CN110891239A

CN110891239A - PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method and device

Info

Publication number: CN110891239A
Application number: CN201811037790.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 李响; 段然; 袁雁南
Original assignee: China Mobile Communications Group Co Ltd; China Mobile Communications Ltd Research Institute
Current assignee: China Mobile Communications Group Co Ltd; China Mobile Communications Ltd Research Institute
Priority date: 2018-09-06
Filing date: 2018-09-06
Publication date: 2020-03-17
Anticipated expiration: 2038-09-06
Also published as: CN110891239B

Abstract

The invention discloses a PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCCA realization method and a device, which are used for ensuring the accuracy of PNF information while reducing the interactive signaling overhead of an OSS and a MANO interface and improving the maintenance efficiency. In the PNF configuration method, the geographical position information of each physical network function PNF is added in a physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by a management and arrangement MANO side; and the method, comprising: when the MANO needs to perform network scheduling, reading the geographical position information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD; and the MANO performs network arranging operation according to the geographical position information of each PNF.

Description

PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method and device

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of wireless communication, in particular to a PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method and device.

Background

The mobile communication industry has proposed a new wireless network architecture C-RAN (C-RAN is a green Radio access network architecture (Clean system) based on centralized processing (centralized processing), cooperative Radio (Collaborative Radio) and Real-time Cloud Infrastructure) for green evolution to guide the development of the future centralized baseband processing network architecture technology. In the C-RAN Network architecture, a part of Network functions is virtualized by software and hardware decoupling and Function abstraction, and Network implementation is performed by using an NFV (Network Function Virtualization) architecture. The virtualized resources can be fully and flexibly shared, and the rapid development and deployment of new services are realized.

Unlike traditional IT resources or core Network infrastructure resources, a lot of non-virtualized physical resources pnf (physical Network function) exist on the RAN (Radio Access Network) side, which have a close dependence on hardware. Generally, these non-virtualized resources are mainly referred to as DUs (distributed Unit).

Under the NFV architecture, a MANO (Management and organization) side is responsible for arranging and managing virtualized network resources, deploys network functions as required, completes Virtual Link (VL) connection between the virtualized resources and a physical network, and configures a data forwarding path between a Virtualized Network Function (VNF) and a PNF.

According to the existing IFA standard, MANOs only manage PNF external attachment points, i.e. under NFV network architecture, MANOs manage virtualized network functions and several attachment point information to which their remote ends are connected. The PNFD (PNF Descriptor, physical network function Descriptor) structure defined in NFV IFA014 is shown in table 1:

TABLE 1

Parameter(s)	Whether it is necessary to select	Number of	Type (B)	Description of the invention
					Pnfd identifier	Is that	1	Identifier	PNFD identifier
Pnfd manufacturer	Is that	1	Character string	PNFD providers
					Pnfd version	Is that	1	Character string	PNFD version
Pnf external connection point	Is that	1..N	Connection point	PNF external connection point
					Pnf geographical location information	Whether or not	1	Character string	Pnf geographic location

The NFV MANO performs network service instantiation and lifecycle management according to VNFD (VNF Descriptor, virtual network function Descriptor) and PNFD.

The existing NFV standard does not specify the mapping relationship between PNF and PNFD, so the following problems occur in practical use.

When network deployment is actually performed, the association relationship between the PNFD and the PNF may be that multiple PNFs are associated to the same PNFD, as shown in fig. 1, or one PNFD is associated to each PNF, as shown in fig. 2, when a one-to-one association manner between the PNF and the PNFD is applied to the RAN side, for a large number of PNFs existing on the RAN side, the MANO also needs to maintain a considerable number of PNFDs, and when these PNFs have the same attribute, for example, all are DUs and RRUs (radio remote units) of the same manufacturer, each PNF upgrade means that a large number of PNFDs need to be updated correspondingly, so that a large number of OSS (Operation Support System) and MANO interface signaling interaction and maintenance update on each PNFD are derived by one upgrade Operation, which undoubtedly increases a large amount of signaling overhead and lower maintenance efficiency.

