include a Policy Control Rule making Entity (Policy Control Rule Function, PCRF), a packet Detection Entity (TDF), and the like. Entities in a network to which an operator between the UE and the PGW belongs together form a transmission path of a traffic flow between the UE and the PDN: UE → E-UTRAN → SGW → PGW, and the path becomes a packet data network connection (PDN connection), the UE can establish multiple PDN connections, each PDN connection can contain one or more bearers (bearers), each bearer has specific characteristics such as transmission delay, transmission bandwidth, etc., the bearers are used for carrying traffic flows with different network requirements on the PDN connection, and each bearer can carry one or more traffic flows. Thus, there may be multiple different traffic flows on each PDN connection.

The scheme of the invention can be mainly divided into two aspects: on the first hand, the service continuity characteristic of a certain PDN connection of the UE is judged, and whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not is judged; and in the second aspect, the network device selects a proper PGW for the UE according to the obtained service continuity information of the PDN connection.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a first embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, where this embodiment mainly describes a process in which an MME selects an appropriate PGW for a UE according to obtained service continuity information, and as shown in fig. 2, the method for processing service continuity according to this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 101, the MME acquires service continuity information of the PDN connection of the UE.

In the embodiments of the present invention, the service continuity refers to whether the service of the user is allowed to be interrupted, that is, when the IP address used by the UE changes, whether the ongoing service of the UE can be continued normally. If the IP address of the UE changes, the ongoing service of the UE is not affected and can still be normally performed, and this type of service is called a service that does not need to maintain service continuity, for example, a service that a user accesses a Web page. If the IP address of the UE changes, which causes interruption of the ongoing service of the UE, such a service is called a service that needs to maintain service continuity, for example, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, which is also called a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, and if the IP address of the UE changes during a call, a normal call process is interrupted, so the VoIP service is a service that needs to maintain service continuity. There are two main ways to ensure service continuity, one way is ensured by the relevant mechanism of the application layer, and the other way is ensured by the mechanism of the network layer (IP layer). The mechanism of the network layer is mainly realized by ensuring that the IP address of the UE remains unchanged during the whole service session. In order to ensure that the IP address of the UE does not change, it is required that the IP address anchor used by the UE in any state (e.g. mobile state) does not change, and the IP address anchor herein generally refers to some gateway in the network, such as a PGW in a 3GPP network, and the IP address of the UE remains unchanged as long as the PGW used by the UE does not change.

In each embodiment of the present invention, the service continuity information of the PDN connection or the service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection includes the following three cases: (a) service continuity needs to be maintained; (b) service continuity is only required to be maintained in an Evolved Packet System (EPS) Connection Management-Connection (ECM-Connection) Connection state; (c) service continuity need not be maintained, etc., and only 3 kinds of service continuity information are listed here, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and the service continuity information may also include other information.

The MME acquires the service continuity information of the PDN connection of the UE, which may be in the following two ways:

in a first obtaining mode, an MME receives service continuity information of a PDN connection sent by a network device, where the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the network device according to continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection.

The network device may be any one of a Policy Control Rule Function (PCRF), an original PGW, and a serving gateway S-GW serving the UE. The PCRF, the original PGW and the SGW can determine the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection.

When the network device is a PCRF and a Protocol between an original PGW and an S-GW is a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunnel label (GPRS Turning Protocol, GTP) Protocol, the MME receives Service continuity information of a PDN connection sent by the network device, which specifically is: and the MME receives the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the original PGW and the S-GW. After the PCRF determines the service continuity of the PDN connection, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is sent to the original PGW, and the original PGW is sent to the SGW and sent to the MME by the SGW.

When the network device is a PCRF and a Protocol between the original PGW and the S-GW is a Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol Version6 IPv6(Proxy Mobile Internet Protocol Version6, PMIPv6 for short), the MME receives service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the network device, specifically: and the MME receives the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the S-GW. Namely, after the PCRF determines the service continuity of the PDN connection, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is directly sent to the SGW, and the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME.

When the network device is the original PGW, the MME receives service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the network device, specifically: and the MME receives the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the original PGW through the SGW. After determining the service continuity of the PDN connection, the PGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW, and the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME.

When the network device serves an S-GW for the UE, the MME acquires service continuity information of a packet data network PDN connection of the user equipment UE, specifically: and the MME receives the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the S-GW. Namely, after the SGW determines the service continuity of the PDN connection, the SGW directly sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

In the second acquisition mode, the MME acquires continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and acquires service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection.

The method includes that the MME acquires continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and specifically includes the following steps: and the MME receives the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection sent by the SGW or the PGW serving the UE.

The MME acquires the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and the method specifically comprises the following steps: the MME judges whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, the MME determines the service continuity of the PDN as not needing to be kept continuous. Or when the MME determines that any bearer on the PDN connection needs to keep the service continuity, the MME further determines whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection strategy, and if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

In this embodiment, the first operator selection policy may include a type of PDN connection that needs to maintain service continuity, and when the operator makes the first operator selection policy, the operator may make different policies for different types of PDN connections, where some PDN connections need to maintain service continuity, and other PDN connections do not need to maintain service continuity. And the MME determines whether the PDN connection needs to be kept according to the type of the current PDN connection. The first operator selection policy may further include subscription information of a user, where the subscription information of the user records service continuity information of the PDN, that is, the PDN needs to maintain service continuity or does not need to maintain service continuity, and the MME may determine whether the PDN connection needs to maintain connection according to the service continuity information of the PDN recorded in the subscription information of the user. The first operator selection policy is made by an operator, and policies made by different operators may be different, so the first operator selection policy mentioned in the embodiments of the present invention may also be other policies, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

And step 102, when the triggering condition is met, the MME determines whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After the MME acquires the service continuity information of the PDN connection, when a trigger condition is satisfied, the MME determines whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, where the trigger condition may be any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, EPS bearing creation, EPS bearing modification and EPS deletion. Specifically, when the MME determines that the UE performs location update, or the UE switches to a new MME, or an event related to the PDN connection occurs, the MME determines whether the PDN connection needs to be maintained continuously according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, that is, the MME determines whether a new PGW needs to be selected for the UE, where the occurrence of the event related to the PDN connection may specifically refer to: new service initiation or termination, creation, modification, deletion and the like of the EPS Bearer. If the judgment result is no, step 103 is executed, and if the judgment result is yes, step 104 is executed.

Step 103, the MME selects a new PGW for the UE, instructs the UE to disconnect from the original PGW serving the UE, and instructs the UE to establish a new PDN connection with the new PGW.

