CN116155791A - Method and device for sending instruction and information - Google Patents

Abstract

A method and device for sending instruction and information are disclosed, which belongs to the broadband technical field. In the method, when determining to migrate the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element and migrate the second terminal equipment to the second user plane network element, in response to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than that of the second terminal equipment, after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element, sending the second update instruction to the second user plane network element. The first updating instruction indicates to update the local forwarding control table entry information set based on the forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device, and the second updating instruction indicates to update the local forwarding control table entry information set based on the forwarding control table entry information of the second terminal device. Because the first updating instruction is issued in preference to the second updating instruction, the priority of the forwarding control list item information of the high-priority terminal equipment can be ensured to be updated, so that the high-priority terminal equipment is prevented from being brought off line due to the failure of keep-alive detection.

Description

Method and device for sending instruction and information

The present application claims priority to chinese patent application No. 202111381962.2 filed at 22/11/2021, entitled "method, apparatus, and system for implementing warm standby handoff based on user priority", the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to the field of broadband technologies, and in particular, to a method and an apparatus for sending information.

Background

A broadband network gateway (broadband network gateway, BNG) system is a core node for terminal devices to access a broadband network. The BNG system includes a control plane element, which may be CP (control plane), and a plurality of user plane elements, which may be UP (user plane). The control plane network element is used for controlling and managing the plurality of user plane network elements, and any user plane network element is used for forwarding the flow of the terminal equipment.

In the related art, after a terminal device accesses a user plane network element of a BNG system, the terminal device may send a keep-alive request message to the user plane network element, and after the user plane network element receives the keep-alive request message sent by the terminal device, the terminal device performs validity check on the keep-alive request message based on forwarding control table entry information corresponding to the terminal device in a locally stored forwarding control table entry information set, and after the validity check passes, sends a keep-alive response message to the terminal device based on the forwarding control table entry information corresponding to the terminal device, so that the terminal device determines whether a link between the terminal device and the user plane network element has a fault.

In the above technology, if the terminal device migrates from the user plane network element currently accessed to another target user plane network element, in the process of migrating the terminal device, the target user plane network element needs to acquire forwarding control table entry information corresponding to the terminal device to update the local forwarding control table entry information set. If the number of terminal devices currently migrated to the target user plane network element is large, the target user plane network element needs to acquire a large amount of forwarding control table entry information. In this scenario, when the target ue network element does not acquire the forwarding control entry information of a certain terminal device, the target ue network element may already receive the keep-alive request packet sent by the terminal device, and at this time, the target ue network element cannot respond to the keep-alive request packet of the terminal device, thereby causing a problem in fault detection of the terminal device.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a method and a device for sending instructions and information, which can avoid the disconnection of high-priority terminal equipment due to failure of keep-alive detection in the migration process. The technical scheme is as follows:

in a first aspect, a method of sending an instruction is provided, the method being applied to a BNG system in a communication network, the BNG system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements. In the method, when determining to migrate the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element and migrate the second terminal equipment to the second user plane network element, the control plane network element sends a second update instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than the priority of the second terminal equipment.

The first updating instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the first terminal equipment, the second updating instruction is used for indicating the second user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the second terminal equipment, and the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to a plurality of user plane network elements.

Because the first updating instruction is issued in preference to the second updating instruction, the method provided by the embodiment of the application can ensure that the forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal equipment is updated preferentially, thereby realizing the preferential migration of the high-priority terminal equipment and avoiding the offline of the high-priority terminal equipment caused by the failure of keep-alive detection.

Optionally, the first update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device, and the second update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the second terminal device.

In the embodiment of the application, in order to avoid that forwarding control table entry information issued in advance occupies forwarding plane resources of a user plane network element, the forwarding control table entry information of each terminal device can be issued in an update instruction in a carrying manner during migration.

Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device exceeds the target priority, and the priority of the second terminal device is lower than the target priority. In this scenario, in the method, before determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device exceeding the target priority; accordingly, the first updating instruction does not carry forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment, and the second updating instruction carries forwarding control table information of the second terminal equipment.

In this embodiment, forwarding control table entry information of the high-priority terminal device may be issued in advance, and forwarding control table entry information of the low-priority terminal device may be issued in an update instruction. The method saves the issuing time of the forwarding control list information from the control surface network element to the user surface network element, and the updating instruction aiming at the high-priority terminal equipment does not need to carry the forwarding control list information, so that the updating instruction of the high-priority terminal equipment can be issued to the user surface network element more quickly, thereby realizing the purpose of updating the forwarding control list information of the high-priority terminal equipment to a local forwarding control list information set quickly and recovering the service more quickly.

Optionally, after the control plane network element sends the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, in the method, the control plane network element sends a stop update instruction to the first user plane network element, and the stop update instruction indicates that the first user plane network element does not update the local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device when receiving the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device.

In a scenario that the control plane network element issues forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal device in advance, when the first user plane network element receives the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device, the first user plane network element responds to the update stopping instruction and does not update a local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device, so that forwarding control table information of the first terminal device issued in advance does not occupy forwarding resources of the first user plane network element.

Optionally, the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are the same user plane network element, or the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are different user plane network elements. Optionally, the first terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the third user plane network element to the first user plane network element, and the second terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the fourth user plane network element to the second user plane network element; the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are the same user plane network element, or the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are different user plane network elements.

Based on the implementation manner, in the process that the control plane network element guides the terminal equipment to migrate, no matter whether the first terminal equipment and the second terminal equipment migrate from the same user plane network element or migrate from different user plane network elements, or whether the first terminal equipment and the second terminal equipment migrate to the same user plane network element or migrate to different user plane network elements, the control plane network element only needs to issue each update instruction for each terminal equipment according to the priority order of each terminal equipment. The application flexibility of the embodiment of the application is improved.

Optionally, the interfaces of the third user plane network element and the first user plane network element for receiving the traffic of the first terminal device belong to the first class of interfaces, and the interfaces of the fourth user plane network element and the second user plane network element for receiving the traffic of the second terminal device belong to the second class of interfaces. In this scenario, the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the first type interface, and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the second type interface. Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the service of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the service of the second terminal device. Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

In this embodiment of the present application, the priority of the terminal device may also be directly an SLA, and the priority of the terminal device may also be directly configured on the CP side, for example, an operator may configure the priority of the terminal device based on dimensions such as a certain service, a certain sub-interface, or a certain physical interface. The application flexibility of the embodiment of the application is improved.

Optionally, in the method, the control plane network element receives the priority of the first terminal device and the priority of the second terminal device sent by the authentication authorization accounting AAA server.

The priority of the terminal equipment can be provided by the AAA server, so that the feasibility of the embodiment of the application is improved.

In a second aspect, a method of sending an instruction is provided, the method being applied to a communication network comprising a user switching function, USF, network element and a broadband network gateway, BNG, system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements. In the method, the USF network element sends a second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device. The first migration instruction instructs to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, and the second migration instruction instructs to migrate the second terminal device to the second user plane network element, where the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to a plurality of user plane network elements.

In the scheduling scenario, if the USF network itself fails, the links between the USF network element and the SDN network element and the control plane network element also fail, in which case the USF network element directs the migration of the terminal device based on the priority of the terminal device. At this time, the first migration instruction is issued in preference to the second migration instruction, so based on the method provided by the embodiment of the present application, it can be ensured that the forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal device is updated preferentially, thereby implementing preferential migration of the high-priority terminal device, so as to avoid failure of keep-alive detection of the high-priority terminal device.

Optionally, before the USF network element sends the second migration instruction to the second user plane network element, in the method, the USF network element receives the priority of the first terminal device and the priority of the second terminal device sent by the control plane network element.

In order to enable the USF network element to guide the migration of the terminal device based on the priority of the terminal device, the USF network element may obtain the priority of the terminal device from the control plane network element.

Optionally, the communication network further includes a switching function SF network element, and interfaces corresponding to the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are configured on the SF network element. In this scenario, in the method, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the USF network element sends a second interface configuration instruction to the SF network element after sending the first interface configuration instruction to the SF network element. The first interface configuration instruction indicates the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal equipment and the first user plane network element, and the second interface configuration instruction indicates the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal equipment and the second user plane network element.

