CN116056023A

CN116056023A - Resource allocation method, network element and storage medium

Info

Publication number: CN116056023A
Application number: CN202111265912.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 石原
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2021-10-28
Filing date: 2021-10-28
Publication date: 2023-05-02
Also published as: WO2023071662A1

Abstract

The invention provides a resource allocation method, a network element and a storage medium, wherein the resource allocation method comprises the following steps: determining a target sharing cluster to which a PDU (protocol data unit) session to be configured belongs, wherein the PDU session to be configured is a PDU session with a bandwidth rate to be allocated, and the target sharing cluster is pre-configured with a sharing bandwidth; and determining a target bandwidth rate of the PDU session to be configured, and distributing the target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth. According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the bandwidth rate can be allocated for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth, so that the resource allocation is realized by taking the shared cluster as granularity, the allocation control of the shared bandwidth is realized, and the flexibility of bandwidth configuration is improved.

Description

Resource allocation method, network element and storage medium

Technical Field

The present invention relates to, but not limited to, the field of communications, and in particular, to a resource allocation method, a network element, and a storage medium.

Background

In the present fifth generation communication technology (5th Generation,5G), with diversification of communication services, each operator promotes a shared bandwidth service, uses a user group or a data network name (Data Network Name, DNN) formed by a plurality of users as a shared cluster, and allocates a shared bandwidth in advance for the shared cluster to be shared by all users in the shared cluster.

After the user creates a protocol data unit (Protocol Data Unit, PDU) session, the policy control function (Policy Control Functionality, PCF) issues session management policies for the PDU session, allocates bandwidth rates for each PDU session based on session granularity, and cannot allocate control for the shared bandwidth, as specified by the relevant standard.

Disclosure of Invention

The following is a summary of the subject matter described in detail herein. This summary is not intended to limit the scope of the claims.

The embodiment of the invention provides a resource allocation method, a network element and a storage medium, which can allocate resources according to granularity of taking a shared cluster as a granularity, realize allocation control of shared bandwidth and improve user experience.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a resource allocation method, which is applied to a first network element, where the method includes:

determining a target sharing cluster to which a PDU (protocol data unit) session to be configured belongs, wherein the PDU session to be configured is a PDU session with a bandwidth rate to be allocated, and the target sharing cluster is pre-configured with a sharing bandwidth;

and determining a target bandwidth rate of the PDU session to be configured, and distributing the target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a network element, including: a memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, the processor implementing the resource allocation method according to the first aspect when executing the computer program.

In a third aspect, embodiments of the present invention provide a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing the resource allocation method according to the first aspect.

The embodiment of the invention comprises the following steps: determining a target sharing cluster to which a PDU (protocol data unit) session to be configured belongs, wherein the PDU session to be configured is a PDU session with a bandwidth rate to be allocated, and the target sharing cluster is pre-configured with a sharing bandwidth; and determining a target bandwidth rate of the PDU session to be configured, and distributing the target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth. According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the bandwidth rate can be allocated for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth, so that the resource allocation is realized by taking the shared cluster as granularity, the allocation control of the shared bandwidth is realized, and the flexibility of bandwidth configuration is improved.

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 are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate and do not limit the invention.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a resource allocation method applied to a network element according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is an architecture diagram of a prior art policy control and charging (Policy Control and Charging, PCC);

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of determining a target shared cluster provided by another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart for determining shared bandwidth allocability provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of issuing a first sharing policy provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of an example one provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a flow chart of determining a target shared cluster provided by another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 is a flow chart for determining shared bandwidth allocability provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a flow chart of an example two provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an example III provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a flow chart for determining a target shared cluster provided by another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart for determining shared bandwidth allocability provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a flow chart of example four provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14 is a flow chart for determining a target bandwidth rate provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 15 is a flow chart for updating occupied bandwidth rates provided by another embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 16 is an apparatus diagram of a network element according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the drawings and examples, in order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

It should be noted that although functional block division is performed in a device diagram and a logic sequence is shown in a flowchart, in some cases, the steps shown or described may be performed in a different order than the block division in the device, or in the flowchart. The terms first, second and the like in the description, in the claims and in the above-described figures, are used for distinguishing between similar objects and not necessarily for describing a particular sequential or chronological order.

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

As shown in fig. 1, fig. 1 is a flowchart of a resource allocation method according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the resource allocation method is applied to a first network element, and includes, but is not limited to, step S110 and step S120.

Step S110, determining a target sharing cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs, wherein the PDU session to be configured is a PDU session with a bandwidth rate to be allocated, and the target sharing cluster is pre-configured with a sharing bandwidth.