If the MME determines that the PDN connection does not need to be maintained continuously according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, a new PGW may be selected for the UE, and the MME selects the new PGW for the UE, specifically: the MME acquires relevant information of each PGW corresponding to an Access Point (APN) to which the original PDN is connected, wherein the relevant information of each PGW corresponding to the APN comprises: distance information of each PGW and the UE, time delay information of each PGW and the UE, and load information of each PGW; and the MME selects a new PGW from the PGWs for the UE according to the related information of each PGW corresponding to the APN and the actual requirement of the UE.

The method includes that an MME acquires distance information between each PGW corresponding to an APN to which an original PDN connection belongs and UE, and specifically includes the following steps: the method comprises the steps that an MME sends a DNS query request to a DNS server through a standard Domain Name System (DNS) query process for querying information of each PGW corresponding to an APN, then the DNS server returns IP addresses of each PGW corresponding to the APN to which an original PDN connection belongs to the MME, the MME receives the IP addresses of each PGW corresponding to the APN to which the original PDN connection belongs and sent by the DNS, and the distance between each PGW and UE is determined according to the IP addresses of the PGWs and the position information of the UE. The MME may generate a distance ordered list of PGWs according to distances from the near to the far between each PGW and the UE, or generate a delay ordered list of PGWs according to delays of each PGW and the UE from small to large, or generate a load ordered list of PGWs according to loads of each PGW from small to large, so as to select an optimal PGW according to the ordered lists, where the location information of the UE may be a Cell Identity (Cell ID), a Tracking Area Identity (TAI), a base station Identity (eNB ID), or the like.

Optionally, the MME obtains relevant information of each PGW corresponding to an APN to which the original PDN connection belongs, and may further perform the following steps: the MME queries, from a pre-configured database, related information of each PGW corresponding to an APN to which the original PDN connection belongs, and of course, the MME may also obtain the related information of the PGW from an Operation Administration and Maintenance (OAM) center or other external databases.

The judgment principle for selecting a suitable PGW for the UE by the MME may include multiple aspects, for example, the MME selects a PGW closest to the current location of the UE, or selects a PGW with a smaller load, or selects a PGW with a shorter routing path with the UE, and so on. Optionally, when the MME selects a new PGW for the UE, the MME may further need to consider a network policy of an operator, that is, the MME needs to determine whether to select the new PGW for the UE according to a second operator selection policy, and when the second operator selection policy is satisfied, the MME selects the new PGW for the UE, where the second operator selection policy is formulated by the operator itself, and the second operator selection policy may be: selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in the ECM-IDLE state, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in any state, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity, or in any case, selecting a new PGW for the UE. The selection policy made by different operators may be different, and of course, the second operator selection policy may also be other policies, which is not limited by the present invention. If the second operator selection policy is that when the PDN Connection of the UE is in an EPS Connection Management IDLE state (EPS Connection Management-IDLE, abbreviated as ECM-IDLE), a new PGW is selected for the UE, the MME further needs to determine whether the PDN Connection of the UE is in the ECM-IDLE state when selecting the new PGW for the UE, and only when the PDN Connection of the UE is in the ECM-IDLE state, the MME selects the new PGW for the UE, and if the PDN Connection of the UE is in the ECM-Connection state, the PDN Connection of the UE needs to be kept continuous, and the MME cannot select the new PGW for the UE. The PDN of the UE is connected with an ECM-CONNECTED state and an ECM-IDLE state, and the UE is connected with a network in the ECM-CONNECTED state and can perform normal service; and in the ECM-IDLE state, the UE is in an IDLE state, the UE is disconnected with the network, and the UE has no service.

If the MME determines that a new PGW is selected for the PDN connection of the UE, initiating a process of disconnecting the PDN connection between the UE and the original PGW, and requiring the UE to initiate a new PDN connection establishment process based on the same APN, wherein the MME initiates a PDN connection disconnection process of the UE, and the process deletes all context information related to the PDN connection in the network. And meanwhile, the MME instructs the UE to select a new PGW by using the APN to which the original PDN connection belongs, and then the establishment of the new PDN connection is completed between the UE and the new PGW.

And step 104, the MME keeps the connection between the UE and the original PGW.

If the MME determines that the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, it indicates that the service in the service carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, and in order to ensure the service continuity, it needs to ensure that the IP address of the UE is unchanged, so that a new PGW cannot be selected for the UE, and the UE still uses the original PGW for communication.

In the method provided by this embodiment, an MME acquires service continuity information of a PDN connection of a UE, and determines whether the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection; and if the PDN connection does not need to keep continuous service, the MME selects a new PGW for the UE, and if the PDN connection needs to keep continuous service, the MME keeps the connection between the UE and the original PGW. The method can ensure that the service of the UE needing to keep the service continuity is normally continuous, and select a more suitable PGW for the UE needing not to ensure the service continuity on the premise of not influencing the service continuity of each service in the PDN connection, so that the path of the UE is more optimal, and the routing resource is saved.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a second embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, and in this embodiment, mainly described is that a service continuity characteristic of a certain PDN connection of a UE is determined, and whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous is determined, as shown in fig. 3, the method for processing service continuity according to this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 201, the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection.

In this embodiment, the network device may be any one of a PCRF, a PGW serving the UE, or an SGW.

When the network device is a PCRF, the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection, and there are two ways: a first acquisition mode, wherein a PCRF receives service flow characteristic information of each service sent by a packet Detection entity (TDF for short); and the PCRF determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service. And in the second acquisition mode, the PCRF receives the service continuity information of each service sent by the TDF, wherein the service continuity information of each service is determined by the TDF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

In the first obtaining mode, the TDF detects the start and end of each service carried on the PDN connection, and when a service is initiated or ended on the PDN connection, the TDF detects the service, and a specific detection method may use, for example, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology, and obtains service flow characteristic information of the service according to a detection result, where the service flow characteristic information may be any information related to the service flow, such as service quintuple information or service application layer information, and the service quintuple information includes: original IP address, destination IP address, original port number, destination port number, protocol type. And after acquiring the service flow characteristic information of the service, the TDF sends the service flow characteristic information to the PCRF.

After acquiring the service flow characteristic information of each service sent by the TDF, the PCRF determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service, specifically: the PCRF determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service and the service continuity characteristic information of each service, which is pre-stored or obtained from an external database (a third party service platform or a DPI database). The method includes that service continuity information of each service is pre-stored on a PCRF, namely which service needs to be kept continuous and which service does not need to be kept continuous, and then the service continuity information is matched with service continuity of each pre-stored service according to the obtained service flow characteristic information.

In the second acquisition mode, the TDF detects the service, and after acquiring the service flow characteristic information of the service, determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service, and the TDF may determine the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information by the same method as the PCRF, which is not described herein again.

When the network device is a PGW serving the UE, the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection, specifically, there are two ways: the first obtaining mode is that the PGW receives service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by the PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service. In a second obtaining mode, when a new service is initiated or terminated on the PDN connection, the PGW obtains service flow characteristic information of each service, and the PGW determines service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain service continuity information of each service. The traffic flow characteristic information of each service may be detected by the TDF and then sent to the PGW.