When the PNF and PNFD many-to-one correlation mode is applied to the RAN side, PNFs with the same attribute (type) can be uniformly correlated to one PNFD, so that when the PNFs are upgraded, only one signaling interaction is needed between the OSS and the MANO, and although the PNFs are many, the MANO only needs to maintain one PNFD. However, the method also has the problem of inaccurate PNF information, the RAN-side PNFs are distributed and deployed at different geographical positions, and the PNFD only contains geographical position information at the outermost layer, and cannot clearly indicate the position information of each PNF.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the invention provides a PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA realization method, a device and a storage medium, which are used for ensuring the accuracy of PNF information while reducing the interactive signaling overhead of an OSS and a MANO interface and improving the maintenance efficiency.

In the first aspect, a PNF configuration method is provided, wherein the geographical position information of each physical network function PNF is added in a physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by a management and arrangement MANO side; and

the method comprises the following steps:

when the MANO needs to perform network scheduling, reading the geographical position information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD;

and the MANO performs network arranging operation according to the geographical position information of each PNF.

Optionally, when a plurality of PNFs are associated with a PNFD, adding PNF dedicated connection point information to the PNFD, where the PNF dedicated connection point information at least includes geographical location information of the PNF; and

when the MANO needs to perform network scheduling, reading the geographical location information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD, specifically including:

and when the MANO needs network function sinking deployment or PNF migration management, acquiring the geographical position information of each PNF from the PNF special connection point information.

Optionally, according to the number N of external PNF connection points included in the PNFD, expanding the geographical location information included in the PNFD into N, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and describing, in the network service description NSD, an association relationship between a connection point used by the PNF and the geographical location information in the PNFD; and

and when the MANO needs to instantiate the network, acquiring the geographical position information corresponding to the connection point used by the PNF from the NSD.

In a second aspect, a PNFD TOSCA implementation method based on the above PNF configuration method is provided, which includes:

adding node information of a PNF special connection point in a node type of a topology arrangement standard TOSCA package of cloud application;

and acquiring the PNF special connection point information from the node information.

Optionally, attributes in the alternative mapping in the topology template are used to describe the general parameters in the PNFD; the PNF dedicated connection point information is described using a uniform resource identifier.

In a third aspect, a PNF configuration apparatus is provided, including:

the adding unit is used for adding the geographical position information of each physical network function PNF in the physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by the management and arrangement MANO side;

the reading unit is used for reading the geographical position information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD when network arrangement is needed;

and the arranging unit is used for carrying out network arranging operation according to the geographical position information of each PNF.

Optionally, the adding unit is specifically configured to add PNF dedicated connection point information in a PNFD when a plurality of PNFs are associated with a PNFD, where the PNF dedicated connection point information at least includes geographical location information of the PNF;

the reading unit is specifically configured to acquire geographic location information of each PNF from PNF dedicated connection point information when network function convergence deployment or PNF migration management is required.

Optionally, the adding unit is specifically configured to expand the number of the geographical location information included in the PNFD into N according to the number N of the external PNF connection points included in the PNFD, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and describe, in the network service description NSD, an association relationship between a connection point used by the PNF and the geographical location information in the PNFD;

the reading unit is specifically configured to acquire, from the NSD, geographical location information corresponding to a connection point used by the PNF when network instantiation is required.

In a fourth aspect, a PNFD TOSCA implementation apparatus based on the PNF configuration method is provided, which includes:

the system comprises an increasing unit, a judging unit and a judging unit, wherein the increasing unit is used for increasing node information of a PNF special connecting point in a node type of a topology arrangement standard TOSCA package of cloud application;

and the acquisition unit is used for acquiring the PNF special connection point information from the node information.

Optionally, attributes in the alternative mapping in the topology template are used to describe the generic parameters in the PNFD; the PNF dedicated connection point information is described using a uniform resource identifier.