The first interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the first terminal device and the interface corresponding to the first user plane network element, so that when the follow-up SF network element receives the traffic of the first terminal device, the traffic is sent out through the interface corresponding to the first user plane network element, and the traffic is sent to the first user plane network element. The second interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal device and the second user plane network element, so that when the subsequent SF network element receives the traffic of the second terminal device, the traffic is sent out through the interface corresponding to the second user plane network element, and the traffic is sent to the second user plane network element.

Because the first interface configuration instruction is issued in preference to the second interface configuration instruction, faster recovery service of the high-priority terminal device can be realized.

Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

In a third aspect, a method for sending information is provided, where the method is applied to a broadband network gateway BNG system in a communication network, the BNG system including a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements. In the method, before the first terminal equipment is migrated to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends keep-alive information of the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal equipment exceeding a target priority. The keep-alive information is used for responding to a keep-alive request message sent by the first terminal equipment by the first user plane network element, and the first user plane network element belongs to a plurality of user plane network elements.

The keep-alive information is part of information in the forwarding control table information, and the part of information is information needed by the forwarding control table information for responding to the keep-alive request.

Under the condition that the control plane network element issues the forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, the control plane network element can also issue only part of information (namely keep-alive information) in the forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, and does not issue all forwarding control table information, so that the memory consumption of the user plane network element is reduced.

Optionally, in the method, when determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends a first update instruction to the first user plane network element, where the first update instruction carries forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device, and the first update instruction is used to instruct the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control table entry information set based on the forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device.

Because the keep-alive information is part of the forwarding control list information, the control surface network element also needs to issue the forwarding control list information when the terminal equipment is migrated so as to complete the migration of the terminal equipment.

In a fourth aspect, a control plane network element is provided, where the control plane network element includes a transceiver module and a processing module;

the transceiver module is configured to perform a transceiver-related operation in the method provided in the first aspect;

the processing module is configured to perform operations in the method as provided in the first aspect other than the transceiver-related operations.

In a fifth aspect, a USF network element is provided, where the USF network element includes a transceiver module and a processing module;

the transceiver module is configured to perform a transceiver-related operation in the method as provided in the second aspect;

the processing module is configured to perform operations in the method as provided in the second aspect other than the transceiver-related operations.

In a sixth aspect, a control plane network element is provided, where the control plane network element includes a transceiver module and a processing module;

the transceiver module is configured to perform a transceiver-related operation in the method provided in the third aspect;

the processing module is configured to perform operations in the method as provided in the third aspect other than the transceiver-related operations.

In a seventh aspect, a network device is provided that includes a memory and a processor.

The memory is used for storing a program for supporting the network device to execute the method provided in any one of the first aspect to the third aspect, and storing data related to the method provided in any one of the first aspect to the third aspect;

The processor is configured to execute a program stored in the memory.

In an eighth aspect, there is provided a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein which, when run on a processor, implement the method provided in any one of the first to third aspects above.

In a ninth aspect, there is provided a computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a processor, implement the method provided in any one of the first to third aspects above.

The technical effects obtained by the fourth to ninth aspects are similar to the technical effects obtained by the corresponding technical means in the first to third aspects, and are not described in detail herein.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a conventional BNG and a decoupled BNG system according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a control plane network element and a user plane network element in a vBNG according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture in a scheduling scenario according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a user access procedure provided in an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture in a warm standby scenario provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a method for sending instructions according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 7 is an online schematic diagram of a terminal device in a warm standby scenario provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of a user migration flow provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of another method for sending instructions provided by an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of a user uplink flow provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a method for sending information according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a control plane network element according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a USF network element provided in an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present application more apparent, embodiments of the present application will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

It should be understood that reference herein to "a plurality" means two or more. In the description of the present application, "/" means or, unless otherwise indicated, for example, a/B may represent a or B; "and/or" herein is merely an association relationship describing an association object, and means that three relationships may exist, for example, a and/or B may mean: a exists alone, A and B exist together, and B exists alone. In addition, in order to clearly describe the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, in the embodiments of the present application, the words "first", "second", and the like are used to distinguish the same item or similar items having substantially the same function and effect. It will be appreciated by those of skill in the art that the words "first," "second," and the like do not limit the amount and order of execution, and that the words "first," "second," and the like do not necessarily differ.

Before explaining the embodiment of the present application in detail, an application scenario of the embodiment of the present application is explained.

With the development of software defined networking (software designed network, SDN) technology and network function virtualization (network function virtual, NFV) technology, the network architecture of metropolitan area networks evolves from traditional network-centric network architectures to data-centric network architectures. At the same time, traditional network elements have evolved from specialized towards generalized. Wherein, the evolution of the traditional network element from specialization to generalization needs to be realized: decoupling control function and forwarding function, and decoupling software and hardware.

BNGs are important in the context of users accessing broadband networks as traditional gateway devices for accessing broadband networks. Among other things, the BNG plays a role in the process of a subscriber accessing a broadband network that includes: user authentication, access control, traffic scheduling, etc. With the layering of various internet services, the requirements on the session number of users supported by the BNG are continuously increasing, the bandwidth of the user access network is also continuously increasing, and especially the requirements on the capability of the BNG for providing service opening and service programmability outwards are also increasing. Based on these factors, conventional BNG SDN/NFV based architectures require implementation of the two aforementioned decouples.

After decoupling the forwarding function from the control function, the conventional BNG evolves into a BNG system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements. The control plane network element can manage a plurality of user plane network elements and schedule users, traffic and resources among the user plane network elements. Compared with a single BNG without decoupling, the utilization rate and reliability of the BNG system after decoupling of the forwarding function and the control function can be greatly improved. The control plane network element may also be called CP or CP network element or CP device, and the user plane network element may also be called UP or UP network element or UP device.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the structure of a conventional BNG system after decoupling according to an embodiment of the present application.

As shown in fig. 1, for the conventional BNG, it is required to have functions of user management (user management), authentication and authorization and accounting (authentication, authorization, accounting, AAA) service, address management (address management), radius service, routing control (routing control), point-to-Point Protocol Over Ethernet (PPPoE) service on ethernet, dynamic host configuration protocol (dynamic host configuration protocol, DHCP) service, forwarding engine (forwarding engine), and the like. The functions that these BNGs need to support are deployed simultaneously on the same hardware device, which may be a switch or the like, as shown in fig. 1.

The AAA service is a server program capable of processing a user access request, and is used for providing services such as authentication authorization and account, etc., and is mainly used for managing access of a user to a web server and providing services to the user having access rights. Radius is a document protocol for authentication, authorization and accounting information between a network access server that needs to authenticate its links and a shared authentication server. The Radius service is responsible for receiving a user's connection request, authenticating the user, and then returning all necessary configuration information of the client to send the service to the user. PPPoE is a network tunneling Protocol that encapsulates a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) in an Ethernet (Ethernet) framework.

For BNG systems with decoupled forwarding and control functions, the BNG system may also be referred to as a vBNG, as shown in FIG. 1. The vBNG includes a Control Plane (CP) network element and a plurality of User Plane (UP) network elements, and fig. 1 illustrates a user plane network element as an example. As shown in fig. 1, the control plane network element is configured to provide functions such as user management, AAA service, address management, radius service, PPPoE service, DHCP service, etc. required by the BNG, and further, the control plane network element needs to provide a user plane network element management (UP management) function required by the BNG. Any user plane network element is used to provide routing (routing), multicast (multicast) services, quality of service (quality of service, qoS), forwarding (forwarding) services, access control list (access control lists, ACL) services, multiprotocol label switching (multi-protocol label switching, MPLS)/label distribution protocol (label distribution protocol, LDP) services, etc. functions required by the BNG. These functions are not described in detail in the embodiments of the present application, and reference is made to standard documents for relevant content.

In the case where the BNG system includes one control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements, as shown in fig. 1, the control plane network element and the user plane network element may be connected through three interfaces. The three interfaces are respectively as follows.