When the network device is an SGW serving the UE, the network device obtains service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection, which specifically includes: and the SGW receives service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by the PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

Step 202, the network device obtains the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection.

The network equipment acquires the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection, and the method specifically comprises the following steps: the network equipment judges whether each service needs to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection; if any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the network equipment determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; if all the services carried on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, the network equipment determines the service continuity of the PDN connection as not needing to be kept continuous. Or the network device determines that any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, and further determines whether the PDN connection satisfies a first operator selection policy, and if the PDN connection satisfies the first operator selection policy, the network device determines that the service continuity of the PDN is required to be kept continuous; if all services on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one of the services on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the network equipment determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection does not need to be kept continuous.

The following specifically describes a method for a network device to determine service continuity of a PDN connection according to service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection. The service continuity information of the PDN connection includes: (a) service continuity needs to be maintained; (b) service continuity does not need to be maintained; (c) service continuity needs to be maintained only in the ECM-CONNECTED state. And the network equipment updates the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of the service every time when the service starts or ends in the PDN connection. Here, the principle of judging the service continuity of the entire PDN connection by the service continuity information of each service is: only when all services carried on the PDN connection do not need to maintain service continuity, the PDN connection does not need to maintain service continuity; if there is a service in the PDN connection that needs to maintain service continuity, the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity.

Here, it may be considered that the service continuity information of each service of the PDN connection has a priority, the priority of the service continuity is (a), (b), and (c) in order from top to bottom, and the service continuity of the PDN connection always coincides with the service continuity of the service with the highest priority in the PDN connection. In a specific implementation process, in order to facilitate the service continuity determination of the PDN connection when some services end, the network device may maintain a counter for the service continuity of each service in the context of the PDN connection, where the counter is used to record the number of services belonging to the service continuity corresponding to the counter, and an initial value of the counter is 0, and when a service is established, add 1 to the counter corresponding to the service continuity corresponding to the service, and when a service ends, subtract 1 from the value of the counter corresponding to the service continuity corresponding to the service, and a value of the counter is 0, which indicates that there is no service in the PDN connection that needs to maintain the service continuity.

When the network device is an SGW, the network device obtains service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection, specifically: the SGW determines the continuity of each bearer on the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection, and judges whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the SGW determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; if all bearers on the PDN connection do not need to remain continuous, the SGW determines that traffic continuity of the PDN does not need to remain continuous. Or the SGW determines the continuity of each bearer on the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection, and if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the SGW further determines whether the PDN meets an operator selection strategy or not; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, the SGW determines that the service continuity of the PDN is required to be kept continuous; if all bearers on the PDN connection do not need to remain contiguous, or any one of the bearers on the PDN connection needs to remain contiguous, but the PDN connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy, the SGW determines that traffic continuity of the PDN is not needed to remain contiguous.

Step 203, the network device sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

When the network device is a PCRF and a protocol between the PGW and the S-GW is a GTP protocol, the network device sends service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME, specifically: the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the PGW and the S-GW, namely the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the PGW firstly, and the PGW forwards the service continuity information to the SGW and the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME.

When the network device is a PCRF and a protocol between the PGW and the SGW is a PMIPv6 protocol, the network device sends service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME, specifically: and the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the SGW, namely the PCRF directly sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW and then the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME without passing through the PGW.

When the network device is a PGW, the network device sends service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME, specifically: and the PGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the SGW, namely the PGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW, and the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME.

In this embodiment, a new message parameter may be defined to carry the service continuity information of the PDN connection, for example, a PDN connection service type is defined. In order to reduce the possibility that the network device frequently sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME, in this embodiment, the network device may send the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME only when determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection changes. If the UE initiates a new service, and the new service does not need to maintain service continuity, and all services of the UE before the new service do not need to maintain service continuity, the service continuity of the PDN connection still does not need to be maintained, the service continuity information of the PDN connection does not change, and the network device does not need to repeatedly send a message that does not need to maintain service continuity. If the new service needs to maintain service continuity, and all services of the UE before the new service do not need to ensure service continuity, the service continuity of the PDN connection changes from not needing to maintain continuity to needing to maintain continuity, the service continuity information of the PDN connection changes, and the network device needs to send a message for maintaining service continuity. Through the mode, only when the service continuity information of the PDN connection changes, the network equipment sends the service continuity information to the MME, so that the resource occupied by sending the service continuity information is reduced.

If a PDN connection is established, the network device sends service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME after a preset duration, so as to prevent the UE from establishing different services in a short time when the PDN connection is established, where the services have different service continuity, and the network device needs to send service continuity information of multiple PDN connections to the MME in a short time, which causes waste of resources.

In the method provided by this embodiment, the MME obtains the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection, and sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME, so that the MME maintains the connection between the UE and the original PGW for the UE that needs to maintain the service continuity according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, and selects a new PGW for the UE that does not need to maintain the service continuity, thereby ensuring normal continuity of the service of the UE that needs to maintain the service continuity.

The following describes in detail the technical solution of the embodiment of the method shown in fig. 3, using several specific embodiments.

Fig. 4 is a signaling flow diagram of a third embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, in this embodiment, a PCRF determines service continuity of a PDN connection, and sends service continuity information of the PDN connection to an MME, where the scenario in this embodiment is a scenario in which an S5/S8 interface between a PGW and an SGW uses a GTP protocol, that is, in this scenario, the PCRF may directly send service continuity characteristic information of the PDN connection to the PGW. As shown in fig. 4, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 301, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of the service on the PDN connection.

The TDF detects the start and end of a service carried on the PDN connection, and when the TDF detects that there is an initiation or end of the service on the PDN connection, the TDF detects the service flow, and the TDF may detect by using a DPI technique, or, of course, may detect by using other methods. The service flow characteristic information of the service may be any information related to the service flow, such as service quintuple information, and application layer information carried in the service flow.

Step 302, TDF sends the service flow feature information of the service to PCRF.

Step 303, determining the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service, and determining the service continuity of the PDN according to the service flow characteristic information of the service and the service continuity information of other services connected to the PDN.

The service continuity information of the PDN connection or the service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection includes: (a) the need to maintain traffic continuity (b) does not require maintaining traffic continuity (c) only needs to maintain traffic continuity in the ECM-CONNECTED state.

Here, the principle that the PCRF determines the service continuity of the entire PDN connection through the service continuity information of each service is: only when all services carried on the PDN connection do not need to maintain service continuity, the PDN connection does not need to maintain service continuity; if there is a service on the PDN connection that needs to maintain service continuity, the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity. Or the PCRF determines that any one of services borne on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, further, the PCRF determines whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection policy, if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection policy, the PCRF determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection is required to be kept continuous, and if the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the PCRF determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection is not required to be kept continuous.