The shared cluster may be DNN or a user group composed of a plurality of users, and the embodiment does not limit the specific form of the shared cluster, and can perform package subscription based on a user-defined path (User Defined Routing, UDR), thereby realizing bandwidth sharing. It is to be appreciated that the unified data management function (Unified Data Management, UDM) is a core network control plane entity, and the home subscriber server is capable of permanently storing subscriber subscription data, based on which, after signing for the group shared bandwidth, a person skilled in the art is well aware of how to obtain subscription information from the UDM, and will not be described in detail herein.

It should be noted that, the technical solution of the present embodiment may be implemented based on the PCC architecture shown in fig. 2, where the PCC architecture shown in fig. 2 is an existing architecture, and the present embodiment does not relate to improvement of a specific architecture, but only relates to improvement of a resource allocation method, which will not be described in detail later.

It should be noted that the first network element may be a PCF, a session management function (Session Management Function, SMF) or a user plane function (User Plane Function, UPF) in the architecture shown in fig. 2, and may be capable of performing calculation and allocation of a shared bandwidth in a resource allocation process of a PDU session, and a specific entity may be selected by a person skilled in the art according to actual needs as the first network element, which is not limited herein.

It should be noted that, the PCF is a core network control plane entity, and is a functional entity responsible for an access and mobility management policy, a terminal (UE) policy, a session management policy, and a charging rule, and is capable of generating the access and mobility management policy, the UE routing policy, a quality of service (Quality of Service, qoS) rule for User data transfer, and the charging rule according to service information and User subscription information, and configuration information of an operator. Based on this, after determining the shared cluster through subscription, relevant parameters of the shared bandwidth, such as a shared aggregate maximum bit rate (Aggregate Maximum BitRate, AMBR) of the shared bandwidth, may be preconfigured in the PCF, and those skilled in the art are well aware of how to perform the parameter configuration of the shared bandwidth, which is not described herein.

It should be noted that, the PDU session to be configured in this embodiment is a PDU session that is newly created and does not allocate bandwidth rate resources, and when the PDU session is allocated to the bandwidth rate, the PDU session may enter an operation state, and no change of the bandwidth rate is involved, which will not be described in detail later.

It is noted that, in the technical solution of this embodiment, it is determined that the PDU session to be configured belongs to a shared cluster as a trigger judgment, when it is determined that the PDU session to be configured belongs to a certain shared cluster, resources belonging to the PDU session to be configured are allocated from the shared bandwidth of the shared cluster, so that allocation of the shared bandwidth with the shared cluster as granularity is implemented, so that service packages provided for the shared cluster can be more flexible, and thus user experience is improved; if the PDU session to be configured does not belong to any shared cluster, the shared cluster granularity does not exist, and only the existing standard can be adopted to allocate bandwidth resources at the session granularity, which is not in the scope of the discussion of the embodiment, and the detailed description is not repeated in the following.

Step S120, determining the target bandwidth rate of the PDU session to be configured, and distributing the target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured from the shared bandwidth.

It should be noted that, the target bandwidth rate of the PDU session may be specified by the session creation request, or may be determined by the subscription information of the user for the session, for example, after each user accesses the network, session subscription information may be established in the UDM, the session subscription information and the subscription information of the shared cluster are independent from each other, and the rate requirement of each session of the user may be agreed in the session subscription information, for example, a subscription session AMBR is set.

It should be noted that, because the PDU session to be configured belongs to the target shared cluster, the allocated resources should also belong to the shared bandwidth, and based on this, the target bandwidth rate may be allocated to the PDU session to be configured through the first network element in the shared bandwidth, so as to implement control of the shared bandwidth.

It should be noted that, since the first network element may be PCF, SMF or UPF, after being allocated to the target bandwidth rate, the target bandwidth rate needs to be applied to a downstream entity, for example, an access and mobility management function (Access and Mobility Management, AMF) and a base station, where the first network element has the target bandwidth rate, the first network element may carry the target bandwidth rate in the interaction information according to a configuration flow in the existing standard to complete the delivery, and those skilled in the art are familiar with how to deliver parameters, which will not be described herein.

In addition, in an embodiment, the first network element is a PCF, and the PCF is respectively in communication with the SMF and the UDR, referring to fig. 3, step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, and the method further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S310, when a first session establishment request sent by the SMF is obtained, a PDU session to be configured is created, wherein the first session establishment request carries user information and DNN;

Step S320, obtaining a preset distribution granularity, obtaining a cluster identifier from the UDR according to user information, DNN and the distribution granularity, wherein the distribution granularity represents a grouping rule of a shared cluster;

step S330, the shared cluster corresponding to the cluster identification is determined as the target shared cluster.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the SMF is a core network control plane entity, the PDU session may be maintained, and according to a related protocol, a request for creating the PDU session is initiated by the SMF, so, in order to implement control of the granularity of the shared cluster, the DNN to which the PDU session belongs may be sent to the PCF through a first session creation request, the PCF may obtain, according to the DNN and user information, a cluster identifier from a shared bandwidth package signed in the UDR, and when the obtaining is successful, it may be determined that the PDU session to be configured belongs to the target shared cluster, and the cluster identifier may be a common GroupID.

