CN113852534B

CN113852534B - Method and equipment for transmitting traffic of VNO access network slice through PBB tunnel

Info

Publication number: CN113852534B
Application number: CN202010598963.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张立新
Original assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Current assignee: Nokia Shanghai Bell Co Ltd; Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Priority date: 2020-06-28
Filing date: 2020-06-28
Publication date: 2022-09-27
Anticipated expiration: 2040-06-28
Also published as: CN113852534A

Abstract

The invention provides a method, equipment or system for transmitting the flow of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel superposed on a physical transmission network. The FANS node equipment is configured with an access network slice of the virtual network operator, the access network slice encapsulates received customer Ethernet frames into PBB frames, wherein the head of the PBB frames comprises identification information of the virtual network operator, identification information of a source virtual site and identification information of a destination virtual site; and the FANS node equipment maps the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the head of the PBB frame, and the PBB tunnel is superposed on the physical transmission network. Compared with the prior art, the invention uses the PBB packaging format as a FANS business interface which is seamlessly adapted between the AN slice of the VNO and any physical transmission network technology of the InP, and maps the PBB frame to the PBB tunnel which is superposed on any physical transmission network, so that the AN slice of the VNO is independent of the physical transmission technology of the InP, and can support a strict end-to-end service level protocol.

Description

Method and equipment for transmitting traffic of VNO access network slice through PBB tunnel

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of fixed access network communications technologies, and in particular, to a technology for seamless adaptation between a distributed Access Network (AN) slice including a plurality of virtual sites in a Fixed Access Network Sharing (FANS) solution and any physical transport network of AN infrastructure provider (InP).

Background

Broadband Forum (BBF) Technical Report (TR) -370 describes a FANS scheme that supports several virtual AN slices on a single physical fixed access network in InP. However, BBF TR-370 does not mention the FANS traffic interface how to adapt between AN slice of a Virtual Network Operator (VNO) and a physical Transport Network (TN) of InP.

Section 5.2.6 of BBF TR-370 describes three VNO traffic encapsulation models, namely, operator virtual local area network (O-VLAN) tunnels, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) tunnels, and virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN) tunnels, for transporting VNO traffic over an InP physical transport network. Since none of the above three VNO traffic encapsulation models explicitly carries the virtual site ID of the distributed AN slice in the encapsulation header, none of the three VNO traffic encapsulation models is well suited as AN overlay tunneling technique to support a distributed AN slice containing multiple virtual sites.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides a method, equipment or system for transmitting the flow of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel superposed on a physical transmission network.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of transporting traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transport network. The FANS node equipment is configured with an access network slice of the virtual network operator, the access network slice encapsulates received Ethernet frames into PBB frames, wherein the head of the PBB frames comprises identification information of the virtual network operator, identification information of a source virtual site and identification information of a destination virtual site; and the FANS node equipment maps the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the head of the PBB frame, and the PBB tunnel is superposed on the physical transmission network.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a method of facilitating transport of traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel overlaid on a physical transport network. Wherein the FANS service controller is deployed on the infrastructure provider side. Issuing a group of virtual sites by a FANS service controller, wherein the virtual sites are distributed in a plurality of FANS node devices, and each virtual site is configured with identification information and attribute information; and the FANS service controller constructs a distributed access network slice framework for the virtual network operator based on the group of virtual sites according to the request of the virtual network operator, wherein the access network slice framework comprises access network slices arranged on the FANS node equipment and PBB tunnels connected with the virtual sites. Wherein the FANS traffic controller allocates one or more virtual sites from the set of virtual sites for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice backbone; the FANS service controller configures one or more PBB tunnels conforming to the requested service level agreement for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice skeleton, wherein each PBB tunnel is indicated by at least identification information of a pair of virtual sites, and the pair of virtual sites are respectively located in different FANS node equipment.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a FANS node device for transmitting traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transport network. The FANS node device is arranged with an access network slice of the virtual network operator. The FANS node device comprises a processor and a memory having computer-readable code stored therein, which when executed by the processor, is configured to perform: encapsulating the received Ethernet frame into a PBB frame through the access network slice, wherein the header of the PBB frame comprises the identification information of the virtual network operator, the identification information of the source virtual site and the identification information of the destination virtual site; and mapping the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the head of the PBB frame, wherein the PBB tunnel is superposed on the physical transmission network.