(1) Message redirection interfaces (Packet Redirection interface, PRi). PRi is also referred to as a service interface, and may specifically employ a virtual extended LAN-generic protocol encapsulation (virtual extensible local area network-generic protocol encapsulation, vxlan-GPE) interface. When receiving the user access protocol message, the user interface network element encapsulates the user access protocol message through the interface, then the encapsulated user access protocol message is sent to the control surface network element, and the control surface network element processes the user access protocol message. The user access protocol message is also referred to as a dial request.

(2) A management interface (Management interface, mi). Mi may specifically employ a network configuration (netconf) interface. The control plane network element adopts the interface to issue configuration to the user plane network element. The user plane network element adopts the interface to report some running states and the like.

(3) A state control interface (State Control interface, SCi). The SCi may specifically employ a control plane and user plane split protocol (control plane and user plane separated protocol, CUSP) interface. The control surface network element processes the user access protocol message to complete the protocol interaction of the user. After the user is online, the control surface network element transmits a forwarding control list item to the corresponding user surface network element through the interface. The forwarding control table entry is used for carrying user information of the terminal equipment, so that the subsequent user plane network element forwards the flow of the terminal equipment based on the forwarding control table entry. The detailed function regarding the forwarding control table entry will be explained in the subsequent embodiments.

The control plane network element and the user plane network element may have different forms. Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a control plane network element and a user plane network element in a vBNG according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 2, the control plane network elements in the vBNG act as virtual network functions (virtual network function, VNF) and may run on the X86 server, thereby implementing virtualization. There may be two forms of user plane network elements in the vBNG. One is to operate as a VNF on an X86 server, where the user plane network element may also be referred to as vUP. The other is as a physical network function (physical network function, PNF) running on a conventional hardware network device, in which case the user plane element may also be referred to as puc. A control plane network element of a vBNG may manage one or more pucs and one or more vUP, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

Based on the BNG system, the control plane network element can flexibly schedule terminal equipment among different user plane network elements according to traffic load conditions or fault conditions. For example, when a load of a user plane network element is detected to be large, the traffic of the terminal device on the user plane network element can be drained to another user plane network element for forwarding. Or when a fault of a user plane network element or a fault of a link of the user plane network element connected with the terminal equipment is detected, the service of all the online terminal equipment of the user plane network element is interrupted, so that the traffic of the terminal equipment on the user plane network element needs to be led to another user plane network element for forwarding. This process may also be referred to as user migration or migration, and detailed procedures regarding user migration will be described in subsequent embodiments.

The method provided by the embodiment of the application is applied to the scene for migrating the user. The method provided by the embodiment of the application can be applied to a network architecture in a scheduling scene, and also can be applied to a network architecture in a warm standby scene. Of course, the method can also be applied to other types of network architectures, and are not illustrated here. For convenience of description, the two network architectures are explained in detail below.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture in a scheduling scenario according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 3, the network architecture includes a terminal device, a handover function (steering function, SF) network element, an SDN control network element, a subscriber handover function (user steering function, USF) network element, and a BNG. The BNG includes a control plane element (CP in fig. 3), and a plurality of user plane elements (UP in fig. 3, where three user plane elements are UP1, UP2, and UP3 in fig. 3).

As shown in fig. 3, the terminal device and the SF network element are connected for communication. The SF network element and any user plane network element are connected through a two-layer tunnel (Lay 2-tunnel) for communication. Different physical subinterfaces are configured on the SF network element, and different virtual local area network (virtual local area network, VLAN)/QinQ (QinQ is a representation mode of two-layer VLAN) ranges are matched in the different physical subinterfaces, and the different physical subinterfaces correspond to different two-layer tunnels, namely, the different physical subinterfaces are used for leading to different user plane network elements. Thus, the terminal equipment can send the flow to a certain user plane network element through a certain physical sub-interface on the SF network element.

The SF network element and each user plane network element are deployed at the edge of the metropolitan area network and are used for forwarding the traffic of the terminal equipment to the core network.

In addition, as shown in fig. 3, the SDN control network element is connected to the SF network element and each user plane network element for communication. The USF network element and the SDN control network element are connected for communication. The control plane network element is respectively connected with the USF network element, the SDN control network element and each user plane network element for communication. In addition, as shown in fig. 3, the control plane network element is further connected to the Radius server for communication, so as to facilitate subsequent authentication of access of the terminal device through the Radius server.

The function of each network element shown in fig. 3 is explained below.

Control plane network element: the control plane network element is a service control plane of the vBNG and is used for processing the dialing request of the terminal equipment and interacting with the AAA server to perform user authentication, charging and authorization. The control plane network element can inform the USF network element that the terminal equipment is on line and wait for the USF network element to guide the user to migrate according to the agreed service level (service level agreement, SLA) of the terminal equipment through the access line information carried in the dialing request so as to map the terminal equipment to the port accessed by the corresponding user plane network element. Meanwhile, the control plane network element transmits the forwarding control list item of the terminal equipment to the corresponding user plane network element, and the corresponding user plane network element generates the forwarding list item of the terminal equipment and issues the route outwards.

USF network element: and a policy control component for migrating the user plane network element of the terminal equipment generates migration policies according to the conditions of user SLA and load of the terminal equipment, informs the control plane network element and the SF network element to migrate the terminal equipment, and realizes the load balance and SLA requirement of the network.

User plane network element: the user plane network element is a vBNG traffic forwarding plane. After the control surface network element processes the user online, the control surface network element issues the forwarding control list item, the user surface network element receives the forwarding control list item issued by the control surface network element, generates the forwarding list item of the terminal equipment locally, executes relevant service policy execution and flow forwarding, and issues routes outwards.

SF network element: when a user accesses a gateway and terminal equipment is on line, a dialing request sent by the terminal equipment is sent to a control surface network element for processing through a service channel, and meanwhile, convergence of a home terminal is carried out, flow of the terminal equipment is converged to the user surface network element, forwarding of two-layer messages is carried out, VLAN/QINQ (two-layer VLAN) isolation is carried out on different terminal equipment, and each terminal equipment independently shares one VLAN/QINQ.

Home gateway (residential gateway, RGW): for accessing home computers and mobile phones, network address translation (network address translation, NAT) is generally performed, and private network (internet protocol, IP) addresses are allocated to home computers and mobile phones. Dialing based on PPPoE and IPoE protocols is carried out, and IP addresses are obtained from the vBNG, so that network access is carried out.

SDN control network element: and receiving the access line information of the corresponding user sent by the control plane network element. The access line information includes the switch/optical line terminal (switch/optical line terminal, SW/OLT) identifier of the access, the port information of the access, the virtual local area network (virtual local area network, VLAN) information, etc., and issues a migration policy to the corresponding SW/OLT, and maps the port+vlan/QINQ of the terminal device to a two-layer tunnel (the two-layer tunnel may be a virtual extended local area network (virtual extensible local area network, VXLAN), a virtual leased line (virtual leased line, VLL), or an ethernet-based virtual private network (ethernet virtual private network, EVPN)) connected to the corresponding user plane network element.

For convenience of explanation, the user access procedure and the user migration procedure in the scheduling scenario will be described in detail herein. The user access process is used for indicating the terminal equipment to access the network, and the user migration process is used for indicating the flow of the terminal equipment to be drained from one user plane network element to another user plane network element.

(1) User access procedure

As shown in fig. 3, the terminal device is on-line from UP1 by default in the process of accessing the network. At this time, the terminal device sends a control message such as a dialing request to the CP through the UP1 connected to the SF network element. After receiving the dialing request, the CP interacts the migration policy of the terminal device with the USF network element, and the USF network element determines that the terminal device should be accessed from UP2 according to the user service level agreement (service level agreement, SLA) of the terminal device, and notifies the CP to issue the forwarding control table entry of the terminal device to UP2. Meanwhile, the USF informs the SDN control network element to enable the SDN control network element to configure the SF network element, and the VLAN/QinQ corresponding to the terminal equipment is bound on the physical subinterface corresponding to the UP2 on the SF network element, namely, the binding relation between the terminal equipment and the UP2 is established. The subsequent forwarding message of the terminal equipment can be directly forwarded to the UP2.