It should be noted that, because the sharing cluster may be a DNN or a user group, it may be pre-agreed between PCF and UDR whether GroupID belongs to DNN granularity or user group granularity, and the target sharing cluster is determined from multiple sharing clusters by matching the sharing bandwidth package with allocation granularity, DNN and user information.

It should be noted that the number of the first session creation requests may be arbitrary, and the number of PDU sessions to be configured is not limited in this embodiment.

In addition, in an embodiment, referring to fig. 4, before performing step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the following steps are included, but not limited to:

step S410, obtaining a shared AMBR which is preconfigured for the shared bandwidth according to the cluster identification;

step S420, determining the occupied bandwidth rate, wherein the occupied bandwidth rate is the sum of the bandwidth rates of PDU sessions in the running state in the target shared cluster;

step S430, determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR.

It should be noted that, the PCF may use the cluster identifier as a query basis to obtain a shared AMBR from the pre-configured shared bandwidth parameters, where the shared AMBR is a maximum value that can be reached by the shared bandwidth rate, and may be configured according to subscription information of the shared bandwidth package, and those skilled in the art know how to configure the shared bandwidth parameters in the PCF.

It should be noted that, since all PDU sessions in the shared cluster share the shared bandwidth, the shared AMBR is the maximum value that the shared bandwidth rate can reach, and before the shared bandwidth rate is allocated to the PDU session to be configured, it needs to be determined whether the current remaining resources are enough, so that the PDU session belonging to the same shared cluster is known to the PCF, therefore, the occupied bandwidth rate can be determined first according to the target shared cluster, and the subsequent allocation can be performed if the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR, so as to ensure that the PDU session to be configured can be allocated to the target bandwidth rate. Of course, the target bandwidth rate may also be configured directly for the PDU session to be configured, and after configuration, the PCF determines the occupied bandwidth rate in the target shared cluster, and if the occupied bandwidth rate exceeds the shared AMBR, the PDU session to be configured is set to be in the offline state.

It is noted that when the determined occupied bandwidth rate is equal to the shared AMBR, it indicates that resources of the shared bandwidth have been allocated, in this case, the PCF may suspend the PDU session to be configured, refuse to create a new PDU session until the PDU session is offline, and perform configuration of the PDU session to be configured according to the idle bandwidth rate, so as to implement shared bandwidth allocation of the shared cluster granularity, and if allocation is performed with the PDU session as the granularity, the allocation of resources of the PDU session to be configured does not consider the occupation situation of the shared bandwidth, so that the foregoing determination cannot be implemented, and thus the PDU session to be configured cannot be configured correctly.

In addition, in an embodiment, the SMF is communicatively connected to the UPF, referring to fig. 5, and step S120 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S510, generating a first sharing strategy carrying a target bandwidth rate;

step S520, the first sharing strategy is issued to the SMF, so that the SMF allocates a target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured in the shared bandwidth according to the target bandwidth rate.

It should be noted that, because the PCF is mainly responsible for making the policy, after the first session establishment request sent by the SMF is obtained, a first sharing policy may be added to the returned response, and the determined target bandwidth rate is issued to the SMF through the first sharing policy, for example, by using Sessionrule in the response returned by the PCF, the target bandwidth rate is assigned to the authsessionambr of the Sessionrule, so that the SMF can obtain the target bandwidth rate, and directly apply the target bandwidth rate to perform subsequent configuration.

It should be noted that, the SMF configures the PDU session to be configured according to the target bandwidth rate, taking the PCC architecture shown in fig. 2 as an example, the SMF may establish a session with the UPF through the N4 port, so as to deploy the target bandwidth rate to the UPF, send the target bandwidth rate to the involved base station, and transmit the target bandwidth rate to the AMF through the N1N2 transmission message, which is well known to those skilled in the art how to implement the foregoing transmission manner, and this embodiment will not be repeated.