According to AN aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a FANS traffic controller for assisting in transporting traffic of a virtual network operator AN slice through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transport network. The FANS traffic controller comprises a processor and a memory having computer readable code stored therein, which when executed by the processor, is configured to perform: issuing a group of virtual sites, wherein the virtual sites are distributed in a plurality of FANS node devices, and each virtual site is configured with identification information and attribute information; and according to the request of the virtual network operator, constructing a distributed access network slice framework for the virtual network operator based on the group of virtual sites, wherein the access network slice framework comprises access network slices arranged on the FANS node equipment and PBB tunnels connected with the virtual sites. Wherein the FANS service controller is further configured to perform: allocating one or more virtual sites from the set of virtual sites for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice skeleton; configuring one or more PBB tunnels conforming to the requested service level protocol for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice skeleton, wherein each PBB tunnel is indicated by at least identification information of a pair of virtual sites, and the pair of virtual sites are respectively located in different FANS node devices.

According to AN aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a system for transmitting a virtual network operator AN sliced traffic through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transmission network, wherein the system includes a FANS node device according to AN aspect of the present invention, which transmits a virtual network operator AN sliced traffic through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transmission network, and a FANS service controller according to AN aspect of the present invention, which transmits a virtual network operator AN sliced traffic through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transmission network.

Compared with the prior art, the invention uses the PBB encapsulation format as a FANS service interface which is seamlessly adapted between the AN slice of the virtual network operator and any physical transmission network technology of the infrastructure provider, and maps the PBB frame to the PBB tunnel which is superposed on any physical transmission network, so that the AN slice of the virtual network operator can be independent of the physical transmission technology of the infrastructure provider, and the distributed AN slice can support AN end-to-end service level protocol.

In addition, because the PBB encapsulation model used in the present invention explicitly carries the virtual site ID of the distributed AN slice in the encapsulation header, the VNO can autonomously manage the topology of the distributed AN slice and guide the traffic forwarding between the virtual sites.

In this specification, the following terms will be referred to in short and in full terms corresponding to English and Chinese. Access Network/Access Network

ANslice access network slice

B-MAC (Backbone Media Access Control) address/Backbone Media Access Control address

Virtual Routing Forwarding table of B-MAC-VRF, Virtual Routing and Forwarding table for B-MAC addresses/B-MAC addresses

BBF Broadband Forum

C-MAC (client Media Access Control address/client Media Access Control Address)

DC Data Center/Data Center

FANS (Fixed Access Network Sharing solution)/Fixed Access Network Sharing solution

I-SID, Backbone Service Instance Identifier/Backbone Service Instance Identifier

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

InP: Infrastructure Provider/base supplier

IP Internet Protocol/Internet Protocol

Multi-Protocol Label Switching/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (O-VLAN) to Operator Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN)

P2P Point-to-Point/Point

Combination scheme of PBB (Provider Backbone Bridging) PBB-EVPN (combined solution of Provider Backbone Bridging and Ethernet Virtual Private Network) and Ethernet Virtual Private Network

Point Of Presence/service Point Of sale

RFC Request For Comments

Service Level agent/Service Level Agreement

SR: segment Routing/Segment Routing

TN Transport Network/Transport Network

TR Technical Report/Technical Report

vAN Virtual Access Node/Virtual Access Node

VNF Virtua Network Function/virtual Network Function

VNO Virtual Network Operator/Virtual Network Operator

vSwitch Virtual Switch/Virtual Switch

Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network/Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN)

Drawings

Other features, objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon reading of the detailed description of non-limiting embodiments made with reference to the following drawings:

fig. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of an end-to-end FANS scheme using a PBB frame format as a FANS traffic interface between VNO and InP according to an example of the present invention;

fig. 2 shows a flowchart of a method for a FANS node device to transport AN slice traffic of a VNO through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transport network according to AN embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 shows a schematic diagram of a FANS node device according to an example of the present invention;

fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a FANS node device according to another example of the present invention;

fig. 5 shows a flow diagram of a method of building a distributed AN slice skeleton according to AN embodiment of the invention.

The same or similar reference numbers in the drawings identify the same or similar elements.