The above-mentioned user access procedure can be specifically represented by a flowchart shown in fig. 4. As shown in fig. 4, the procedure of accessing the network by the terminal device can be subdivided into the following steps.

1. After each network element in the network is initialized, the terminal device sends a dialing request (dial up) based on PPPoE or DHCP to the SF network element.

2. After receiving the dialing request, the SF network element sends the dialing request to a control plane network element (CP) through a default UP 1.

3. After receiving the dialing request, the control plane network element sends a user migration policy request to the USF network element, where the user migration policy request is used to request which user plane network element the terminal device needs to forward traffic. The user migration policy request may carry a user SLA of the terminal device. The user SLA of the terminal device indicates the priority of the user, etc.

4. After receiving the request of the user migration policy, the USF network element determines that the terminal equipment should forward traffic from UP2 based on the user SLA of the terminal equipment, so that the USF network element returns a user migration result to the control plane network element, and the user migration result indicates that the target UP of the terminal equipment is UP2.

5. After receiving the user migration result, the control plane network element may allocate a network protocol (internet protocol, IP) address to the terminal device from the address pool of UP2, and issue the allocated IP address to the terminal device, so that the terminal device uses the IP address as a source IP address in the traffic.

6. The control surface network element also transmits a forwarding control table item of the terminal equipment to the UP2, wherein the forwarding control table item carries user information of the terminal equipment, and the user information comprises information such as an IP address, a MAC address, an interface and the like of the terminal equipment. The control plane network element issues the forwarding control table entry to the terminal device to UP2 for the purpose of: the subsequent UP2 performs validity check on the received data packet based on the forwarding control table entry, for example, checks whether the source media access control (media access control, MAC) address and the source IP address in the data packet are the MAC address and the IP address in the forwarding control table entry configured locally, if so, continues forwarding the data packet based on the forwarding control table entry, and if not, discards the data packet.

7. After performing the above 5 and 6, the control plane network element may notify the USF network element of the entry configuration success message.

8. After receiving the successful configuration information of the table item, the USF network element can inform the SDN control network element to execute switching operation, and the switching operation instructs the SDN control network element to configure the binding relationship between the terminal equipment and the UP2 on the SF network element so that the SF network element can conveniently drain the traffic of the terminal equipment to the UP2 subsequently.

9. After the operations 1-8 are completed, it is indicated that the terminal device has currently accessed the network. The data message sent by the subsequent terminal equipment can be forwarded to the core network through the UP2.

(2) User migration process

In some embodiments, after the terminal device accesses the network and forwards the traffic through the currently accessed user plane network element, if the user SLA of the terminal device changes, the USF network element is required to re-determine from which user plane network element the terminal device after the change of the user SLA needs to forward the traffic. If the terminal equipment is judged to need to forward the flow from another user plane network element, the terminal equipment is controlled to migrate from the currently accessed user plane network element to the other user plane network element. The procedure may refer to step 3-8 in the above user access procedure, and will not be described here again.

In other embodiments, the USF network element may further control migration of the terminal device on one user plane network element to another user plane network element based on policies such as load balancing. The procedure may refer to step 3-8 in the above user access procedure, and will not be described here again.

Based on the above user access process and the user migration process, in the scheduling scenario, the USF network element is a policy point for dynamic migration, and the USF network element actively guides the migration of the terminal device.

It should be noted that the USF network element shown in fig. 3 may be built in the control plane network element, or may be built in the SDN control network element, or may be a separate network element. The embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard.

In the scheduling scenario shown in fig. 3 and fig. 4, when the USF network element controls the terminal device on one user plane network element to migrate to another user plane network element, the USF network element actually controls a batch of terminal devices to migrate from one user plane network element to another user plane network element because the number of terminal devices on one user plane network element is larger. In this process, the migration order of the individual terminal devices in the batch of terminal devices is not explicitly required. In this way, the high-priority terminal equipment may migrate to another user plane network element after existence, which easily causes keep-alive detection failure between the high-priority terminal equipment and the other user plane network element, and further causes the high-priority terminal equipment to be offline. Based on the above, the method provided by the embodiment of the application can ensure that the high-priority terminal equipment is preferentially migrated to another user plane network element.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture in a warm standby scenario provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 5, the network structure includes a terminal device, AN access device (AN), a plurality of user plane network elements (denoted as UP1, UP2, UP3, and UP4 in fig. 5), and a control plane network element (denoted as CP in fig. 5). Wherein UP1, UP2, UP3 and UP4 form a warm backup group. Each UP and AN in the warm backup group forms a two-layer broadcast domain, so that the terminal equipment is accessed to the network through the two-layer broadcast domain.

The functions of the control plane network element and the user plane network element in fig. 5 may refer to the network architecture in fig. 3, and are not described herein. In addition, the access device in fig. 5 may be SW, OLT, or the like.

The user access and user migration procedures in the network architecture shown in fig. 5 are described in detail below.

When the terminal equipment is on line (namely user access), the control surface network element distributes the terminal equipment to different UP on lines according to the load sharing condition of each UP in the warm backup group. For example, as shown in fig. 5, when terminal device 1 (i.e., user 1), terminal device 2 (i.e., user 2), terminal device 3 (i.e., user 3), and terminal device 4 (i.e., user 4) are on-line, the control plane network element controls terminal device 1 to access the network from UP1, i.e., the traffic of terminal device 1 is forwarded by UP1. The control plane network element controls the terminal device 2 to access the network from the UP2, i.e. the traffic of the terminal device 2 is forwarded by the UP 2. The control plane network element controls the terminal device 3 to access the network from the UP3, i.e. the traffic of the terminal device 3 is forwarded by the UP 3. The control plane network element controls the terminal device 4 to access the network from the UP4, i.e. the traffic of the terminal device 4 is forwarded by the UP 4.

The control plane network element controls the terminal device 1 to access the network from the UP1 specifically includes two operations: firstly, the control plane network element issues a forwarding control table item of the terminal equipment 1 to the UP1, secondly, the access equipment learns the MAC address of the terminal equipment 1 from the UP1 in a route learning mode, and when the access equipment receives the traffic of the terminal equipment 1, the access equipment can forward the traffic to the UP1 based on an interface when learning the MAC address. The specific process of the control plane network element controlling other terminal devices to access the network from the UP can refer to the foregoing content, and will not be described in detail herein.

In addition, a corresponding failover policy is configured for the warm backup group, which may be, for example: and when the UP1 fails, the terminal equipment on the UP1 is migrated to another UP2. The fail-over policy may also be, for example: and when the UP1 fails, the terminal equipment on the UP1 is migrated to the other three UPs in a load sharing mode. The failover strategy is preset, and UP1 in the subsequent warm backup group can dynamically migrate the user based on the failover strategy so as to keep the user from dropping.

In the warm standby scenario, the control plane network element is a policy point for dynamic migration, and the control plane network element actively guides the migration of the terminal device.

In the Wen Bei scenario shown in fig. 5, in the process of controlling the migration of the terminal device on one user plane network element to another user plane network element, the migration sequence of each terminal device is not explicitly required. In this way, the high-priority terminal equipment may migrate to another user plane network element after existence, which easily causes keep-alive detection failure between the high-priority terminal equipment and the other user plane network element, and further causes the high-priority terminal equipment to be offline. Based on the above, the method provided by the embodiment of the application can ensure that the high-priority terminal equipment is preferentially migrated to another user plane network element.

The method provided in the embodiments of the present application is explained in detail below.

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of a method for sending an instruction according to an embodiment of the present application. It should be noted that, in the method shown in fig. 6, the control plane network element actively guides the migration of the terminal device. In the scheduling scenario shown in fig. 3, if the USF network itself fails, or if a link between the USF network element and the SDN network element or the control plane network element fails, the control plane network element may actively guide the migration of the terminal device. Therefore, the method shown in fig. 6 may be applied to the network architecture in the scheduling scenario shown in fig. 3, and may also be applied to the network architecture in the Wen Bei scenario shown in fig. 5. As shown in fig. 6, the method includes the following step 601.