In addition, in order to better embody the technical solution of the present invention on the premise that the first network element is PCF, an example one is provided below for explanation, in this example, the cluster identifier is exemplified by GroupID, the first session establishment request is exemplified by PDU session establishment request, and referring to fig. 6, this example one includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S601, SMF initiates PDU session establishment request to PCF, carrying user information, DNN and subscription session AMBR obtained from UDM;

step S602, PCF obtains package GroupID of user signing shared bandwidth from UDR;

step S603, the PCF inquires about a shared bandwidth rate AMBR pre-configured in the PCF according to the GroupID, and allocates a target bandwidth rate for the created user session according to the subscribed session AMBR and the shared bandwidth rate AMBR, wherein the target bandwidth rate is the subscribed session AMBR or an AMBR rate customized by the PCF and smaller than the subscribed session AMBR;

Step S604, the PCF returns a response, wherein the Sessionrule carried by the response contains authSessAmbr, authSessAmbr as the target bandwidth rate;

step S605, the SMF establishes an N4 session establishment request to the UPF and carries a target bandwidth rate;

step S606, the UPF returns an N4 session establishment response to the SMF;

step S607, the SMF issues a target bandwidth rate to the base station;

step S608, the SMF carries the target bandwidth rate in the N1N2TRANSFER message;

in step S609, the AMF returns an N1N2TRANSFER response to the SMF, completing the configuration.

In addition, in an embodiment, the first network element is an SMF, where the SMF is in communication connection with a PCF, and the PCF is in communication connection with a UDR, referring to fig. 7, before performing step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the method further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S710, a first session establishment request is generated, wherein the first session establishment request carries user information and DNN;

step S720, the first session establishment request is sent to the PCF, so that the PCF creates a PDU session to be configured;

step S730, a second sharing strategy issued by the PCF is acquired, wherein the second sharing strategy carries a sharing identifier, the sharing identifier is generated by the PCF according to a cluster identifier, the cluster identifier is acquired from the UDR by the PCF according to user information, DNN and acquired allocation granularity, PDU sessions belonging to the same sharing cluster carry the same sharing identifier, and the allocation granularity represents a grouping rule of the sharing cluster;

Step S740, determining the target sharing cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs according to the sharing identification.

It should be noted that, the manner in which the PCF creates the PDU session and the method for obtaining the cluster identifier may refer to the description of the embodiment shown in fig. 3, and the description is not repeated here for simplicity of description.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment where the first network element is the PCF, the target bandwidth rate is calculated by the PCF and directly sent to the SMF for subsequent configuration, and in this embodiment, the SMF is used as the first network element, calculation and allocation of the target bandwidth rate are needed by the SMF, so that the target bandwidth rate carried by the first sharing policy is a calculated value and can be directly applied by the SMF, and the second sharing policy is a sharing identifier, which can inform the SMF that the PDU session to be configured needs to be allocated with resources of shared bandwidth.

It should be noted that, in order to embody different allocation granularities, under the DNN granularity, the PCF may acquire the GroupID for the whole DNN from the UDR after acquiring the DNN, and perform subsequent operations, under the user group granularity, the first session establishment request may carry an identifier characterizing the user group, for example, a user permanent identifier (Subscription Permanent Identifier, SUPI), a general public user identifier (Generic Public Subscription Identifier, GPSI), etc., so that the PCF acquires the GroupID of the user group from the UDR according to the information such as SUPI, GPSI, etc., and the specific granularity may be adjusted according to actual requirements, so as to embody the shared cluster granularity.

For example, with reference to the description of the foregoing embodiment, before calculating the target bandwidth rate, it is required to determine the target shared cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs, which may be determined directly for the PCF, but the SMF is mainly responsible for session management and cannot manage the shared cluster, so that the shared identifier may be added to the PDU session to be configured by the PCF, so that the SMF may determine, according to the shared identifier, the PDU session belonging to the same target shared cluster, for example, after the PCF obtains the GroupID, determine that resources in the shared bandwidth need to be allocated to the PDU session to be configured, may obtain the identifier corresponding to the GroupID, form a shared key field as a shared identifier, and add the shared identifier to the SMF, and when the SMF obtains the shared key field, it may be determined that resources in the shared bandwidth need to be allocated to the PDU session to be configured.

It should be noted that, in order to distinguish different sharing clusters, a value of a unique corresponding sharingkey field may be set for each GroupID, so that after the SMF obtains the sharingkey field, the PDU session belonging to the same sharing cluster is determined according to the principle that the values are the same, thereby determining the target sharing cluster, and implementing sharing bandwidth control based on granularity of the sharing cluster.

In addition, in an embodiment, the second sharing policy further carries a sharing AMBR, where the sharing AMBR is obtained by the PCF according to the cluster identifier, referring to fig. 8, before executing step S120 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the method further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S810, determining the occupied bandwidth rate, wherein the occupied bandwidth rate is the sum of the bandwidth rates of PDU sessions in an operation state in a target shared cluster;

step S820, determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR.