Detailed Description

Before discussing exemplary embodiments in greater detail, it should be noted that some exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described as apparatuses represented by block diagrams and processes or methods represented by flow charts. Although a flowchart depicts a sequence of process steps in the present invention, many of the operations can be performed in parallel, concurrently, or simultaneously. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. The process of the present invention may be terminated when its operations are performed, but may include additional steps not shown in the flowchart. The processes of the present invention may correspond to methods, functions, procedures, subroutines, and the like.

The methods illustrated by the flow diagrams and apparatus illustrated by the block diagrams discussed below may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware description languages, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, firmware, middleware or microcode, the program code or code segments to perform the necessary tasks may be stored in a machine or computer-readable medium such as storage medium. The processor(s) may perform the necessary tasks.

Similarly, it will also be appreciated that any flow charts, flow diagrams, state transition diagrams, and the like represent various processes which may be substantially described as program code stored in a computer readable medium and so executed by a computing device or processor, whether or not such computing device or processor is explicitly shown.

As used herein, the term "storage medium" may refer to one or more devices for storing data, including Read Only Memory (ROM), Random Access Memory (RAM), magnetic RAM, kernel memory, magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash memory devices, and/or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term "computer-readable medium" can include, but is not limited to portable or fixed storage devices, optical storage devices, and various other mediums capable of storing and/or containing instructions and/or data.

A code segment may represent a procedure, a function, a subprogram, a program, a routine, a subroutine, a module, a software package, a class, or any combination of instructions, data structures, or program descriptions. A code segment may be coupled to another code segment or a hardware circuit by passing and/or receiving information, data, arguments, parameters, or memory contents. Information, arguments, parameters, data, etc. may be passed, forwarded, or transmitted via any suitable means including memory sharing, information passing, token passing, network transmission, etc.

Specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are merely representative and are provided for purposes of describing example embodiments of the present invention. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many alternate forms and should not be construed as limited to only the embodiments set forth herein.

It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first element may be termed a second element, and, similarly, a second element may be termed a first element, without departing from the scope of example embodiments. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of example embodiments. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions/acts noted may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two figures shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the figures may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved.

Specific embodiments of the present invention will be further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the present invention, the end-to-end FANS solution involves two domains: AN slice of the VNO domain and a PBB tunnel of the InP domain, the former being a client that invokes the transport services provided by the latter.

Referring to fig. 1, a diagram illustrating AN end-to-end FANS scheme using a PBB frame format as a FANS traffic interface between a VNO domain (i.e., AN slice) and AN InP domain (i.e., PBB tunnel) according to AN exemplary embodiment of the present invention is shown.

Wherein the distributed AN slices are disposed at each of the FANS node devices, including but not limited to any of the InP physical access network devices that support the FANS service, such as physical access nodes, physical aggregation nodes, and local Data Centers (DCs).

Each distributed AN slice may be configured with one or more virtual sites of a VNO and create a set of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), such as virtual switches (vSwitch), virtual access network control functions (vmantrol), and virtual access ports, among others. And, each distributed AN slice may be configured with one or more PBB tunnels supporting a service level protocol, where each PBB tunnel may be indicated within the VNO domain by identification information of a pair of virtual sites, two opposite virtual sites of one PBB tunnel should be configured with different FANS node devices. According to AN example of the invention, the VNO may simply use the B-MAC address information of the virtual site as the virtual site ID of the distributed AN slice. Further, the identification information of a PBB tunnel may further include identification information of the VNO it belongs to, so that a PBB tunnel may be uniquely identified by a triplet < identification information of the source virtual station (e.g., B-MAC1), identification information of the destination virtual station (e.g., B-MAC2), and identification information of the VNO (VNOID) >. It should be noted that, although the B-MAC address information of the virtual station is mostly used as the identification information of the virtual station for example and description in the present invention, the present invention does not exclude other information that can identify the virtual station, and other information that can identify the virtual station, such as being applicable to the present invention, should be cited herein and included in the protection scope of the present invention.

For simplicity, this specification assumes in the following description that each FANS node device in AN end-to-end FANS solution is configured with only one AN slice (e.g., one virtual site) for which multiple PBB tunnels may be configured. By configuring the service level protocol for each PBB tunnel independently, the present invention can implement a strict end-to-end service level protocol.

It should be noted that each PBB tunnel is a B-MAC tunnel identified by the B-MAC address information of a pair of virtual stations, and therefore, in the present invention, the PBB tunnel and the B-MAC tunnel can be equivalently used.