In a fifth aspect, a computing device is provided, comprising at least one processor and at least one memory, wherein the memory stores a computer program, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of any of the PNF configuration methods or PNFD TOSCA implementation methods described above.

In a sixth aspect, a computer storage medium is provided, which stores computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps of any one of the PNF configuration methods or the PNFDTOSCA implementation method described above.

In the PNF configuration and implementation method, apparatus and storage medium provided in the embodiments of the present invention, the geographical location information of each physical network function PNF is added to the PNFD maintained at the MANO side, and the PNF geographical location information is bound to the connection point, so that the MANO obtains the accurate geographical location information of the PNF deployed in a distributed manner through the PNFD.

In the PNFD TOSCA implementation method, apparatus, and storage medium provided in the embodiments of the present invention, the MANO can complete the end-to-end network deployment from the VNF to the PNF by defining the type of the dedicated PNF connection point TOSCA node and the definition of the PNFD TOSCA template.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the invention and not to limit the invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a plurality of PNFs associated with a PNFD according to the prior art;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a PNF and a PNFD associated with each other in the prior art;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a network function virtualization system according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a schematic flow chart of an implementation of a PNF configuration method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a TOSCA topology template in the prior art;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an implementation flow of a PNFD TOSCA implementation method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a TOSCA topology template structure according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a PNF configuration apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a PNFD TOSCA implementation according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a computing device according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description

In order to reduce the signaling overhead of interaction between an OSS and a MANO interface and improve the maintenance efficiency and ensure the accuracy of PNF information, the embodiment of the invention provides a PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA realization method, a device and a storage medium.

To better understand the technical solution of the present invention, the following briefly describes the architecture of a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) system.

Referring to fig. 3, fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of an architecture of a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) System 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 3, the NFV System includes a Network function virtualization Management and organization System (NFV Management and organization, NFV MANO)110, a Network function virtualization Infrastructure layer (NFV Infrastructure, NFVI for short) 120, a plurality of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) 130, a plurality of Element Managers (EM) 140, and an Operation/service Support System (Operation Support System/Business Support System, OSS/BSS) 150.

The NFV MANO110 includes a Network function virtualization Orchestrator (NFV editor, NFVO)111, one or more Virtualized Network function managers (VNF managers, VNFM) 112, a Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM) 113, a Network service directory (NS directory) 114, a Virtualized Network function directory (VNF directory) 115, a Network function virtualization Instance (NFV Instance)116, and a Network function virtualization resource (NFV Resources)117, which together complete the management and orchestration functions of the entire NVF 100.

The NFVO111 has a main function of implementing life cycle management of Network Service (NS), such as deployment, capacity expansion, capacity reduction, offline, and the like, and a function of performing resource arrangement and policy management of the NFVI 120; the NFVO111 decomposes the requirements for each VNF115 according to a Network Service Descriptor (NSD), and implements deployment of the VNF in cooperation with the VNFM 112.

The primary function of the VNFM112 is to implement lifecycle management of the VNF115, such as deployment, capacity expansion, capacity reduction, offline, and the like; the VNFM112 resolves the demand for virtual resources such as virtual machines according to a virtual network function Descriptor (VNF Descriptor, VNFD) template and the capacity demand of the VNF115, and completes instantiation of the VNF115 by cooperating with the NFVO111 and the VIM 113.

The VIM113 is used to control and manage the computation, storage, and network resources of the NFVI120, typically those resources that are in the same carrier's infrastructure domain, such as all resources at one NFVI130 Point of Presence (POP), resources that span multiple NFVI-POPs, or resources within a subnet of one NFVI-POP.

In addition, EM140 is used to uniformly manage cloud and non-cloud network elements, and BSS/OSS150 may also be used to uniformly manage cloud and non-cloud network elements.

Furthermore, the terms "first," "second," and the like in the description and in the claims, and in the drawings, in the embodiments of the invention are used for distinguishing between similar elements and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order. It will be appreciated that the data so used may be interchanged under appropriate circumstances such that the embodiments described herein may be practiced otherwise than as specifically illustrated or described herein.