The specific method may refer to the description in step 202 of the embodiment, and is not described herein again.

Step 304, the PCRF sends a decision and charging rule message to the PGW, where the decision and charging rule message includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

In this embodiment, the PCRF carries the service continuity information of the PDN connection in a Policy and Charging Rules Provision (Policy and Charging Rules provisioning) message and sends the information to the PGW, where a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) entity is integrated with the PGW, and therefore, it may also be considered that the PCRF sends the Policy and Charging Rules message to the PCEF.

Step 305, the PGW sends a bearer update request to the SGW, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

The PGW carries the service continuity information of the PDN connection in a Bearer Update Request (Update Bearer Request) and sends the information to the SGW.

Step 306, the SGW sends a bearer update request to the MME, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

The SGW carries the service continuity information of the PDN connection in a Bearer Update Request (Update Bearer Request) and sends the information to the MME.

Step 307, the MME stores the received service continuity information of the PDN connection.

And the MME stores and maintains the information after receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection so as to determine whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection when a trigger condition occurs.

After receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection, the MME maintains the information so as to be used as a decision condition when deciding whether the reselection of the PGW is possible.

After step 307, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, and the bearer update procedure is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the bearer update is finished, the MME returns a bearer update response to the SGW, the SGW returns a bearer update response to the PGW, and the PGW returns a decision and charging strategy response to the PCRF.

It should be noted that, in other embodiments of the present invention, when the PMIPv6 protocol is used in the S5/S8 interface between the PGW and the SGW, the PCRF needs to send the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW instead of the PGW, and other steps are the same as those in the embodiments.

Fig. 5 is a signaling flow diagram of a fourth embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, which is different from the third embodiment in that, in the present embodiment, a PCRF only determines service continuity of a single service on a PDN connection, the service continuity of the entire PDN connection is completed by a PGW, and a scenario addressed in the present embodiment is a scenario in which an S5/S8 interface between the PGW and an SGW adopts a GTP protocol. As shown in fig. 5, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 401, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of the service on PDN connection.

For a specific implementation, reference may be made to the description of step 301 in the embodiment, which is not described herein again.

Step 402, TDF sends the traffic flow feature information of the service to PCRF.

Step 403, the PCRF determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service.

Step 404, the PCRF sends a decision and charging rule message to the PGW, where the decision and charging rule message includes service continuity information of the service.

In this embodiment, the PCRF only determines the service continuity of a single service on the PDN connection, and then sends the service continuity information of the single service to the PGW, and the PCRF can carry the service continuity information of the service in a Policy and Charging Rules message (Policy and Charging Rules provisioning) and send the Policy and Charging Rules message to the PGW.

Step 405, the PGW determines the service continuity of the PDN according to the service continuity information of all services connected to the PDN.

The PGW determines the service continuity of the PDN according to the service continuity information of the service and the service continuity information of other services connected to the PDN, and the specific implementation manner may refer to the description of step 304 in the embodiment, which is not described herein again, and only the implementation subject in this embodiment is different.

In this implementation, the PGW is integrated with a PCEF, so here, it may also be understood that the PCRF sends the decision and charging rule message to the PCEF, and the PCEF determines the service continuity of the PDN according to the service flow characteristic information of the service and the service continuity information of other services connected to the PDN.

Step 406, the PGW sends a bearer update request to the SGW, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

Step 407, the SGW sends a bearer update request to the MME, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

Step 408, the MME stores the received service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After step 408, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, and the bearer update procedure is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the bearer update is finished, the MME returns a bearer update response to the SGW, the SGW returns a bearer update response to the PGW, and the PGW returns a decision and charging strategy response to the PCRF.

Fig. 6 is a signaling flow diagram of a fifth embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, which is different from the fourth embodiment in that, in the present embodiment, after the PCRF determines the service continuity of a single service on the PDN connection, the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the single service to the SGW, and the SGW determines the service continuity of the entire PDN connection, where a scenario in the present embodiment is a scenario in which a PMIPv6 protocol is adopted for an S5/S8 interface between the PGW and the SGW. As shown in fig. 6, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 501, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of service on PDN connection.

Step 502, TDF sends the traffic flow feature information of the service to PCRF.

Step 503, the PCRF determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service.

Step 504, the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the service to the SGW.

In this embodiment, the PCRF only determines the service continuity of a single service on the PDN connection, and then sends the service continuity information of the single service to the SGW, and the PCRF can carry the service continuity information of the service in a Gateway control and QoS policy (Gateway control and QoS Rules provisioning) message and send the Gateway control and QoS policy message to the SGW.

And step 505, the SGW determines the service continuity of the PDN according to the service continuity information of all services on the PDN connection.

For a specific implementation, reference may be made to the description of step 304 in the embodiment, which is not described herein again, and only the implementation subject in the embodiment is different.

In this embodiment, the service continuity of the PDN may be determined by service continuity information of all services on a Bearer Binding and Event Reporting Function (BBERF) PDN connection in the SGW.

Step 506, the SGW sends a bearer update request to the MME, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of the PDN connection.

And step 507, the MME stores the received service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After step 507, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, and the bearer update procedure is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the bearer update is finished, the MME returns a bearer update response to the SGW, and the SGW returns gateway control and QoS strategy response to the PCRF.

Fig. 7 is a signaling flow diagram of a sixth embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, which is different from the fourth embodiment in that in the present embodiment, a PCRF sends service continuity information of a single service to a PGW, the PGW determines a service continuity characteristic of a bearer (bearer) carrying the service according to the service continuity information of the single service, then sends the service continuity characteristic of the bearer to an MME through the SGW, and finally, the MME determines service continuity of a PDN connection according to the service continuity characteristic of each bearer in the PDN connection, where the embodiment is directed to a scenario where an S5/S8 interface between the PGW and the SGW is a GTP protocol. As shown in fig. 7, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 601, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of service on PDN connection.

Step 602, TDF sends the service flow feature information of the service to PCRF.

Step 603, the PCRF determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service.

Step 604, the PCRF sends a decision and charging rule message to the PGW, where the decision and charging rule message includes service continuity information of the service.

Step 605, the PGW determines the service continuity of the bearer corresponding to the service according to the service continuity information of each service on the bearer corresponding to the service.

There are multiple bearers on a PDN connection, each bearer may carry multiple services, where the SGW determines the service continuity of the bearer corresponding to the service according to the service continuity information of each service on the bearer corresponding to the service, and the principle that the SGW determines the service continuity of the entire bearer according to the service continuity information of each service is as follows: the bearer does not need to maintain service continuity only if all services in the bearer do not need to maintain service continuity, and if one service in the bearer needs to maintain service continuity, the bearer needs to maintain service continuity.