From a VNO perspective, a B-MAC tunnel supporting a service level protocol is considered a virtual point-to-point (P2P) ethernet link. InP will further map B-MAC tunnels supporting service level protocols to IP, MPLS or SR tunnels of the physical transport network, but this is not visible to the VNO.

With continued reference to fig. 1, the virtual site 11, identified by B-MAC11, attributes such as regional service points of presence (RegionalPOP), are disposed at a physical aggregation node such as an ethernet aggregation node.

Virtual sites

12 and 13, identified by B-

MACs

12 and 13, respectively, attributes such as local service points of presence (LocalPOP), are located at the local data center.

Virtual sites

14 and 15, respectively identified by B-

MACs

14 and 15, are placed at physical access nodes, which are more powerful, integrate the functions of access nodes and leaf switches, and can be directly connected to a physical transport network.

Virtual sites

16 and 17, identified by B-

MACs

16 and 17, respectively, are placed at physical access nodes, which are weak in function, and the encapsulated PBB frames need to be further processed by the leaf switch before being sent to the physical transport network.

Referring to fig. 2, a flow chart of a method for a FANS node device to transmit AN slice traffic of AN VNO through a PBB tunnel superimposed on a physical transport network according to AN embodiment of the present invention is shown.

Wherein the FANS node device is arranged with AN AN slice of the VNO. As shown in fig. 2, in step 21, the AN slice encapsulates ethernet frames from VNO clients into PBB frames, where a header of the PBB frame includes identification information of the VNO, identification information of a source virtual station, and identification information of a destination virtual station; in step 22, the FANS node device maps the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the header of the PBB frame, where the PBB tunnel is superimposed on the physical transport network.

Specifically, in step 21, the AN slice configured in the FANS node device encapsulates the ethernet frame from the VNO client into a PBB frame, where a header of the PBB frame includes identification information of the VNO, identification information of the source virtual station, and identification information of the destination virtual station.

In addition to the VNO traffic encapsulation model described in BBFTR-370, section 5.2.6, the present invention proposes a new VNO traffic encapsulation model, PBB tunnel model, that is established between a pair of B-MAC addresses of different FANS node devices. The PBB tunnel model encapsulates customer's Ethernet frames into a standard PBB frame format as defined in IEEE Std 802.1Q-2018 sections 9.5 and 9.7.

PBB-EVPN (RFC 7623) is a combined solution for PBB and Ethernet Virtual Private Networks (EVPN). The three participants of the FANS solution (i.e., the VNO's customers, the VNO itself, and InP) may be one-to-one mapped to different network hierarchies of PBB-EVPN. The VNO client can only see the PBB frame payload (i.e. the VNO client's ethernet frames). The VNO can see the entire PBB frame, including the PBB header and payload. However, all network levels below the PBB are not visible to the VNO. InP can see the entire IPv4, IPv6, MPLS or SR packet carrying a PBB frame.

The AN slice of VNO can easily invoke the pre-configured PBB tunnel in InP to provide transport services supporting the service level protocol by simply encapsulating the customer's ethernet frames into PBB frames. In an InP physical transport network, the PBB frames are then encapsulated into appropriate IP, MPLS or SR packets in step 22.

Here, the identification information of the VNO may be, for example, a VNO ID or its encoded I-ISID, where the I-SID and the VNO ID are mapped one-to-one to each other.

A distributed AN slice of a VNO may be configured with one or more virtual sites of the VNO. The ID information of each virtual station may be indicated by its B-MAC address information, for example.

One AN slice may be configured with one or more PBB tunnels supporting a service level protocol, where each PBB tunnel is indicated by identification information of a pair of virtual sites, where a source virtual site is a local virtual site of the AN slice and a destination virtual site is located at another FANS node device. Thus, each PBB tunnel can establish a virtual point-to-point link for two virtual sites that are respectively located at different FANS node devices.

Further, if the ethernet frame of the VNO client is a known unicast frame, the B-MAC address information of the destination virtual station may be the B-MAC address information of the virtual station of the AN slice associated with the destination C-MAC address information; if the Ethernet frame of the VNO client is a broadcast frame, an unknown unicast frame or a multicast frame, the B-MAC address information of the destination virtual station is the backbone service instance group address information, i.e. the concatenation of 0x01-1e-83 and I-SID described in section 26.4 of IEEE Std 802.1Q-2018. Wherein the I-SID is set to an I-SID value corresponding to the VNO ID.