Reference herein to "a plurality or a number" means two or more. "and/or" describes the association relationship of the associated objects, meaning that there may be three relationships, e.g., a and/or B, which may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist simultaneously, and B exists alone. The character "/" generally indicates that the former and latter associated objects are in an "or" relationship.

The preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings of the specification, it being understood that the preferred embodiments described herein are merely for illustrating and explaining the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention, and that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present invention may be combined with each other without conflict.

In the embodiment of the invention, aiming at the specific network deployment requirement of the RAN side, the geographical position information of each physical network function PNF is added in the physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by the management and organization MANO side, and in the specific implementation, the PNFD suitable for the distributed deployment PNF can be defined in two forms, the geographical position information of each PNF can be accurately described when the PNF is in many-to-one association with the PNFD, and the PNF and the PNFD can also be used when in one-to-one association.

Based on this, as shown in fig. 4, which is a schematic implementation flow diagram of the PNF configuration method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the method may include the following steps:

s41, when the MANO needs to perform network scheduling, the MANO reads the geographical position information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD.

S42, the MANO carries out network arranging operation according to the geographical position information of each PNF.

First, a PNFD description manner is defined in the embodiments of the present invention.

In this embodiment, the PNF connection point structure is reconstructed, and the geographical location information of the PNF is bound to the connection point, and the specific structure is shown in table 2:

TABLE 2

Parameter(s)	Description of the invention
		Pnf identifier	PNF identifier
cpd identifier	Connection point identifier
		layer protocol transport layer protocol	Transmission protocol supported by a connection point
cProle port role	Connection point type
		Description of Description	Connection point description
Pnf geographical location information	Pnf geographic location

Based on this, in the embodiment of the present invention, the PNFD is redefined, the PNF external connection point information is referred to in the newly defined PNFD, and the structure of the PNFD information defined in the embodiment of the present invention is shown in table 3:

TABLE 3

Parameter(s)	Description of the invention
		Pnfd identifier	PNFD identifier
Pnfd manufacturer	PNFD providers
		Pnfd version	PNFD version
Pnf external connection point	PNF external connection point

In specific implementation, when the MANO performs network deployment, the plurality of PNFs are associated with the usage mode of one PNFD, the MANO can acquire the geographical location information of each PNF from the PNF dedicated connection point structure, and when virtual network function sinking deployment or PNF migration management needs to be performed, the MANO can perform accurate scheduling operation. That is, when the MANO needs to perform network function convergence deployment or PNF migration management, the MANO acquires the geographical location information of each PNF from the PNF dedicated connection point information.

Second, the second PNFD description defined in the embodiments of the present invention.

And expanding the number N of the geographical position information contained in the PNFD according to the number N of the external PNF connection points contained in the PNFD, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 1. In specific implementation, the number of the PNF geographical location information in the PNFD may be expanded from 1 to a plurality, as shown in table 4:

TABLE 4

Parameter(s)	Whether it is necessary to select	Number of	Type (B)	Description of the invention
					Pnfd identifier	Is that	1	Identifier	PNFD identifier
Pnfd manufacturer	Is that	1	Character string	PNFD providers
					Pnfd version	Is that	1	Character string	PNFD version
Pnf external link point	Is that	1..N	Connection point	PNF external link point
					Pnf geographical location information	Whether or not	1..N	Character string	Pnf geographic location

In this embodiment, when network instantiation is required, the MANO indicates in the NSD (network service descriptor) the geographical location information association used in addition to the association of the connection point used by the PNF with the connection point in the PNFD. Namely, the association relationship between the connection point used by the PNF and the geographical location information in the PNFD is described in the NSD, and when the MANO needs to instantiate the network, the MANO acquires the geographical location information corresponding to the connection point used by the PNF from the NSD.