In this embodiment, the service continuity information of the PDN connection or the service continuity information of each service carried over the PDN connection or the service continuity information carried over the PDN connection may include (a) service continuity needs to be maintained; (b) service continuity needs to be maintained only in the ECM-CONNECTED state; (c) service continuity need not be maintained, and only 3 kinds of service continuity information are listed here, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and the service continuity information may also include other information.

In this embodiment, it can be considered that the service continuity in 3 has a priority, the priority of the service continuity is (a), (b), and (c) in order from top to bottom, and the service continuity of the PDN connection always keeps consistent with the service continuity of the bearer with the highest priority in the PDN connection. In a specific implementation, the MME may carry service continuity information of each bearer in a context of the bearer, so as to be used to determine a service continuity characteristic of the PDN connection when there is a service flow starting or ending.

Step 606, the PGW sends a bearer update request to the SGW, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of a bearer corresponding to the service.

Step 607, the SGW sends a bearer update request to the MME, where the bearer update request includes service continuity information of a bearer corresponding to the service.

Step 608, the MME determines the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection.

After receiving the service continuity information of the bearer corresponding to the service, the MME acquires the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, specifically: the MME judges whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, the MME determines the service continuity of the PDN as not needing to be kept continuous. In another implementation manner, after determining that any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the MME further determines whether the PDN connection satisfies a first operator selection policy, and if the PDN connection satisfies the first operator selection policy, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN is to be kept continuous; if the PDN connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy, the MME determines that the traffic continuity of the PDN does not need to be maintained continuously.

Step 609, the MME stores the service continuity information of the PDN connection.

And the MME stores and maintains the service continuity information of the PDN connection so as to determine whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection when a trigger condition occurs.

After step 609, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, which is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the bearer update is finished, the MME returns a bearer update response to the SGW, the SGW returns a bearer update response to the PGW, and the PGW returns a decision and charging rule response to the PCRF.

Fig. 8 is a signaling flowchart of a seventh embodiment of a method for processing service continuity according to the present invention, which is different from the sixth embodiment in that, in the present embodiment, a PCRF sends service continuity information of a single service to an SGW instead of a PGW, the SGW determines a service continuity characteristic of a bearer (bearer) carrying the service according to the service continuity information of the single service, then sends the service continuity characteristic of the bearer to an MME, and finally, the MME determines service continuity of a PDN connection according to the service continuity characteristic of each bearer in the PDN connection, where the embodiment is directed to a scenario where an S5/S8 interface between the PGW and the SGW is a PMIPv6 protocol. As shown in fig. 8, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 701, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of a service on the PDN connection.

Step 702, TDF sends the service flow characteristic information of the service to PCRF.

Step 703, the PCRF determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service.

Step 704, the PCRF sends a gateway control and QoS policy message to the SGW, where the gateway control and QoS policy message includes service continuity information of the service.

In this embodiment, the PCRF only determines service continuity of a single service on the PDN connection, and then sends service continuity information of the single service to the SGW, and the PCRF can send the service continuity information of the service to the SGW by carrying a Gateway control and QoS policy (Gateway control and QoS Rules provisioning) message with the service continuity information.

Step 705, the SGW determines the service continuity of the bearer corresponding to the service according to the service continuity information of each service on the bearer corresponding to the service.

Specifically, the service continuity of the bearer corresponding to the service may be determined by referring to the six PGWs according to the service continuity information of each service on the bearer corresponding to the service in the embodiment, which is not described herein again.

In this embodiment, the SGW is integrated with the BBERF, and the BBERF on the SGW may determine the service continuity of the PDN according to the service continuity information of all services connected to the PDN.

Step 706, the SGW sends a bearer update request to the MME, where the bearer update request includes service continuity of a bearer corresponding to the service.

And step 707, the MME determines the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection.

Step 708, the MME stores the service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After step 708, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, and the bearer update procedure is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the bearer update is finished, the MME returns a bearer update response to the SGW, and the SGW returns gateway control and QoS strategy response to the PCRF.

In all of the third to seventh embodiments, the PCRF determines the service continuity characteristics, but in some cases, when the TDF function entity is deployed, the TDF may directly determine the service continuity. As shown in fig. 9, fig. 9 is a signaling flowchart of an eighth embodiment of the processing method for service continuity according to the present invention, in this embodiment, the TDF directly determines the service continuity, and the method provided in this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 801, TDF detects and obtains service flow characteristic information of service on PDN connection.

Step 802, the TDF determines the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service.

Specifically, reference may be made to the method for determining the service continuity of the service according to the service flow characteristic information of the service in the third embodiment, which is not described herein again.

Step 803, the TDF sends the service continuity information of the service to the PCRF.

Step 804, the PCRF determines the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of all services on the PDN connection.

Step 805, the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

Step 806, the MME stores the received service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After step 806, a normal bearer update procedure is performed between the MME and the UE, and the bearer update procedure is the same as the bearer update procedure in the prior art and is not described herein again. And after the updating of the load bearing is finished, the MME returns a response to the PCRF.

Fig. 10 is a signaling flowchart of a ninth embodiment of the processing method for service continuity according to the present invention, where the PGW itself integrates a PCEF, and the PCEF integrates an Application Detection Control (ADC) entity, and the ADC entity can complete functions completed by the TDF entity in the eighth embodiment, and can complete Detection of service flow characteristics. As shown in fig. 10, the method provided by this embodiment includes the following steps:

step 901, the PGW obtains service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection.

In this embodiment, the service continuity information of each service may be obtained by directly extracting information in a data packet by the ADC, or the ADC may be obtained by analyzing a service flow behavior that passes through within a period of time, for example, when the ADC cannot extract effective service flow feature information from a single data packet of the service flow to determine the service continuity characteristic of the service flow, the ADC may detect the service flow within a period of time, and infer the service continuity characteristic of the service flow by analyzing the behavior of the service flow data packet.

Step 902, the PGW determines the service continuity of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service on the PDN connection.

For a specific implementation, reference may be made to the description of step 303 in the third embodiment, which is only different from the third embodiment, and therefore, the detailed description is omitted here.

Step 903, the PGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

Step 904, the MME stores the received service continuity information of the PDN connection.

After step 904, normal bearer update procedure is performed between MME and UE. The bearer update procedure is the same as the prior art and is not described herein again.

Step 906, the MME returns a response message to the PGW.

The MME returns a response message to the PGW, where the response message is the response to step 903.

Fig. 11 is a schematic structural diagram of a mobility management entity according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 11, an MME provided in this embodiment includes: an acquisition module 11, a determination module 12, a gateway selection module 13, and a connection maintenance module 14.