It should be noted that, referring to the description of the foregoing embodiment, the target bandwidth rate carried by the first sharing policy has been verified to be viable, but the second sharing policy does not directly carry the target bandwidth rate, so, in order to enable the SMF to allocate the target bandwidth rate within the range of resources available for the shared bandwidth, the shared AMBR may be carried by the second sharing policy, and the SMF may identify the PDU session of the same shared cluster if the SMF has a shared identifier, so after the SMF obtains the shared AMBR and determines the target shared cluster, the SMF may calculate the occupied bandwidth rate, thereby determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR, otherwise, configuration of the PDU session is not performed, so that after bandwidth rate allocation of the session to be configured is completed, the sum of bandwidth rates of all PDU sessions in the target shared cluster does not exceed the shared AMBR, and normal operation of the PDU session is ensured.

Of course, after determining the target bandwidth rate, before issuing to the UPF, summing up the bandwidth rates of all PDU sessions in the target shared cluster, if the target bandwidth rate exceeds the shared AMBR, suspending the PDU session to be configured, and after waiting for the running PDU session to be offline, using the free and enough bandwidth resources to reconfigure, so that the PDU session can be ensured to be allocated to enough available resources.

In addition, in order to better illustrate the technical solution of the present invention on the premise that the first network element is SMF, the following provides examples two and three:

referring to fig. 9, fig. 9 is a flowchart of an example two, in which packet granularity is DNN, cluster identity is exemplified by GroupID, first session establishment request is exemplified by PDU session establishment request, second session establishment request is exemplified by N4 session establishment request, share identity is exemplified by shared identity field, example two includes but is not limited to the following steps:

step S901, SMF initiates a session establishment request to PCF, carrying user information, DNN and a subscription session AMBR acquired from UDM;

step S902, PCF obtains package GroupID of user signing shared bandwidth from UDR;

step S903, PCF inquires about the preset shared bandwidth rate AMBR in PCF according to GroupID, and determines that the user issues the shared bandwidth policy under DNN by combining DNN and UDR subscription package information reported by SMF;

Step S904, the PCF returns a response containing the shared bandwidth policy, including the sum of the shared bandwidth rates and the shared key identification field;

step S905, SMF distributes a target bandwidth rate for the created user session according to the subscribed session AMBR and the shared bandwidth rate AMBR based on the shared bandwidth policy issued by PCF, wherein the target bandwidth rate is the subscribed session AMBR or the AMBR rate which is smaller than the subscribed session AMBR and is defined by PCF;

step S906, SMF establishes N4 session establishment request to UPF and carries target bandwidth rate;

step S907, the UPF returns an N4 session establishment response to the SMF;

step S908, the UPF executes the shared bandwidth issued by the SMF, and the SMF issues the target bandwidth rate to the base station;

step S909, the SMF carries the target bandwidth rate to the AMF in the N1N2TRANSFER message;

in step S910, the AMF returns an N1N2TRANSFER response to the SMF, completing the configuration.

Referring to fig. 10, fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an example three, in which the packet granularity is a user group, the cluster identity is exemplified by a GroupID, the first session establishment request is exemplified by a PDU session establishment request, the sharing identity is exemplified by a sharingkey identity field, the second session establishment request is exemplified by an N4 session establishment request, and the example three includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

Step S1001, the SMF initiates a session establishment request to the PCF, carrying user information, DNN and a subscription session AMBR acquired from the UDM;

step S1002, PCF obtains a package GroupID of user subscription shared bandwidth from UDR;

step S1003, PCF inquires about the preset shared bandwidth rate AMBR in PCF according to GroupID, and combines the information of subscriber SUPI, GPSI and the like reported by SMF and UDR subscription package information to decide to issue shared bandwidth strategy for the subscriber under DNN;

step S1004, the PCF returns a response containing the shared bandwidth policy, including the sum of the shared bandwidth rates and the shared key identification field;

step S1005, the SMF allocates a target bandwidth rate for the created user session according to the subscribed session AMBR and the shared bandwidth rate AMBR based on the shared bandwidth policy issued by the PCF, wherein the target bandwidth rate is the subscribed session AMBR or the AMBR rate customized by the PCF and smaller than the subscribed session AMBR;

step S1006, SMF establishes N4 session establishment request to UPF and carries target bandwidth rate;

step S1007, UPF returns N4 session establishment response to SMF;

step S1008, the UPF executes the shared bandwidth issued by the SMF, and the SMF issues the target bandwidth rate to the base station;

step S1009, the SMF carries the target bandwidth rate to the AMF in the N1N2TRANSFER message;

In step S1010, the AMF returns an N1N2TRANSFER response to the SMF, completing the configuration.