Step 601: when determining to migrate the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element and migrate the second terminal equipment to the second user plane network element, responding to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than the priority of the second terminal equipment, the control plane network element sends a second update instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element.

The first updating instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the first terminal equipment, and the second updating instruction is used for indicating the second user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the second terminal equipment, so that the control plane network element updates the forwarding control list information of the first terminal equipment to the forwarding control list information set first, and then updates the forwarding control list information of the second terminal equipment to the forwarding control list information set. Therefore, the forwarding control list information of the high-priority terminal equipment is updated to the local forwarding control list information set rapidly, and the high-priority terminal equipment is prevented from being disconnected due to failure of keep-alive detection.

In addition, the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to a plurality of user plane network elements, and the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element may be the same user plane network element. Optionally, the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element may also be different user plane network elements. That is, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be terminal devices that migrate to the same user plane network element, or may be terminal devices that migrate to different user plane network elements.

In the warm standby scenario, when the first terminal device and the second terminal device are terminal devices migrated to different user plane network elements, the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element may be different user plane network elements in the same Wen Bei group, or may be user plane network elements in different warm standby groups.

In addition, assuming that the first terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the third user plane network element to the first user plane network element, and the second terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the fourth user plane network element to the second user plane network element, the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element may be the same user plane network element. Alternatively, the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element may be different user plane network elements. That is, the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be terminal devices migrated from the same user plane network element, or may be terminal devices migrated from different user plane network elements.

In the warm standby scenario, when the first terminal device and the second terminal device are terminal devices migrated from different user plane network elements, the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element may be different user plane network elements in the same Wen Bei group, or may be user plane network elements in different warm standby groups.

In other words, in the process that the control plane network element guides the terminal device to migrate, no matter whether the first terminal device and the second terminal device migrate from the same user plane network element or migrate from different user plane network elements, or whether the first terminal device and the second terminal device migrate to the same user plane network element or migrate to different user plane network elements, the control plane network element only needs to issue each update instruction for each terminal device according to the priority order of each terminal device. The application flexibility of the embodiment of the application is improved.

In some embodiments, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the control plane network element sending the second update instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element may specifically refer to: and for each terminal device to be migrated, sequentially issuing updating instructions for each terminal device according to the order of the priority of each terminal device from high to low. At this time, if the priority of one terminal device is higher than that of the other terminal device, the update instruction of one terminal device must be issued prior to the update instruction of the other terminal device.

In other embodiments, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the control plane network element sending the second update instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element may specifically refer to: the control surface network element configures a priority threshold in advance, for each terminal device to be migrated, each terminal is divided into two types, the priority of the first type of terminal device exceeds the priority threshold, the priority of the second type of terminal device is lower than the priority threshold, then an update instruction of the first type of terminal device is issued first, and then an update instruction of the second type of terminal device is issued, accordingly, the first terminal device in step 601 is one of the first type of terminal devices, and the second terminal device is one of the second type of terminal devices. At this time, if the priority of one terminal device is higher than that of the other terminal device and the two terminal devices belong to the same class of terminal devices, the update instructions of the two terminal devices are not strictly issued in sequence. If one terminal device has a higher priority than the other terminal device and the two terminal devices belong to different types of terminal devices, the update instructions of the two terminal devices have a strict sequence.

The priority threshold may be configured by the operator based on network planning in advance, which is not limited by the embodiment of the present application. In addition, references to "exceeding" in embodiments of the present application may be understood to be greater than or equal to. When "above" is understood to be greater than, correspondingly "below" is understood to be less than or equal to. When "above" is understood to be greater than or equal to, correspondingly "below" is understood to be less than. Reference is made to this explanation for both "above" and "below" in subsequent references.

It should be noted that the final purpose of the migration of the terminal device is: the transferred user plane network element can update the forwarding control list information of the terminal equipment to a local forwarding control list information set, so that the user plane network element can forward the flow of the terminal equipment.

The forwarding control table information of the first terminal device or the second terminal device may be issued to the corresponding user plane network element before migration, and then only the forwarding control table information set needs to be updated during migration. Optionally, the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device or the second terminal device may also be carried in the update instruction and sent to the corresponding user plane network element. This is explained below in two scenarios.

Scene one: the forwarding control list item information is carried in the updating instruction and is sent to the corresponding user plane network element.

That is, the first update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device, and the second update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the second terminal device.

In the first scenario, the control plane network element does not need to issue forwarding control table entry information in advance, and only needs to issue the forwarding control table entry information of the terminal equipment to the corresponding user plane network element in the migration process of the terminal equipment. The method is compatible with the current terminal equipment migration technology, so that the operation is simple and easy to realize.

Scene II: the forwarding control table entry information is already issued to the corresponding user plane network element prior to migration.

In some embodiments, forwarding control entry information of the high-priority terminal device may be issued in advance, while forwarding control entry information of the low-priority terminal device is carried in the update instruction and issued. The method saves the issuing time of the forwarding control list information from the control surface network element to the user surface network element, and the updating instruction aiming at the high-priority terminal equipment does not need to carry the forwarding control list information, so that the updating instruction of the high-priority terminal equipment can be issued to the user surface network element more quickly, thereby realizing the purpose of updating the forwarding control list information of the high-priority terminal equipment to a local forwarding control list information set quickly and recovering the service more quickly.

For example, the control plane network element is preconfigured with a target priority, where the priority of the first terminal device exceeds the target priority in step 601, and the priority of the second terminal device is lower than the target priority. In this case, the implementation process of forwarding control entry information of the high-priority terminal device may be: before determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device exceeding the target priority. Accordingly, before determining to migrate the second terminal device to the second user plane network element, the control plane network element does not send forwarding control table entry information of the second terminal device to the second user plane network element in response to the priority of the second terminal device being lower than the target priority.

At this time, in step 601, the first update instruction does not carry forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device, and the second update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the second terminal device.

The target priority may be configured by the operator based on network planning in advance, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

In addition, because the forwarding control table information is issued to the first user plane network element before the first terminal equipment migrates, in order to avoid that the first user plane network element updates the local forwarding control table information set, after the control plane network element sends the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element may also send a stop update instruction to the first user plane network element, where the stop update instruction indicates that the first user plane network element does not update the local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment when receiving the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment.

When receiving the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device, the first user plane network element does not update a local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device, so that the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device does not occupy forwarding resources of the first user plane network element. When the first terminal equipment is truly migrated, the first user plane network element can directly forward forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal equipment issued in advance, namely, update a local forwarding control table entry information set based on the forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal equipment.

It should be noted that, the stop update instruction and the forwarding control entry information may be carried in the same packet and sent to the first user plane network element, or may be carried in different packets and sent to the first user plane network element. The embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard.

Optionally, if the first user plane network element can learn the migration condition of the first terminal device through other ways, the control plane network element may not send the update stopping instruction to the first user plane network element after sending the forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element. At this time, after receiving the forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device, the first user plane network element is already informed that the first terminal device is not migrated currently based on other approaches, so that a local forwarding control entry information set does not need to be updated.

The first user plane network element can acquire the migration condition of the first terminal device through other ways. For example, in a warm standby scenario, when the first terminal device starts to migrate, the control plane network element may notify the first user plane network element. For another example, in the scheduling scenario, when the first terminal device starts to migrate, the USF network element may notify the first user plane network element through the SDN control network element. This is not described in detail in the examples of the present application.

In addition, before determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, it may refer to: during the first terminal device online process. It may also be referred to as: and within a reference time period after the first terminal device is on line. The embodiment of the application does not limit the time for the control plane network element to issue the forwarding control table entry information of the terminal equipment in advance. The forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment is only required to be issued before migration.

For example, for a control plane network element, in the process that the control network element is online at each terminal device, if the control plane network element identifies that the priority of the terminal device exceeds the target priority, forwarding control table item information of the terminal device is issued to the first user plane network element for any online terminal device. If the control plane network element recognizes that the priority of the terminal equipment is lower than the target priority, forwarding control table item information of the terminal equipment is not issued to the first user plane network element.