The acquiring module 11 is configured to acquire service continuity information of a packet data network PDN connection of a user equipment UE;

a determining module 12, configured to determine, according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, whether the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity when a trigger condition is met; the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

A gateway selection module 13, configured to select a new PGW for the UE, instruct the UE to disconnect from an original PGW serving the UE, and instruct the UE to establish a new PDN connection with the new PGW when a determination result of the determination module 12 is yes;

a connection maintaining module 14, configured to maintain the connection between the UE and the original PGW if the determination result of the determining module 12 is negative.

The obtaining module 11 is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by network equipment, wherein the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the network equipment according to the continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection. In this embodiment, the network device is any one of a policy control rule making entity PCRF, the original PGW, and a serving gateway S-GW serving the UE.

When the network device is the PCRF and a protocol between the original PGW and the S-GW is a gprs tunnel label GTP protocol, the obtaining module 11 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the original PGW and the S-GW. That is to say, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF, the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the PGW, and then the PGW forwards the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW, and the SGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

When the network device is the PCRF and a protocol between the original PGW and the S-GW is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol, the obtaining module 11 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the S-GW. That is to say, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF, and the PCRF sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW, and then the SGW sends the service continuity information to the MME.

When the network device is the original PGW, the obtaining module 11 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the original PGW through the SGW. That is to say, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the PGW, and then the PGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the SGW, and the SGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

When the network device is an S-GW serving the UE, the obtaining module 11 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the S-GW. That is, the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the SGW, and then the SGW sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME.

In this embodiment, the gateway selecting module 13 includes: an acquisition unit and a determination unit. An obtaining unit, configured to obtain relevant information of each PGW corresponding to an APN of an access point to which the original PDN is connected, where the relevant information of each PGW corresponding to the APN includes: distance information between each PGW and the UE, delay information between each PGW and the UE, and load information of each PGW; a determining unit, configured to select a new PGW for the UE from the PGWs according to the relevant information of each PGW corresponding to the APN and the actual requirement of the UE.

The obtaining unit is specifically configured to obtain information of each PGW corresponding to an APN of an access point to which the original PDN belongs, in the following manner: and the acquisition unit inquires the related information of each PGW corresponding to the APN of the access point to which the original PDN connection belongs from a pre-configured database. When the information of the PGW is distance information between the PGW and the UE, the obtaining unit is specifically configured to: firstly, sending a DNS query request to a domain name system server DNS for querying each PGW information corresponding to the APN; then, the obtaining unit receives the internet protocol IP address of each PGW sent by the DNS, and determines the distance between each PGW and the UE according to the IP address of each PGW.

In an implementation manner of this embodiment, the gateway selection module 13 is specifically configured to: and determining whether a new PGW needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection strategy. The second operator selection policy is: selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in an EPS connection management IDLE state ECM-IDLE state, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in any state, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity.

The MME provided in this embodiment may be used to execute the technical solution provided in the first embodiment of the method, and a specific implementation manner and a technical effect are similar to each other, which are not described herein again.

Fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a second embodiment of a mobility management entity of the present invention, and compared with the MME shown in fig. 11, in this embodiment, the MME determines whether the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity by itself, and other implementation manners are similar to those of the apparatus shown in fig. 11, and therefore are not described again. As shown in fig. 12, the MME provided in this embodiment includes: an acquisition module 21, a determination module 22, a gateway selection module 23, and a connection maintenance module 24.

The acquiring module 21 is configured to acquire service continuity information of a packet data network PDN connection of a user equipment UE;

a determining module 22, configured to determine, according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, whether the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity when a trigger condition is met; the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

A gateway selecting module 23, configured to select a new PGW for the UE, instruct the UE to disconnect from an original PGW serving the UE, and instruct the UE to establish a new PDN connection with the new PGW when a determination result of the determining module 22 is yes;

a connection maintaining module 24, configured to maintain the connection between the UE and the original PGW if the determination result of the determining module 22 is negative.

In this embodiment, the determining module 22 is specifically configured to: and acquiring the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and acquiring the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection.

In an implementation manner, the determining module 22 obtains the service continuity information of the PDN connection specifically by: a determining module 22 obtains continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and determines whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the determining module 22 determines that the service continuity of the PDN is to be kept continuous; if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, the determining module 22 determines that the service continuity of the PDN is not needed to be kept continuous.

In another implementation manner, the determining module 22 specifically obtains the service continuity information of the PDN connection in the following manner: a determining module 22 obtains continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, and determines whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any of the bearers on the PDN connection needs to remain continuous, a determination module 22 determines whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection policy; if the PDN connection satisfies the first operator selection policy, the determining module 22 determines that the service continuity of the PDN is required to remain continuous; if all bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one of the bearers on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not satisfy the first operator selection policy, the determining module 22 determines that the service continuity of the PDN is not needed to be kept continuous.

In the above two manners, the step of obtaining, by the determining module 22, the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection specifically includes: and receiving the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, which is sent by the SGW or the PGW serving the UE.

The method provided by this embodiment may be used to implement the technical solution of embodiment one, and the specific implementation manner and the technical effect are similar, which are not described herein again.

Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 13, the network device provided in this embodiment includes: a first acquiring module 31, a second acquiring module 32, and a sending module 33.

The first obtaining module 31 is configured to obtain service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection;

a second obtaining module 32, configured to obtain service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service carried over the PDN connection;

a sending module 33, configured to send the service continuity information of the PDN connection to a mobility management entity MME.

In an implementation manner, the second obtaining module 32 is specifically configured to: judging whether all the services need to be kept connected or not according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection; if any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; and if all services carried on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection does not need to be kept continuous.

In another implementation manner, the second obtaining module 32 is specifically configured to: judging whether all the services need to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of all the services borne on the PDN connection; if any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection strategy; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

When the network device is a policy control rule making entity PCRF, the first obtaining module 31 includes: the receiving unit is used for receiving the service flow characteristic information of each service sent by the packet detection entity TDF; the determining unit is used for determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service. The service flow characteristic information of each service includes: quintuple information of the service or application layer information of the service. Here, the determining unit is specifically configured to: and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service and service continuity characteristic information of each service type which is pre-stored or obtained from an external database.

In this embodiment, the network device may make entities PCRF, SGW, and PGW for the policy control rule.

When the network device is a PCRF, the first obtaining module 31 is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of each service sent by a packet detection entity TDF, wherein the service continuity information of each service is determined by the TDF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

When the network equipment is PCRF, and the protocol between the packet data gateway PGW serving the UE and the service gateway S-GW is a wireless packet service technology tunnel label GTP protocol; the sending module is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the PGW and the S-GW. When the network equipment formulates an entity PCRF for a policy control rule, and a protocol between a PGW serving the UE and the S-GW is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol; the sending module 33 is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the S-GW.

When the network device is a PGW served by the UE, the second obtaining module 32 is specifically configured to: receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by a PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service; the sending module 33 is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the SGW serving the UE.