In addition, in an embodiment, the first network element is a UPF, the UPF is communicatively connected to an SMF, the SMF is communicatively connected to a PCF, the PCF is communicatively connected to a UDR, and the PCF is communicatively connected to the UDR, referring to fig. 11, step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1 further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S1110, a second session establishment request sent by the SMF is obtained, wherein the second session establishment request carries a second sharing strategy, the second sharing strategy carries a sharing identifier, the sharing identifier is generated by the PCF according to a cluster identifier, the cluster identifier is obtained by the PCF from the UDR according to user information, DNN and obtained allocation granularity, PDU sessions belonging to the same sharing cluster carry the same sharing identifier, the allocation granularity represents grouping rules of the sharing cluster, the user information and DNN are obtained by the SMF and sent to the PCF through a first session establishment request, and the second sharing strategy is generated by the PCF and sent to the SMF under the condition that a PDU session to be configured is created according to the first session establishment request;

step S1120, determining the target sharing cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs according to the sharing identifier.

It should be noted that, in order to perform allocation of the target bandwidth rate by using the UPF as the first network element, the target bandwidth rate may be transferred to the UPF by the SMF after the PCF obtains the cluster identifier and the shared identifier, and the definition, selection and obtaining manner of the shared identifier and the cluster identifier may refer to the description of the foregoing embodiments, which is not repeated herein for simplicity and convenience of description.

It should be noted that, under the existing PCC framework, the SMF may carry the second sharing policy by sending a second session establishment request to the UPF through the N4 interface, so that the UPF may learn that control of the shared bandwidth needs to be performed for the PDU session to be configured, and a description of a principle and a manner of generating the second sharing policy may refer to an embodiment shown in fig. 7, which is not repeated herein.

It should be noted that, in the embodiment shown in fig. 7, after the SMF acquires the second sharing policy, the SMF acquires the sharing identifier from the second sharing policy and allocates the sharing bandwidth, in this embodiment, after the SMF identifies that the second sharing policy carries the sharing identifier, the SMF may acquire a parameter related to the sharing bandwidth, and add the parameter to the second session establishment request to send the parameter to the UPF, so that the UPF can calculate and allocate the target bandwidth rate, thereby implementing control of the sharing bandwidth through the UPF.

In addition, in an embodiment, the second sharing policy further carries a sharing AMBR, where the sharing AMBR is obtained by the PCF according to the cluster identifier, referring to fig. 12, before executing step S120 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the method further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S1210, determining the occupied bandwidth rate, wherein the occupied bandwidth rate is the sum of the bandwidth rates of PDU sessions in operation in the target shared cluster;

Step S1220, determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR.

It should be noted that, the principle and mode of determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR may refer to the description of the embodiment shown in fig. 4 and fig. 8, and the difference between the embodiment and the embodiment shown in fig. 4 and fig. 8 is mainly that the execution body of the embodiment is a UPF, and the rest of similar parts are not repeated here.

In addition, in order to better embody the technical solution of the present invention on the premise that the first network element is a UPF, an example four is provided below for explanation, in this example, the cluster identifier is exemplified by GroupID, the first session establishment request is exemplified by PDU session establishment request, the second session establishment request is exemplified by N4 session establishment request, the sharing identifier is exemplified by sharing key identifier field, and referring to fig. 13, the example four includes but is not limited to the following steps:

step S1301, SMF initiates a session establishment request to PCF, carrying user information and DNN;

step S1302, PCF obtains package GroupID of user signing shared bandwidth from UDR;

step S1303, PCF inquires about the preset shared bandwidth rate AMBR in PCF according to GroupID, and decides to issue the shared bandwidth policy for the user by combining DNN and UDR subscription package information reported by SMF;

Step S1304, the PCF returns a response containing the shared bandwidth policy, including the shared bandwidth rate sum and the shared key identification field;

step S1305, the SMF sends the shared bandwidth parameter to the UPF;

step S1306, the SMF establishes an N4 session establishment request to the UPF and carries a subscription session AMBR, a shared bandwidth rate AMBR, and a shared key identification field;

step S1307, the UPF returns an N4 session establishment response to the SMF;

in step S1308, the UPF allocates a target bandwidth rate for the created user session according to the subscribed session AMBR and the shared bandwidth rate AMBR, where the target bandwidth rate is the subscribed session AMBR or an AMBR rate customized by the PCF that is smaller than the subscribed session AMBR.

In addition, referring to fig. 14, step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1 further includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

step S1410, acquiring a signed session AMBR for a PDU session;

in step S1420, the subscription session AMBR is determined as the target bandwidth rate, or the target bandwidth rate is determined according to the subscription session AMBR and a preset ratio, wherein the preset ratio is a positive number smaller than 1.