In this case, if the migration policy for the first terminal device is preset, the first user plane network element is a user plane network element designated in the migration policy and used for forwarding the traffic of the first terminal device after migration. Alternatively, if the migration policy is not formulated for the first terminal device in advance, the first user plane network element may be other user plane network elements than the user plane network element to which the first terminal device is online. For example, in the Wen Bei scenario shown in fig. 5, if the first terminal device accesses the network from UP1 when it is on-line, the network element may be UP2, UP3, and UP4 in the warm standby group at the first user plane.

In other embodiments, forwarding control entry information of all terminal devices may be issued in advance. So as to save the transmission time of the update instruction of all priority terminal devices, thereby realizing the rapid update of the forwarding control list item information of each terminal device to the local forwarding control list item information set.

The implementation process of forwarding control table entry information of all terminal devices may refer to the foregoing, and will not be described herein.

Based on the embodiment shown in fig. 6, in the migration process of a large number of terminal devices, it can be ensured that the forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal device is updated preferentially, so that the preferential migration of the high-priority terminal device is realized, and the offline of the high-priority terminal device caused by the failure of keep-alive detection is avoided.

In addition, the priority levels referred to in the embodiments of the present application may have various implementations. This will be explained below.

(1) The priority of the first terminal equipment is the SLA of the first terminal equipment, and the priority of the second terminal equipment is the SLA of the second terminal equipment.

Among these, SLA can be understood as: to ensure the performance and reliability of the service, a two-party approved agreement is defined between the service provider and the user. The SLAs define the service levels and the performance levels that the service must meet and place the service provider in responsibility for achieving these predetermined service levels. Therefore, it can be understood that the higher the SLA, the higher the recovery delay requirement of the terminal device after the service interruption. Based on this, in the embodiment of the present application, when the terminal migrates, the terminal device with high SLA is preferentially migrated, so as to meet the network requirement of such terminal device. That is, the priority of the embodiments of the present application may be SLA.

In this scenario, the implementation manner of the control plane network element to obtain the priorities of the first terminal device and the second terminal device may be: the control plane network element receives a first authentication message and a second authentication message sent by the AAA server. The first authentication message carries the SLA of the first terminal equipment, and the second authentication message carries the SLA of the second terminal equipment.

The first authentication message is interaction information between the control surface network element and the AAA server when the first terminal equipment is online. The second authentication message is interaction information between the control surface network element and the AAA server when the second terminal equipment is online.

(2) The priority of the terminal equipment can also be directly configured at the CP side, for example, an operator can configure the priority of the terminal equipment based on dimensions such as a certain class of service, a certain sub-interface or a certain physical interface.

In some embodiments, the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the traffic of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the traffic of the second terminal device.

It can be understood that the higher the service priority, the higher the recovery delay requirement of the terminal device after service interruption. Based on this, in the embodiment of the present application, when terminal devices migrate, terminal devices with high service priorities are preferentially migrated, so as to meet the network requirements of such terminal devices. That is, the priority of the embodiment of the present application may be a service priority.

In other embodiments, in the warm standby scenario, when the first terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the third user plane network element to the first user plane network element, the second terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the fourth user plane network element to the second user plane network element, and the third user plane network element and the first user plane network element belong to the first warm standby group, the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the first warm standby group, and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the second warm standby group.

The higher the priority of the warm standby group, the higher the recovery delay requirement of the terminal equipment accessed in the warm standby group after the service is interrupted correspondingly. Based on this, in the embodiment of the present application, when the terminal device migrates, the terminal device accessed in the warm standby group with higher priority is preferentially migrated, so as to meet the network requirement of the terminal device accessed in the Wen Bei group. That is, the priority in the embodiment of the present application may be the priority of the Wen Bei group to which the user plane network element accessed by the terminal device belongs.

It should be noted that, the sub-interfaces or physical interfaces of the user plane network elements in the same Wen Bei group for receiving the traffic of the terminal device are usually one type of interfaces, and the sub-interfaces or physical interfaces of the user plane network elements in different warm standby groups for receiving the traffic of the terminal device are usually different, so for the control plane network elements, the control plane network elements can configure priorities for the warm standby groups based on the priorities of the interfaces of the user plane network elements in the warm standby groups for receiving the traffic of the terminal device. That is, the priority of Wen Bei group can be understood as: the user plane network element in group Wen Bei receives the priority of the interface of the terminal device traffic.

It should be noted that, the implementation manners of the two priorities are used for illustration, and the embodiments of the present application are not limited to the specific implementation manner of the priority of the terminal device, and are not illustrated here. In addition, the priority may also be referred to as handoff priority or user priority, and so on.

The embodiment shown in fig. 6 is further explained below taking the Wen Bei scenario shown in fig. 5 as an example.

Fig. 7 is an online schematic diagram of a terminal device in a warm standby scenario provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 7, a dial request message of a first terminal device (labeled as user 1 in fig. 7) and a second terminal device (labeled as user 2 in fig. 7) reach a CP through a default UP (e.g., UP 1), and the CP parses user information of the terminal device from the dial request message. The user information illustratively includes a MAC address of the terminal device, a user name (username), a password (password), and the like. The CP transmits an authentication request to the AAA server based on the user information of the terminal device. The AAA server searches for the SLA of the terminal device according to the user information of the terminal device, and returns the SLA to the CP through an authentication message (i.e., an authentication reply). After receiving the priority of the user 1 and the priority of the user 2 sent by the AAA server, the CP stores the priority of the user 1 and the priority of the user 2, so as to facilitate the subsequent user migration. In addition, the CP completes the online of the user 1 and the user 2 through the operations of allocating the IP address and the download entry shown in fig. 4, and the description thereof will not be repeated here. User 1 and user 2 are illustratively connected to the network through UP1 after being on-line in fig. 7.

Wherein the priority of the terminal device can be carried in the authentication reply by multiplexing the existing RADIUS attribute, the priority of the terminal device can also be carried in the authentication reply by using the newly defined RADIUS attribute, and optionally, the priority of the terminal device can also be carried in the authentication reply by using other attributes. The embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard.

As shown in fig. 7, the priority (SLA) of user 1 is higher than the priority (SLA) of user 2.

After the user 1 and the user 2 get on line with the UP1, as shown in fig. 8, when the link between the UP1 and the AN fails, the UP1 reports the failure event to the CP, and when the CP determines that the link between the UP1 and the AN fails, the CP controls the user on the UP1 to dynamically migrate to the UP2, that is, controls the user 1 to migrate from the UP1 to the UP2, and controls the user 2 to migrate from the UP1 to the UP2. After the migration is completed, the AN directs the traffic of user 1 and user 2 from UP1 to UP2.

Based on the embodiment shown in fig. 6, in the process of controlling the user 1 to migrate from UP1 to UP2 and controlling the user 2 to migrate from UP1 to UP2, the CP will issue an update instruction for user 1 and then issue an update instruction for user 2, so as to implement the preferential migration of user 1 to UP2, thereby avoiding the offline of the high-priority user 1 due to the failure of keep-alive detection. The specific implementation may refer to the embodiment shown in fig. 6, and will not be explained here.

In addition, in the scheduling scenario, if the USF network itself fails, the links between the USF network element and the SDN network element and the control plane network element also fail, and at this time, the USF network element actively guides the terminal device to migrate. In this case, the migration of the terminal device is guided by the USF network element based on the priority of the terminal device, and the content is explained in detail below.

Fig. 9 is a flowchart of another method for sending an instruction according to an embodiment of the present application. The method is applied to a scheduling scene. As shown in fig. 9, the method includes the following step 901.

Step 901: and the USF network element sends a second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device.