When the network device is a PGW served by the UE, the first obtaining module 31 is specifically configured to: when a new service is initiated or ended on the PDN connection, acquiring service flow characteristic information of each service; and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

When the network device is an SGW serving the UE, the first obtaining module 31 is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by the PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

When the network device is an SGW serving the UE, the first obtaining module 31 is specifically configured to: receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by a PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service; the second obtaining module 32 includes: a bearing continuity determining unit, a judging unit and a PDN connection continuity determining unit.

The bearer continuity determining unit is configured to determine continuity of each bearer on the PDN connection according to service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection; a judging unit, configured to judge whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; a PDN connection continuity determining unit, configured to determine, according to a determination result of the determining unit, whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, the continuity determining unit of the PDN connection determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, the continuity determining unit of the PDN connection determines that the service continuity of the PDN connection does not need to be kept continuous.

In another implementation manner, the determining unit is configured to determine whether the PDN connection satisfies a first operator selection policy when the bearer continuity determining unit determines that any one of bearers on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; a PDN connection continuity determining unit, configured to determine, according to a determination result of the determining unit, whether the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, a continuity determining unit of the PDN connection determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection strategy, determining the service continuity of the PDN as not needing to be kept continuous by a continuity determining unit of the PDN connection.

In this embodiment, in order to reduce the overhead of the network device, the sending module is specifically configured to: and when the change of the service continuity of the PDN connection is determined, sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME. Or, after the PDN connection is just established and the sending module specifically sends, after a preset duration, the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME. Thereby reducing the sending of traffic continuity information for the PDN connection.

The method provided by this embodiment may be used to implement the technical solution of the second embodiment of the method, and the specific implementation manner and the technical effect are similar, and are not described herein again.

Fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a third embodiment of a mobility management entity of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 14, an MME400 provided in this embodiment includes: a processor 41, a receiver 43. The receiver 43 is connected to the processor 41 via a bus. The MME provided in this embodiment may further include: a memory 42, wherein the memory 42 stores an execution instruction, when the MME400 runs, the processor 41 communicates with the memory 42, and the processor 41 executes the instruction to make the MME400 execute the processing method for service continuity provided by the present invention.

The receiver 43 is configured to obtain service continuity information of a packet data network PDN connection of a user equipment UE;

a processor 41, configured to determine, according to the service continuity information of the PDN connection, whether the PDN connection needs to maintain service continuity when a trigger condition is met; the trigger condition is any one of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

If not, the processor 41 selects a new PGW for the UE, instructs the UE to disconnect from an original PGW serving the UE, and instructs the UE to establish a new PDN connection with the new PGW;

if so, the processor 41 maintains the connection between the UE and the original PGW.

The receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by network equipment, wherein the service continuity information of the PDN connection is determined by the network equipment according to the continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection. The network device is any one of a policy control rule making entity PCRF, the original PGW and a serving gateway S-GW serving the UE.

When the network device is the PCRF and a protocol between the original PGW and the S-GW is a gprs tunneling label GTP protocol, the receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the original PGW and the S-GW. When the network device is the PCRF and a protocol between the original PGW and the S-GW is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol, the receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the PCRF through the S-GW.

When the network device is the original PGW, the receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the original PGW through the SGW. When the network device is an S-GW serving the UE, the receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by the S-GW.

In the foregoing several manners, the MME receives the service continuity information of the PDN connection sent by another network device, and of course, the MME may also determine the service continuity information of the PDN connection by itself, and when the MME determines the service continuity information of the PDN connection by itself, the receiver 43 is specifically configured to: and receiving the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection, which is sent by the SGW or the PGW serving the UE. Then, the receiver 43 obtains the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection.

The step of acquiring, by the receiver 43, the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection specifically includes: the receiver 43 determines whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

Or, the receiver 43 determines whether each bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of each bearer on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, further determining whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection policy; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection policy, the MME determines that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

The processor 41 is specifically configured to determine whether a new PGW needs to be selected for the UE by: the processor 41 obtains relevant information of each PGW corresponding to the APN of the access point to which the original PDN connection belongs, where the relevant information of each PGW corresponding to the APN includes: distance information between each PGW and the UE, delay information between each PGW and the UE, and load information of each PGW; and selecting a new PGW from the PGWs according to the related information of each PGW corresponding to the APN and the actual requirement of the UE.

Further, the MME provided in this embodiment may further include a transmitter 44, where the transmitter 44 is configured to send a DNS query request to a domain name system server DNS, and is configured to query information of each PGW corresponding to the APN; the receiver 43 is also configured to: receiving the internet protocol IP address of each PGW sent by the DNS; accordingly, the processor 41 is specifically configured to: determining a distance between each PGW and the UE according to the IP address of each PGW received by the receiver. In this way, the MME acquires information of each PGW from the DNS, and of course, the processor 41 may also query, from a pre-configured database, related information of each PGW corresponding to the access point APN to which the original PDN connection belongs.

In this embodiment, when selecting a new PGW for a specific UE, the processor 41 may further consider an operator selection policy, specifically: processor 41 determines whether a new PGW needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection policy. The second operator selection policy is: selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in an EPS connection management IDLE state ECM-IDLE, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE is in any state, or selecting a new PGW for the UE when the PDN connection of the UE does not need to maintain service continuity.

The MME provided in this embodiment may be used to execute the technical solution of the first embodiment of the method, and a specific implementation manner and a technical effect are similar to each other, which are not described herein again.

Fig. 15 is a schematic structural diagram of a second network device in the embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 15, the network device 500 provided in this embodiment includes: a processor 51, a receiver 53 and a transmitter 54. Wherein the receiver 53 and the transmitter 54 are connected to the processor 51 via a bus. The network device 500 provided in this embodiment may further include: a memory 52, wherein the memory 52 stores execution instructions, when the network device 500 runs, the processor 51 communicates with the memory 52, and the processor 51 executes the instructions to make the network device 500 execute the processing method of service continuity provided by the present invention.

A receiver 53, configured to obtain service continuity information of each service carried on the PDN connection;

the processor 51: the PDN connection processing unit is used for acquiring the service continuity information of the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the PDN connection acquired by the receiver;

a transmitter 54, configured to send service continuity information of the PDN connection to a mobility management entity MME.

In this embodiment, the processor 51 may obtain the service continuity information of the PDN connection in the following two manners, where in a first manner, the processor 51 is specifically configured to: judging whether all the services need to be kept connected or not according to the service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection; if any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; and if all services carried on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection does not need to be kept continuous.

In the second mode, the processor 51 is specifically configured to: judging whether all the services need to be kept continuous or not according to the service continuity information of all the services borne on the PDN connection; if any one of the services carried on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining whether the PDN connection meets a first operator selection strategy; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

In this embodiment, the network device may be a PCRF, a PGW, or an SGW.