In the ETSI SOL standard, the ETSI Organization's own TOSCA (topological Organization standard for Cloud Applications) model is written based on TOSCA _ simple _ profile _ for _ nfv _1_0 written based on the Yet Another Markup Language (yaml) provided by the Organization for the development of structural Standards (OASIS).

The TOSCA model describes a service template (NSD network service descriptor) as a topology template consisting of several node templates (used to describe each NFV network function in the network service) and relationship templates (used to describe the connection, dependency, etc. relationship between each network function). For ease of multiplexing and implementation, the TOSCA encapsulates different node types and relationship types, and can write a topology template with direct reference to existing nodes and relationships, which can be described as an inclusive relationship as shown in fig. 5.

However, the existing NFV SOL standard describes only VNFD and not PNFD, so MANO cannot do end-to-end orchestration. In view of this, in the embodiment of the present invention, 2 PNFDs are implemented by TOSCA based on TOSCA _ simple _ profile _ for _ nfv _1_ 0.

As shown in fig. 6, which is a schematic diagram of an implementation flow of the PNFD TOSCA implementation method provided by the embodiment of the present invention, the implementation flow includes the following steps:

and S61, adding the node information of the PNF special connection point in the node type of the TOSCA package.

And S62, acquiring the PNF special connection point information from the node information.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a node type of a PNF dedicated connection point is defined, a node definition of the PNF dedicated connection point is added to the node type, the definition belongs to tosca nfv, and the PNF dedicated connection point information defined in table 2 can be obtained from the node, which is specifically described as shown in table 5:

TABLE 5

The key information is shown in table 6:

TABLE 6

Name (R)	Description of the invention
		Protocol type layer protocol	Type of protocol
Port role	Port roles
		Description of	Connection point description information
Geographical location information	PNF geographical location information

In specific implementation, the PnfSpecCpd TOSBA NFV node is defined as follows:

with the above definitions, in the embodiments of the present invention, a PNF-specific attachment point may be defined using tosca. Adding node definitions makes the TOSCA NFV topology template description as shown in figure 7. The PNFD TOSCA description is presented below.

Firstly, the TOSCA implementation of the first PNFD description mode.

Generic parameters in PNFD can be described using attributes in alternative mappings in topology templates, and PNF-specific attachment points are described using uniform resource identifiers tosca. The general parameters in the PNFD refer to other parameters except the key information, and the key information in the PNFD at least includes a PNFD identifier, a PNFD manufacturer, a PNFD version, Pnf external connection points, and the like. The key information TOSCA implementation in PNFD can be described in table 7:

TABLE 7

Parameter(s)	TOSCA data type	TOSCA quote
			Pnfd identifier	String type String	YAML basic types
Pnfd manufacturer	String type String	YAML basic types
			Pnfd version	String type String	YAML basic types
Pnf external connection point	List of tosca. nodes. nfv. PnfSpecCpd	PNF dedicated connection point

The TOSCA NFV template for PNFD may be described, for example, as follows:

and secondly, the TOSCA implementation of the second PNFD description mode.

According to Table 5, PNFD can be described in Table 8:

TABLE 8

Parameter(s)	TOSCA data type	TOSCA quote
			Pnfd identifier	String type String	YAML basic types
Pnfd manufacturer	String type String	YAML basic types
			Pnfd version	String type String	YAML basic types
Pnf external link point	List of tosca. nodes. nfv. cpd	NFV linking Point
			Pnf geographical location information	String [ String ], []	YAML basic types

Accordingly, the TOSCA NFV template for PNFD may be described, by way of example, as follows:

the PNF configuration method provided by the embodiment of the invention can be applied to an application scene of distributed PNF deployment, and the PNF geographical position information is bound with the connection point by defining the special PNF connection point structure, so that the MANO can obtain the accurate geographical position information of the PNF deployed in a distributed manner through the PNFD. The MANO can complete the actual deployment of the end-to-end network by defining the type of the special connection point TOSCA node of the PNF and the definition of the TOSCA template of the PNFD.