The first migration instruction instructs migration of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, and the second migration instruction instructs migration of the second terminal device to the second user plane network element, where the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to multiple user plane network elements

Since the USF network element sends the second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element, that is, the USF network element sends the first migration instruction first and then sends the second migration instruction, the control plane network element receives the first migration instruction first and then receives the second migration instruction. It will be appreciated that the control plane network element, upon receiving a migration instruction from the USF network element, sends an update instruction in response to the migration instruction. Therefore, based on step 901, the control plane network element sends the first update instruction to the first user plane network element, and then sends the second update instruction to the second user plane network element, so that the control plane network element updates the forwarding control table information of the first terminal device to the forwarding control table information set, and updates the forwarding control table information of the second terminal device to the forwarding control table information set. Therefore, the forwarding control list information of the high-priority terminal equipment is updated to the local forwarding control list information set rapidly, and the high-priority terminal equipment is prevented from being disconnected due to failure of keep-alive detection.

In some embodiments, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the USF network element sending the second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element may specifically refer to: and for each terminal device to be migrated, sequentially sending a migration instruction for each terminal device to the control plane network element according to the order of the priority of each terminal device from high to low. At this time, if the priority of one terminal device is higher than that of the other terminal device, the migration instruction of one terminal device must be issued prior to the migration instruction of the other terminal device.

In other embodiments, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the USF network element sending the second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element may specifically refer to: the USF network element pre-configures a priority threshold, for each terminal device to be migrated, each terminal is divided into two types, the priority of the first type of terminal device exceeds the priority threshold, the priority of the second type of terminal device is lower than the priority threshold, then a migration instruction of the first type of terminal device is issued first, and then a migration instruction of the second type of terminal device is issued, accordingly, the first terminal device in step 901 is one of the first type of terminal devices, and the second terminal device is one of the second type of terminal devices. At this time, if the priority of one terminal device is higher than that of the other terminal device and the two terminal devices belong to the same class of terminal devices, the migration instructions of the two terminal devices are not strictly issued in sequence. If one terminal device has a higher priority than the other terminal device and the two terminal devices belong to different types of terminal devices, migration instructions of the two terminal devices have a strict sequence.

In addition, regarding the user plane network elements before and after the first terminal device is migrated and the user plane network elements before and after the second terminal device is migrated, reference may be made to the embodiment shown in fig. 6, and details thereof are not repeated here.

In addition, the implementation manner of the USF network element to obtain the priority of each terminal device to be migrated may be: the USF network element receives the priority of the first terminal device and the priority of the second terminal device sent by the control plane network element.

In some embodiments, in the case where the priority is SLA, for the online process shown in fig. 4, when receiving the authentication message sent by the AAA server, the control plane network element reports the SLA in the authentication message to the USF network element.

As can be seen from the online procedure in the scheduling scenario shown in fig. 4, the online procedure of the terminal device in the scheduling scenario can be simplified to the procedure shown in fig. 10. As shown in fig. 10, a dial request message of a terminal device reaches a CP through a default UP, and the CP parses user information of the terminal device from the dial request message. The user information illustratively includes the MAC address, user name, password, etc. of the terminal device. The CP transmits an authentication request to the AAA server based on the user information of the terminal device. The AAA server searches for the SLA of the terminal device according to the user information of the terminal device, and returns the SLA to the CP through an authentication message (i.e., an authentication reply). Wherein the priority of the terminal device can be carried in the authentication reply by multiplexing the existing RADIUS attribute, the priority of the terminal device can also be carried in the authentication reply by using the newly defined RADIUS attribute, and optionally, the priority of the terminal device can also be carried in the authentication reply by using other attributes. The embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard. After receiving the authentication reply, the CP may report relevant information to the terminal device to the USF network element, where the relevant information includes, for example, SLA, MAC address, user name, password, location information, and the like of the terminal device.

In other embodiments, in the case that the priority is a service priority or an interface priority, the control plane network element reports the priority to the USF network element when acquiring the priority of the terminal device configured by the operator. Alternatively, in this case, the operator may also configure the priorities of the individual terminal devices directly on the USF network element.

In addition, as shown in fig. 3, in the scheduling scenario, the terminal device is connected to the UP through an SF network element, and interfaces corresponding to the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are configured on the SF network element. Therefore, when the USF network element determines that the first terminal device and the second terminal device need to be migrated, the USF network element may further send the second interface configuration instruction to the SF network element after sending the first interface configuration instruction to the SF network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device.

The first interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the first terminal device and the interface corresponding to the first user plane network element, so that when the subsequent SF network element receives the traffic of the first terminal device, the traffic is sent out through the interface corresponding to the first user plane network element, and the traffic is sent to the first user plane network element. The second interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal device and the second user plane network element, so that when the subsequent SF network element receives the traffic of the second terminal device, the traffic is sent out through the interface corresponding to the second user plane network element, and the traffic is sent to the second user plane network element.

The detailed implementation manner in which the USF network element sends the second interface configuration instruction to the SF network element after sending the first interface configuration instruction to the SF network element may refer to the foregoing USF network element to send the first migration instruction and the second migration instruction, which are not described herein.

Under the condition that the control plane network element issues the forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, the control plane network element can also issue only part of information in the forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, but does not issue all forwarding control table information, so as to reduce the memory consumption of the user plane network element. This will be explained below.

Fig. 11 is a flowchart of a method for sending information according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 11, the method includes the following step 1101.

Step 1101: before the first terminal equipment is migrated to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends the keep-alive information of the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal equipment exceeding the target priority.

The keep-alive information is used for responding to a keep-alive request message sent by the first terminal equipment by the first user plane network element, and the first user plane network element belongs to a plurality of user plane network elements. The keep-alive information is part of information in the forwarding control entry information, and the part of information is information required for responding to the keep-alive request in the forwarding control entry information. Specific forms of keep-alive information embodiments of the present application are not limited in this regard.

It can be known that, in the embodiment of the present application, for a high-priority terminal device, the control plane network element may issue keep-alive information of the terminal device before the terminal device migrates, so as to avoid that the high-priority terminal device goes offline due to a keep-alive detection failure.

In addition, in step 1101, the implementation manner of the control plane network element for issuing the keep-alive information of the high-priority terminal device and determining which terminal devices are the high-priority terminal devices may refer to the embodiment shown in fig. 6, which is not described herein.

In addition, in step 1101, since the control plane network element issues keep-alive information of the terminal device before the high priority terminal device is migrated, the user plane network element can respond to the keep-alive request message of the terminal device based on the keep-alive information. Therefore, after the terminal device actually starts to migrate, the update instruction can be issued without consideration in order of priority.

In addition, because the keep-alive information of the terminal equipment is issued in advance, when the first terminal equipment is determined to be migrated to the first user plane network element, the first update instruction sent by the control plane network element to the first user plane network element carries forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal equipment. The first updating instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment.

The method provided by the embodiment of the present application is introduced above, and the control plane network element and the USF network element provided by the embodiment of the present application are introduced below.

The control plane network element and the USF network element described below have any function of the control plane network element and the USF network element in the above method embodiment, respectively.

Fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a control plane network element according to an embodiment of the present application. The control plane network element 1200 is located in the communication system where UP and CP are separated as shown in fig. 1, and as shown in fig. 12, the control plane network element 1200 includes: a transceiver module 1201 and a processing module 1202.

The transceiver module 1201 is configured to: when the processing module 1202 determines to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element and migrate the second terminal device to the second user plane network element, in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element, sending the second update instruction to the second user plane network element. The first updating instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the first terminal equipment, the second updating instruction is used for indicating the second user plane network element to update the local forwarding control list information set based on the forwarding control list information of the second terminal equipment, and the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to a plurality of user plane network elements.

The specific implementation may refer to step 601 in the embodiment of fig. 6, and will not be explained here.

Optionally, the first update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device, and the second update instruction carries forwarding control entry information of the second terminal device.

Optionally, the transceiver module 1201 is further configured to:

before determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, transmitting forwarding control entry information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device exceeding the target priority. Accordingly, the first updating instruction does not carry forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment, and the second updating instruction carries forwarding control table information of the second terminal equipment.

Optionally, the transceiver module 1201 is further configured to:

and sending a stop updating instruction to the first user plane network element, wherein the stop updating instruction indicates that the first user plane network element does not update the local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment when receiving the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment.

Optionally, the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are the same user plane network element, or the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are different user plane network elements.