It should be noted that, in the above embodiment, the PCF may obtain the shared bandwidth subscription information from the UDR according to the DNN or SUPI information, so as to determine the shared AMBR of the shared bandwidth, where the shared AMBR is for the entire shared bandwidth, and in order to configure the bandwidth rate of a specific PDU session, after the user accesses the network, the PCF signs a subscription to the AMBR of the PDU session, and the subscription information is stored in the UDM.

It should be noted that, when the first network element is SMF, session subscription information may be directly obtained from the UDM, so as to obtain a subscription session AMBR; when the first network element is a PCF, the SMF may obtain a subscription session AMBR from the UDM and send a first session establishment request to the PCF; when the first network element is a UPF, the SMF may obtain the subscription session AMBR from the UDM and send to the UPF via a second session establishment request.

It should be noted that, when the user has only one PDU session in the target sharing cluster, the subscription session AMBR may be used as the target bandwidth rate, so that the allocated resources are more sufficient, and of course, it is also possible that the same user has multiple PDU sessions in the target sharing cluster, or the target sharing cluster may be preconfigured with a preset proportion smaller than 1 in the first network element in order to provide resources for more PDU sessions, and the specific calculation mode may be selected according to the actual requirement by taking the product of the preset proportion and the subscription session AMBR as the target bandwidth rate.

In addition, in an embodiment, referring to fig. 15, after performing step S110 of the embodiment shown in fig. 1, the following steps are included, but not limited to:

In step S1510, when detecting that the PDU session in the running state is down in the target shared cluster, the occupied bandwidth rate is redetermined.

It should be noted that, based on the description of the above embodiment, the sum of the bandwidth rates of all PDU sessions in the same shared cluster cannot exceed the shared AMBR, otherwise, the PDU session to be configured is suspended and new PDU session is stopped, and after the PDU session in the running state is offline, a certain amount of resources are idle, at this time, the occupied bandwidth rate can be redetermined, and when the idle resources are enough to be allocated to the PDU session to be configured, the resource allocation procedure of the PDU session to be configured can be re-executed, so as to ensure that the resources of the shared bandwidth are fully utilized.

In addition, referring to fig. 16, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a network element, where the network element 1600 includes: memory 1610, processor 1620, and computer programs stored on memory 1610 and executable on processor 1620.

Processor 1620 and memory 1610 may be connected by a bus or other means.

The non-transitory software programs and instructions required to implement the resource allocation method of the above embodiments are stored in the memory 1610, and when executed by the processor 1620, the resource allocation method applied to the network element in the above embodiments is performed, for example, the method steps S110 to S120 in fig. 1, the method steps S310 to S330 in fig. 3, the method steps S410 to S430 in fig. 4, the method steps S510 to S520 in fig. 5, the method steps S601 to S609 in fig. 6, the method steps S710 to S740 in fig. 7, the method steps S810 to S820 in fig. 8, the method steps S901 to S910 in fig. 9, the method steps S1001 to S1010 in fig. 10, the method steps S1110 to S1120 in fig. 11, the method steps S1210 to S1220 in fig. 12, the method steps S1301 to S1308 in fig. 13, the method steps S1410 to S1420 in fig. 14, and the method steps S1510 in fig. 15.

The above described embodiments of the apparatus are only illustrative, wherein the units described as separate components may or may not be physically separate, i.e. may be located in one place, or may be separately onto a plurality of network elements. Some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of this embodiment.

Furthermore, an embodiment of the present invention provides a computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that are executed by a processor or a controller, for example, by a processor in the above network element embodiment, which may cause the processor to execute the resource allocation method applied to the network element in the above embodiment, for example, execute the method step S110 to step S120 in fig. 1, the method step S310 to step S330 in fig. 3, the method step S410 to step S430 in fig. 4, the method step S510 to step S520 in fig. 5, the method step S601 to step S609 in fig. 6, the method step S710 to step S740 in fig. 7, the method step S810 to step S820 in fig. 8, the method step S901 to step S910 in fig. 10, the method step S1001 to step S1010 in fig. 10, the method step S1110 to step S1120 in fig. 11, the method step S12 to step S410 in fig. 12, the method step S510 to step S1420 in fig. 7, and the method step S1220 to step S1420 in fig. 14 to step S1308 in fig. 11. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or some of the steps, systems, and methods disclosed above may be implemented as software, firmware, hardware, and suitable combinations thereof. Some or all of the physical components may be implemented as software executed by a processor, such as a central processing unit, digital signal processor, or microprocessor, or as hardware, or as an integrated circuit, such as an application specific integrated circuit. Such software may be on computer-readable media, which may include computer storage media (or non-transitory media) and communication media (or transitory media), respectively. The term computer storage media includes both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data, as known to those skilled in the art. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital Versatile Disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by a computer. Furthermore, as is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media.