Based on the same inventive concept, the embodiment of the invention also provides a PNF configuration and PNFDTOSCA implementation device, and as the principle of the device for solving the problems is similar to the PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method, the implementation of the device and the equipment can refer to the implementation of the method, and repeated parts are not repeated.

As shown in fig. 8, which is a schematic structural diagram of a PNF configuration apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present invention, the PNF configuration apparatus includes:

an adding unit 81, configured to add geographical location information of each physical network function PNF in the physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by the management orchestration MANO side;

a reading unit 82, configured to read, when network deployment is needed, geographic location information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD;

and the arranging unit 83 is used for performing network arranging operation according to the geographical position information of each PNF.

As shown in fig. 9, which is a schematic structural diagram of a PNFD TOSCA implementation apparatus provided in an embodiment of the present invention, the PNFD TOSCA implementation apparatus includes:

an adding unit 91, configured to add node information of a PNF dedicated connection point in a node type of a topology orchestration standard TOSCA encapsulation of a cloud application;

an obtaining unit 92, configured to obtain PNF dedicated connection point information from the node information.

For convenience of description, the above parts are separately described as modules (or units) according to functional division. Of course, the functionality of the various modules (or units) may be implemented in the same or in multiple pieces of software or hardware in practicing the invention.

Having described the PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation methods and apparatus of exemplary embodiments of the present invention, a computing apparatus according to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention is next described.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or program product. Thus, various aspects of the invention may be embodied in the form of: an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, microcode, etc.) or an embodiment combining hardware and software aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a "circuit," module "or" system.

In some possible embodiments, a computing device according to the present invention may include at least one processor, and at least one memory. Wherein the memory stores program code which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of the PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation methods according to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention described above in this specification. For example, the processor may execute step S41 shown in fig. 4, where the MANO needs to perform network scheduling, to read the geographical location information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD, and step S42, the MANO performs network scheduling according to the geographical location information of each PNF; or the node information of the PNF-dedicated connection point is added to the node type of the TOSCA package as shown in step S61 in fig. 6; and step S62, acquiring PNF special connection point information from the node information.

The computing device 100 according to this embodiment of the invention is described below with reference to fig. 10. The computing device 100 shown in fig. 10 is only an example and should not bring any limitations to the functionality or scope of use of embodiments of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 10, the computing apparatus 100 is embodied in the form of a general purpose computing device. Components of computing device 100 may include, but are not limited to: the at least one processor 101, the at least one memory 102, and a bus 103 connecting the various system components (including the memory 102 and the processor 101).

Bus 103 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, a processor, or a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures.

Memory 102 may include readable media in the form of volatile memory, such as Random Access Memory (RAM)1021 and/or cache memory 1022, and may further include Read Only Memory (ROM) 1023.

Memory 102 may also include a program/utility 1025 having a set (at least one) of program modules 1024, such program modules 1024 including, but not limited to: an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which, or some combination thereof, may comprise an implementation of a network environment.

The computing apparatus 100 may also communicate with one or more external devices 104 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, etc.), with one or more devices that enable a user to interact with the computing apparatus 100, and/or with any devices (e.g., router, modem, etc.) that enable the computing apparatus 100 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may be through an input/output (I/O) interface 105. Also, the computing device 100 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public network, such as the internet) through the network adapter 106. As shown, the network adapter 106 communicates with other modules for the computing device 100 over the bus 103. It should be understood that although not shown in the figures, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with computing device 100, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, redundant processors, external disk drive arrays, RAID systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, among others.

In some possible embodiments, the aspects of the PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method provided by the present invention may also be implemented in the form of a program product, which includes program code for causing a computer device to perform the steps of the PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation method according to various exemplary embodiments of the present invention described above in this specification when the program product runs on the computer device, for example, the computer device may perform step S41 shown in fig. 4, when a MANO needs to perform network orchestration, read the geographic location information corresponding to each PNF from the PNFD, and perform network orchestration operation according to the geographic location information of each PNF at step S42; or the node information of the PNF-dedicated connection point is added to the node type of the TOSCA package as shown in step S61 in fig. 6; and step S62, acquiring PNF special connection point information from the node information.