Next, in step 22, the FANS node device maps the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the header of the PBB frame, and the PBB tunnel may be superimposed on any physical transport network of InP.

Here, the AN slice encapsulates the B-MAC address of the source virtual station and the B-MAC address of the destination virtual station and the VNO ID into the header of the PBB frame, whereby the PBB tunnel corresponding to the PBB frame can be uniquely identified by the triplet < B-MAC address of the source virtual station (B-MAC1), B-MAC address of the destination virtual station (B-MAC2), VNO ID >. The forwarding function of the FANS node device, such as the B-MAC-VRF, forwards the PBB frames to the corresponding PBB tunnels according to the identification.

According to an example of the present invention, referring to fig. 3, the PBB tunnel may be superimposed on any physical transport network of InP, for example, may be nested in an IP, MPLS, or SR tunnel of an InP physical transport network.

As shown in fig. 3, one FANS node device is divided into a TN domain and AN domain, and AN interface between the AN domain and the TN domain is set as a PBB frame interface. And the AN slice submits the encapsulated PBB frame to a TN (twisted nematic) domain through the interface, wherein the header of the PBB frame comprises a source/target B-MAC (B-MAC) address and AN I-SID (I-SID), and thus a PBB tunnel corresponding to the PBB frame is determined. Wherein, when the PBB frame is mapped to the corresponding PBB tunnel, the PBB tunnel is nested in the IP, MPLS or SR tunnel of the InP physical transmission network.

According to another example of the present invention, referring to fig. 4, other non-PBB type P2P ethernet traffic tunnels instantiated in an InP physical transport network may also emulate PBB tunnels.

As shown in fig. 4, the PBB frame encapsulated by the AN slice may be extracted through the PBB tunnel emulation function to obtain the VNO client service frame encapsulated in the PBB frame, and then re-encapsulated into other P2P ethernet service tunnel encapsulation of non-PBB type, such as O-VLAN, MPLSP pseudowire or VXLAN encapsulation, where the B-MAC address of the PBB frame is mapped to the endpoint IP address of other tunnel, and the I-SID is mapped to the O-VLAN ID, MPLS pseudowire label or VXLAN network identifier of other tunnel, and then transmitted by other P2P ethernet service tunnel of non-PBB type (such as O-VLAN tunnel, MPLS tunnel or VXLAN tunnel).

It is clear that using non-PBB P2P ethernet traffic tunnels to support PBB-based FANS traffic interfaces between AN slices of VNOs and InP's physical transport networks is inefficient. Therefore, the simulation mapping approach shown in fig. 4 should only be used in very limited situations.

The creation and management of distributed AN slices is described further below.

Fig. 5 is a flow diagram of a method according to AN embodiment of the present invention, which particularly shows a process of establishing a distributed AN slice framework, wherein AN slice is then used to assist in the process of transporting VNO traffic through a PBB tunnel overlaid on a physical transport network.

The FANS business controller is deployed on the cloud which manages, controls and orchestrates the InP physical access network and the physical transmission network. The VNO pre-configures its distributed AN slice skeleton through the FANS traffic controller, including creating PBB tunnels connecting the virtual sites.

As shown in fig. 5, in step 51, InP publishes, through a FANS service controller, a set of virtual sites distributed among multiple FANS node devices, where each virtual site is configured with identification information and attribute information.

Here, each of the FANS node devices configured with the virtual station may be statically configured with one or more B-MAC address information. Each virtual station is identified by globally unique B-MAC address information and has attributes such as type, geographical location, etc. The type is, for example, one of an Access service providing point (Access _ POP), a Local service providing point (Local _ POP), or a Regional service providing point (Regional _ POP).

Next, in step 52, the FANS service controller constructs AN slice skeleton for the VNO based on the set of published virtual sites according to the VNO's request.

The VNO may request InP to establish a distributed AN slice and several PBB tunnels based on these published virtual sites to build AN slice skeleton for the VNO. The FANS service controller respectively creates AN slices on a plurality of FANS node devices to which published virtual sites belong, and establishes a plurality of PBB tunnels which are superposed on AN InP physical transmission network and are connected with the virtual sites among the FANS node devices, thereby creating a distributed AN slice framework of the VNO on the physical access network and the physical transmission network.