When the network device is the PCRF, the receiver 53 receives service flow characteristic information of each service sent by the packet detection entity TDF; and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service. Wherein, the service flow characteristic information of each service includes: quintuple information of the service or application layer information of the service. Or, the receiver determines the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service and service continuity characteristic information of each service type pre-stored or obtained from an external database. In the above manner, the PCRF determines the service continuity information of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service, in another manner, the packet detection entity TDF determines the service continuity information of each service, and then sends the service continuity information to the PCRF, and the receiver 53 of the PCRF receives the service continuity information of each service sent by the packet detection entity TDF, where the service continuity information of each service is determined by the TDF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service.

When the network equipment is PCRF, and the protocol between the packet data gateway PGW serving the UE and the service gateway S-GW is a wireless packet service technology tunnel label GTP protocol; the emitter 54 is used in particular for: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the PGW and the S-GW. When the network equipment formulates an entity PCRF for a policy control rule, and a protocol between a PGW serving the UE and the S-GW is a proxy mobile internet protocol version6 PMIPv6 protocol; the emitter 54 is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the S-GW.

When the network device is a PGW served by the UE, the receiver 53 is specifically configured to: receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by a PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service; the transmitter is specifically configured to: and sending the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME through the SGW serving the UE. Alternatively, the receiver 53 is specifically configured to: when a new service is initiated or ended on the PDN connection, the PGW acquires service flow characteristic information of each service; and determining the service continuity of each service according to the service flow characteristic information of each service to obtain the service continuity information of each service.

When the network device is an SGW serving the UE, the receiver 53 is specifically configured to: and receiving service continuity information of each service borne on the PDN connection sent by the PCRF, wherein the service continuity of each service borne on the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service. Or, the receiver 53 receives service continuity information of each service carried over the PDN connection sent by the PCRF, where the service continuity of each service carried over the PDN connection is determined by the PCRF according to the service flow characteristic information of each service; correspondingly, the processor 51 is specifically configured to: determining the continuity of each service loaded on the PDN connection according to the service continuity information of each service loaded on the PDN connection; judging whether all the bearers on the PDN connection need to be kept continuous according to the continuity information of all the bearers on the PDN connection; if any bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection does not need to be kept continuous. If the processor 51 determines that any of the bearers on the PDN connection need to remain continuous, the processor 51 further determines whether the PDN connection satisfies a first operator selection policy; if the PDN connection meets the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN needs to be kept continuous; and if all the bearers on the PDN connection do not need to be kept continuous, or any one bearer on the PDN connection needs to be kept continuous, but the PDN connection does not meet the first operator selection strategy, determining that the service continuity of the PDN does not need to be kept continuous.

In order to reduce network resources occupied by the network device to send the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME frequently, the transmitter 54 sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME only when determining that the service continuity of the PDN connection changes. Or, when the PDN connection is just established, the transmitter 54 sends the service continuity information of the PDN connection to the MME after a preset time period.

The network device provided in this embodiment may be used to implement the technical solution of the second embodiment, and the specific implementation manner and the technical effect are similar, which are not described herein again.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that: all or part of the steps for implementing the method embodiments may be implemented by hardware related to program instructions, and the program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, and when executed, the program performs the steps including the method embodiments; and the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store program codes, such as ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, and not to limit the same; while the invention has been described in detail and with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some or all of the technical features may be equivalently replaced; and the modifications or the substitutions do not make the essence of the corresponding technical solutions depart from the scope of the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for processing service continuity is characterized by comprising the following steps:

when the triggering condition is met, the mobility management entity determines whether the packet data network connection needs to maintain the service connection according to the service continuity information of the packet data network connection;

if not, the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE, and the new packet data gateway is used for establishing new packet data network connection with the UE; the mobility management entity instructs the UE to disconnect from an original packet data gateway serving the UE and instructs the UE to establish a new packet data network connection with the new packet data gateway;

if so, the mobility management entity keeps the connection between the UE and the original packet data gateway;

before the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE, the mobility management entity determines whether the new packet data gateway needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection strategy;

the mobility management entity acquires service continuity information of packet data network connection of User Equipment (UE), wherein the service continuity information comprises the service continuity information;

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting, by the mobility management entity, the new packet data gateway for the UE comprises:

and the mobility management entity selects the new packet data gateway according to the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, an access point or the time delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the selecting, by the mobility management entity, the new packet data gateway for the UE further comprises:

and the mobility management entity selects a new packet data gateway for the UE according to the actual requirement of the UE.

4. A method according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that the method further comprises:

the mobility management entity obtains the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, the access point, or the delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the acquiring, by the mobility management entity, the load of each packet data gateway, the location of the UE, the access point, or the latency information of each packet data gateway and the UE comprises:

and the mobility management entity inquires the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, the access point or the time delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE from a pre-configured database.

6. A method according to any of claims 1-3, characterized in that the triggering condition is any of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

7. A mobility management entity, comprising:

the determining module is used for determining whether the grouped data network connection needs to keep service connection according to the service continuity information of the grouped data network connection when the triggering condition is met;

a gateway selection module, configured to select a new packet data gateway for the UE when a determination result of the determination module is negative, where the new packet data gateway is used for establishing a new packet data network connection with the UE; the mobility management entity instructs the UE to disconnect from an original packet data gateway serving the UE and instructs the UE to establish a new packet data network connection with the new packet data gateway;

a connection maintaining module, configured to maintain the connection between the UE and the original packet data gateway when the determination result of the determining module is yes;

the gateway selection module is specifically configured to:

before selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE, determining whether the new packet data gateway needs to be selected for the UE according to a second operator selection strategy;

the determining module is specifically configured to:

8. The mobility management entity according to claim 7, wherein the gateway selection module is specifically configured to:

and selecting the new packet data gateway according to the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, an access point or the time delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE.

9. The mobility management entity according to claim 8, wherein the gateway selection module is specifically configured to:

and selecting a new packet data gateway for the UE according to the actual requirement of the UE.

10. The mobility management entity according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the obtaining module is further configured to:

and acquiring the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, the access point or the time delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE.

11. The mobility management entity of claim 10, wherein the obtaining module is specifically configured to:

and inquiring the load of each packet data gateway, the position of the UE, the access point or the time delay information of each packet data gateway and the UE from a pre-configured database.

12. The mobility management entity according to any of claims 7-9, wherein the triggering condition is any of the following conditions: the method comprises the steps of mobility management event occurrence, new service initiation, original service termination, Evolved Packet System (EPS) bearer creation, EPS bearer modification and EPS bearer deletion.

13. A readable storage medium, characterized in that the readable storage medium has stored therein an execution instruction, which when executed by at least one processor of a mobility management entity, performs the processing method for service continuity according to any one of claims 1 to 6.