The program product may employ any combination of one or more readable media. The readable medium may be a readable signal medium or a readable storage medium. A readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the readable storage medium include: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable disk, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

The program product for PNF configuration and PNFD TOSCA implementation of embodiments of the present invention may employ portable compact disk read only memory (CD-ROM) and include program code, and may be run on a computing device. However, the program product of the present invention is not limited in this regard and, in the present document, a readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

A readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated data signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A readable signal medium may also be any readable medium that is not a readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computing device, partly on the user's device, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computing device and partly on a remote computing device, or entirely on the remote computing device or server. In the case of a remote computing device, the remote computing device may be connected to the user computing device over any kind of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or may be connected to an external computing device (e.g., over the internet using an internet service provider).

It should be noted that although several units or sub-units of the apparatus are mentioned in the above detailed description, such division is merely exemplary and not mandatory. Indeed, the features and functions of two or more of the units described above may be embodied in one unit, according to embodiments of the invention. Conversely, the features and functions of one unit described above may be further divided into embodiments by a plurality of units.

Moreover, while the operations of the method of the invention are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this does not require or imply that the operations must be performed in this particular order, or that all of the illustrated operations must be performed, to achieve desirable results. Additionally or alternatively, certain steps may be omitted, multiple steps combined into one step execution, and/or one step broken down into multiple step executions.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, embodiments of the present invention may be provided as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects. Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied on one or more computer-usable storage media (including, but not limited to, disk storage, CD-ROM, optical storage, and the like) having computer-usable program code embodied therein.

The present invention is described with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each flow and/or block of the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, and combinations of flows and/or blocks in the flow diagrams and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, embedded processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in the flowchart flow or flows and/or block diagram block or blocks.

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described, additional variations and modifications in those embodiments may occur to those skilled in the art once they learn of the basic inventive concepts. Therefore, it is intended that the appended claims be interpreted as including preferred embodiments and all such alterations and modifications as fall within the scope of the invention.

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

Claims

1. A PNF configuration method is characterized in that the geographical location information of each physical network function PNF is added in the physical network function descriptor PNFD maintained by the management and arrangement MANO side; and

the method comprises the following steps:

2. The method of claim 1, wherein when a plurality of PNFs are associated with a PNFD, PNF dedicated connection point information is added to the PNFD, the PNF dedicated connection point information at least including geographical location information of the PNF; and

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographical location information included in the PNFD is expanded to N according to the number N of external PNF connection points included in the PNFD, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and the association relationship between the connection point used by the PNF and the geographical location information in the PNFD is described in a network service description NSD; and

4. A PNFD TOSCA implementation method based on the method of claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that it comprises:

5. The method of claim 4, wherein describing generic parameters in PNFD is performed using attributes in an alternative mapping in a topology template; the PNF dedicated connection point information is described using a uniform resource identifier.

6. A PNF configuration apparatus, comprising:

7. The apparatus of claim 6,

the adding unit is specifically configured to add PNF dedicated connection point information in a PNFD when a plurality of PNFs are associated with one PNFD, where the PNF dedicated connection point information at least includes geographical location information of the PNF;

8. The apparatus of claim 6,

the adding unit is specifically configured to expand the number of the geographical location information included in the PNFD into N according to the number N of the external PNF connection points included in the PNFD, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and describe, in the network service description NSD, an association relationship between a connection point used by the PNF and the geographical location information in the PNFD;

9. A PNFD TOSCA implementation device based on the method of claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that it comprises:

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the generic parameters in PNFD are described using attributes in an alternative mapping in a topology template; the PNF dedicated connection point information is described using a uniform resource identifier.

11. A computing device comprising at least one processor and at least one memory, wherein the memory stores a computer program that, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of the method of any of claims 1 to 5.

12. A computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for causing a computer to perform the method of any of claims 1-5.