While the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various equivalent modifications and substitutions can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and these equivalent modifications and substitutions are intended to be included in the scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A resource allocation method applied to a first network element, the method comprising:

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first network element is a PCF communicatively coupled to the SMF and the UDR, respectively, and wherein the determining the target shared cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs comprises:

when a first session establishment request sent by the SMF is obtained, the PDU session to be configured is established, wherein the first session establishment request carries user information and DNN;

Acquiring preset distribution granularity, and acquiring cluster identifiers from the UDR according to the user information, the DNN and the distribution granularity, wherein the distribution granularity represents a grouping rule of the shared clusters;

and determining the shared cluster corresponding to the cluster identifier as the target shared cluster.

3. The method of claim 2, comprising, prior to said allocating the target bandwidth rate from the shared bandwidth for the PDU session to be configured:

acquiring a shared AMBR which is preconfigured for the shared bandwidth according to the cluster identification;

determining an occupied bandwidth rate, wherein the occupied bandwidth rate is the sum of the bandwidth rates of PDU sessions in an operation state in the target shared cluster;

determining that the sum of the occupied bandwidth rate and the target bandwidth rate is less than or equal to the shared AMBR.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the SMF is communicatively coupled to a UPF, wherein the allocating the target bandwidth rate from the shared bandwidth for the PDU session to be configured comprises:

generating a first sharing strategy carrying the target bandwidth rate;

and issuing the first sharing strategy to the SMF so that the SMF distributes the target bandwidth rate for the PDU session to be configured in the sharing bandwidth according to the target bandwidth rate.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first network element is an SMF, the SMF is communicatively coupled to a PCF, the PCF is communicatively coupled to a UDR, and the determining the target shared cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs comprises:

generating a first session establishment request, wherein the first session establishment request carries user information and DNN;

sending the first session establishment request to the PCF so that the PCF creates the PDU session to be configured;

acquiring a second sharing policy issued by the PCF, wherein the second sharing policy carries a sharing identifier, the sharing identifier is generated by the PCF according to a cluster identifier, the cluster identifier is acquired from UDR by the PCF according to the user information, the DNN and the acquired allocation granularity, PDU sessions belonging to the same sharing cluster carry the same sharing identifier, and the allocation granularity represents a grouping rule of the sharing cluster;

and determining the target sharing cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs according to the sharing identifier.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the second sharing policy further carries a shared AMBR, the shared AMBR being obtained by the PCF based on the cluster identity, the method further comprising, prior to the allocating the target bandwidth rate from the shared bandwidth for the PDU session to be configured:

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first network element is a UPF, wherein the UPF is communicatively coupled to an SMF, wherein the SMF is communicatively coupled to a PCF, wherein the PCF is communicatively coupled to a UDR, wherein the determining the target shared cluster to which the PDU session to be configured belongs comprises:

acquiring a second session establishment request sent by the SMF, where the second session establishment request carries a second sharing policy, the second sharing policy carries a sharing identifier, the sharing identifier is generated by the PCF according to a cluster identifier, the cluster identifier is acquired by the PCF from a UDR according to the user information, DNN and an acquired allocation granularity, PDU sessions belonging to the same sharing cluster carry the same sharing identifier, the allocation granularity characterizes a grouping rule of the sharing cluster, the user information and the DNN are acquired by the SMF and sent to the PCF through the first session establishment request, and the second sharing policy is generated by the PCF and sent to the SMF when the PDU session to be configured is created according to the first session creation request;

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second sharing policy further carries a shared AMBR, the shared AMBR being obtained by the PCF based on the cluster identity, the method further comprising, prior to the allocating the target bandwidth rate from the shared bandwidth for the PDU session to be configured:

9. The method according to any of claims 1 to 8, wherein said determining a target bandwidth rate for said PDU session to be configured comprises:

acquiring a signed session AMBR for the PDU session;

and determining the signing session AMBR as the target bandwidth rate, or determining the target bandwidth rate according to the signing session AMBR and a preset proportion, wherein the preset proportion is a positive number smaller than 1.

10. The method according to any one of claims 3, 6 or 8, wherein after said determining the occupied bandwidth rate, the method further comprises:

And when detecting that the PDU session in the running state in the target sharing cluster is offline, re-determining the occupied bandwidth rate.

11. A network element, comprising: memory, a processor and a computer program stored on the memory and executable on the processor, characterized in that the processor implements the resource allocation method according to any of the claims 1 to 10 when executing the computer program.

12. A computer readable storage medium storing computer executable instructions for performing the resource allocation method according to any one of claims 1 to 10.