Wherein:

1) one or more virtual sites are assigned from the published set of virtual sites in the distributed AN slice. Each distributed AN slice may contain one or more virtual sites.

2) One or more PBB tunnels supporting a service level protocol are configured for the distributed AN slice, wherein each PBB tunnel can be indicated by identification information of a pair of virtual sites, and each pair of virtual sites are respectively located at different FANS node equipment.

Wherein the identification information of a virtual station can be characterized by its B-MAC address information, for example. PBB tunnels may be superimposed on any physical transport network of InP, one of which may be indicated by, for example, a triplet < B-MAC address information of a source virtual station, B-MAC address information of a destination virtual station, identification information of a VNO >. Each PBB tunnel can independently set a service level protocol, and a source virtual site and a destination virtual site need to be respectively located in different FANS node devices.

Accordingly, the InP's FANS traffic controller creates a distributed AN slice for it at the VNO's request. During the lifetime of a distributed AN slice, the VNO may add or delete virtual sites and/or PBB tunnels in the distributed AN slice, or update the service level protocols of existing PBB tunnels. Each distributed AN slice may then encapsulate the VNO client's ethernet frames as PBB frames upon receipt, which are then mapped to PBB tunnels overlaid on AN InP-based physical transport network for transmission between the FANS node devices.

In step 53, the VNO configures a horizontal split group for the PBB tunnel of each virtual site in the distributed AN slice backbone through the FANS service controller to enforce the tree topology of the distributed AN slice.

Here, the VNO may simply use the B-MAC address information as identification information of the virtual sites of the distributed AN slice so that it can manage the topology of the distributed AN slice and direct traffic between the virtual sites. The VNO can simply treat the InP transport network as being a PBB network without knowing the physical transport network technology that InP actually employs, such as IP, MPLS, or SR. In addition, the VNO also creates and configures the various VNFs needed on each virtual site of the distributed AN slice.

When the distributed AN slice and the PBB tunnel on each of the FANS node devices are configured for the VNO, the ethernet frames of the VNO clients may be encapsulated and mapped to the corresponding PBB tunnel according to the process shown in fig. 2, so as to be transmitted on any physical transmission network.

It should be noted that the present invention may be implemented in software and/or in a combination of software and hardware, for example, as an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a general purpose computer or any other similar hardware device. In one embodiment, the software program of the present invention may be executed by a processor to implement the steps or functions described above. Also, the software programs (including associated data structures) of the present invention can be stored in a computer readable recording medium, such as RAM memory, magnetic or optical drive or diskette and the like. Additionally, some of the steps or functions of the present invention may be implemented in hardware, for example, as circuitry that cooperates with the processor to perform various steps or functions _。

Additionally, at least a portion of the present invention may be implemented as a computer program product, such as computer program instructions, that when executed by a computing device, may invoke or provide methods and/or aspects in accordance with the present invention through operation of the computing device. Program instructions which invoke/provide the methods of the present invention may be stored on fixed or removable recording media and/or transmitted via a data stream over a broadcast or other signal-bearing medium, and/or stored in a working memory of a computing device operating in accordance with the program instructions.

It will be evident to those skilled in the art that the invention is not limited to the details of the foregoing illustrative embodiments, and that the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential attributes thereof. The present embodiments are therefore to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the invention being indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description, and all changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein. Any reference sign in a claim should not be construed as limiting the claim concerned. Furthermore, it will be obvious that the term "comprising" does not exclude other elements or steps, and the singular does not exclude the plural. A plurality of units or means recited in the system claims may also be implemented by one unit or means in software or hardware. The terms first, second, etc. are used to denote names, but not any particular order.

Claims

1. A method of transporting traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel overlaid on a physical transport network, wherein at a FANS node device, said FANS node device being configured with said access network slice of the virtual network operator,

wherein, the method comprises the following steps:

the access network slice encapsulates the received Ethernet frame into a PBB frame, wherein the header of the PBB frame comprises the identification information of the virtual network operator, the identification information of the source virtual site and the identification information of the destination virtual site;

and mapping the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel according to the head of the PBB frame, wherein the PBB tunnel is superposed on the physical transmission network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the access network slice is configured with one or more virtual sites of the virtual network operator;

the access network slice is configured with one or more PBB tunnels supporting a service level agreement, wherein each PBB tunnel is indicated at least by identification information of a pair of virtual sites, wherein a peer virtual site is located at another FANS node device.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the identification information of a virtual station is characterized by its B-MAC address information.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identification information of the source virtual station is B-MAC address information of a local virtual station of the access network slice, wherein:

if the received Ethernet frame is a known unicast frame, the B-MAC address information of the target virtual site is the B-MAC address information of the virtual site of the access network slice associated with the target C-MAC address information;

and if the received Ethernet frame is a broadcast frame, an unknown unicast frame or a multicast frame, the B-MAC address information of the destination virtual site is the address information of the backbone service instance group.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the mapping step specifically comprises:

forwarding the PBB frame to a corresponding PBB tunnel, the forwarded PBB tunnel nested with an IP, MPLS or SR tunnel of the physical transport network.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the mapping step specifically comprises:

extracting the Ethernet frame from the PBB frame and re-encapsulating the Ethernet frame into other non-PBB type P2P Ethernet traffic tunnel encapsulation for transmission through other non-PBB type P2P Ethernet traffic tunnel, wherein the identification information of the source virtual site and the identification information of the destination virtual site are mapped to a source endpoint IP address and a destination endpoint IP address of the other non-PBB type P2P Ethernet traffic tunnel, and the identification information of the virtual network operator is mapped to virtual network identification information of the other non-PBB type P2P Ethernet traffic tunnel.

7. The method according to any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the FANS node device comprises any of a physical access node, a physical aggregation node, and a local data center.

8. A method of assisting in transporting traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel overlaid on a physical transport network, wherein at a FANS service controller deployed at an infrastructure provider side, the method comprises the steps of:

issuing a group of virtual sites, wherein the virtual sites are distributed in a plurality of FANS node devices, and each virtual site is configured with identification information and attribute information;

according to the request of the virtual network operator, constructing a distributed access network slice framework for the virtual network operator based on the group of virtual sites, wherein the access network slice framework comprises access network slices arranged on the FANS node equipment and PBB tunnels connected with the virtual sites;

wherein:

allocating one or more virtual sites from the set of virtual sites for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice backbone;

configuring one or more PBB tunnels conforming to the requested service level protocol for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice skeleton, wherein each PBB tunnel is indicated by at least identification information of a pair of virtual sites, and the pair of virtual sites are respectively located in different FANS node equipment.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein identification information of one virtual station is characterized by its B-MAC address information, and one PBB tunnel is indicated by a triplet < B-MAC address information of source virtual station, B-MAC address information of destination virtual station, identification information of the virtual network operator >.

10. The method according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the method further comprises the step of:

configuring a horizontal segmentation group for the PBB tunnel of each virtual site in the distributed access network slice skeleton to force a tree topology of the access network slice.

11. A FANS node device for transporting traffic of a virtual network operator access network slice through a PBB tunnel overlaid on any physical transport network, the FANS node device being arranged with the virtual network operator access network slice,

wherein the FANS node device comprises a processor and a memory having computer readable code stored therein, which when executed by the processor, is configured to perform:

encapsulating the received Ethernet frame into a PBB frame through the access network slice, wherein the header of the PBB frame comprises the identification information of the virtual network operator, the identification information of the source virtual site and the identification information of the destination virtual site;

12. The FANS node device according to claim 11, wherein the PBB tunnel is indicated by a triplet < B-MAC address information of the source virtual station, B-MAC address information of the destination virtual station, identification information of the virtual network operator >.

13. A FANS traffic controller to facilitate transport of traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through a PBB tunnel overlaid on a physical transport network, wherein the FANS traffic controller is deployed on an infrastructure provider side, the FANS traffic controller comprising a processor and a memory having computer-readable code stored therein, which, when executed by the processor, is configured to perform:

wherein:

configuring one or more PBB tunnels conforming to the requested service level protocol for each access network slice in the distributed access network slice skeleton, wherein each PBB tunnel is indicated by at least identification information of a pair of virtual sites, and the pair of virtual sites are respectively located in different FANS node devices.

14. The FANS business controller of claim 13, wherein the FANS business controller is further configured to perform:

15. A system for transporting traffic of an access network slice of a virtual network operator through PBB tunnels overlaid on a physical transport network, wherein the system comprises a FANS node device according to claim 11 or 12 and a FANS traffic controller according to claim 13 or 14.