Optionally, the first terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the third user plane network element to the first user plane network element, and the second terminal device is a terminal device migrated from the fourth user plane network element to the second user plane network element;

the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are the same user plane network element, or the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are different user plane network elements.

Optionally, interfaces of the third user plane network element and the first user plane network element for receiving the traffic of the first terminal device belong to a first class of interfaces, and interfaces of the fourth user plane network element and the second user plane network element for receiving the traffic of the second terminal device belong to a second class of interfaces;

the priority of the first terminal equipment is the priority of the first type interface, and the priority of the second terminal equipment is the priority of the second type interface.

Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the service of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the service of the second terminal device.

Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

Optionally, the transceiver module 1201 is further configured to:

and receiving the priority of the first terminal equipment and the priority of the second terminal equipment sent by the Authentication Authorization Accounting (AAA) server.

Based on the control plane network element shown in fig. 12, in the migration process of a large number of terminal devices, the priority of the forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal device can be guaranteed to be updated, so that the priority migration of the high-priority terminal device is realized, and the offline of the high-priority terminal device caused by the failure of keep-alive detection is avoided.

Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of a USF network element provided in an embodiment of the present application. The USF network element 1300 is located in a communication system in a scheduling scenario where UP and CP are separated as shown in fig. 3, and as shown in fig. 13, the USF network element 1300 includes: a transceiver module 1301 and a processing module 1302.

The transceiver module 1301 is configured to: in response to the processing module 1302 determining that the priority of the first terminal device is higher than the priority of the second terminal device, after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element, sending the second migration instruction to the second user plane network element.

The first migration instruction instructs to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, and the second migration instruction instructs to migrate the second terminal device to the second user plane network element, where the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to a plurality of user plane network elements.

The specific implementation may refer to step 901 in the embodiment of fig. 9, and will not be described again here.

Optionally, the transceiver module 1301 is further configured to:

and receiving the priority of the first terminal equipment and the priority of the second terminal equipment sent by the control plane network element.

Optionally, the communication network further includes a switching function SF network element, and interfaces corresponding to the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are configured on the SF network element;

the transceiver module 1301 is further configured to:

responding to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than the priority of the second terminal equipment, and after sending a first interface configuration instruction to the SF network element, sending a second interface configuration instruction to the SF network element;

the first interface configuration instruction indicates the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal equipment and the first user plane network element, and the second interface configuration instruction indicates the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal equipment and the second user plane network element.

Optionally, the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

Based on the USF network element shown in fig. 13, in the migration process of a large number of terminal devices, it can be ensured that the forwarding control table information of the high-priority terminal device is updated preferentially, so that the preferential migration of the high-priority terminal device is realized, and the offline of the high-priority terminal device caused by the failure of keep-alive detection is avoided.

In other embodiments, the processing module and the transceiver module in the control plane network element shown in fig. 12 also have the following functions.

The transceiver module 1201 is configured to:

before the first terminal device migrates to the first user plane network element, in response to the priority of the first terminal device determined by the processing module 1202 exceeding the target priority, keep-alive information of the first terminal device is sent to the first user plane network element.

The keep-alive information is used for responding to a keep-alive request message sent by the first terminal equipment by the first user plane network element, and the first user plane network element belongs to a plurality of user plane network elements.

The specific implementation may refer to step 1101 in the embodiment of fig. 11, and will not be described further herein.

Optionally, the transceiver module 1201 is further configured to:

when determining to migrate the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element, sending a first updating instruction to the first user plane network element;

the first updating instruction carries forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment, and the first updating instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update the local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment.

Based on the function of the control plane network element, under the condition that the control plane network element issues forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, the control plane network element can also issue only part of information in the forwarding control table information of the terminal equipment in advance, and does not issue all forwarding control table information, so as to reduce the memory consumption of the user plane network element.

The following describes the hardware structure of the control plane network element shown in fig. 12 or the USF network element shown in fig. 13.

Fig. 14 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided in the embodiment of the present application, and the control plane network element shown in fig. 12 or the USF network element shown in fig. 13 may be implemented by using the network device. Referring to fig. 14, the network device includes at least one processor 1401, a communication bus 1402, a memory 1403, and at least one communication interface 1404.

The processor 1401 may be a microprocessor (including a central processing unit (central processing unit, CPU), etc.), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or may be one or more integrated circuits for controlling the execution of programs in accordance with aspects of the present application.

Communication bus 1402 may include a path to transfer information between the aforementioned components.

The memory 1403 may be, but is not limited to, read-Only memory (ROM), random-access memory (random access memory, RAM), electrically erasable programmable read-Only memory (electrically erasable programmable read-Only memory, EEPROM), optical disks (including compact disk (compact disc read-Only memory, CD-ROM), compact disk, laser disk, digital versatile disk, blu-ray disk, etc.), magnetic disk storage media or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium capable of carrying or storing desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and capable of being accessed by a computer. The memory 1403 may be separate and coupled to the processor 1401 via the communication bus 1402. Memory 1403 may also be integrated with processor 1401.

Wherein the memory 1403 is used for storing program code 1410 for executing the present application, and the processor 1401 is used for executing the program code 1410 stored in the memory 1403. The network device may implement the methods provided by the embodiments of the present application through a processor 1401 and program code 1410 in a memory 1403.

The communication interface 1404 uses any transceiver-like device for communicating with other devices or communication networks. Such as ethernet, radio access network (radio access network, RAN), wireless local area network (wireless local area network, WLAN), etc.

In a particular implementation, as one embodiment, processor 1401 may include one or more CPUs, such as CPU0 and CPU1 shown in FIG. 14.

In a particular implementation, as one embodiment, a network device may include multiple processors, such as processor 1401 and processor 1405 shown in fig. 14. Each of these processors may be a single-core processor or a multi-core processor. A processor herein may refer to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores for processing data (e.g., computer program instructions).

In a specific implementation, the computer device may also include an output device 1406 and an input device 1407, as one embodiment. An output device 1406 communicates with the processor 1401 and may display information in a variety of ways. For example, the output device 1406 may be a liquid crystal display (liquid crystal display, LCD), a light emitting diode (light emitting diode, LED) display device, a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) display device, or a projector (projector), or the like. The input device 1407 communicates with the processor 1401 and may receive input from a user in a variety of ways. For example, the input device 1407 may be a mouse, a keyboard, a touch screen device, a sensing device, or the like.

The network device may be a general-purpose network device or a special-purpose network device. In a specific implementation, the network device may be a desktop, a portable computer, a network server, a palm computer, a mobile phone, a tablet computer, a wireless terminal device, a communication device, or an embedded device, and the embodiment of the present application is not limited to the type of network device.

In the above embodiments, it may be implemented in whole or in part by software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, may be implemented in whole or in part in the form of a computer program product. The computer program product includes one or more computer instructions. When the computer instructions are loaded and executed on a computer, the processes or functions described in accordance with embodiments of the present application are produced in whole or in part. The computer may be a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, a computer network, or other programmable apparatus. The computer instructions may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium or transmitted from one computer-readable storage medium to another computer-readable storage medium, for example, the computer instructions may be transmitted from one website, computer, server, or data center to another website, computer, server, or data center by a wired (e.g., coaxial cable, fiber optic, data subscriber line (Digital Subscriber Line, DSL)) or wireless (e.g., infrared, wireless, microwave, etc.) means. The computer readable storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a computer or a data storage device such as a server, data center, etc. that contains an integration of one or more available media. The usable medium may be a magnetic medium (e.g., floppy Disk, hard Disk, magnetic tape), an optical medium (e.g., digital versatile Disk (Digital Versatile Disc, DVD)), or a semiconductor medium (e.g., solid State Disk (SSD)), etc.

The above embodiments are provided for the purpose of not limiting the present application, but rather, any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present application are intended to be included within the scope of the present application.

Claims (24)

1. A method of sending instructions, the method being applied to a broadband network gateway, BNG, system in a communication network, the BNG system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements;

the method comprises the following steps:

when determining to migrate the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element and migrate the second terminal equipment to the second user plane network element, responding to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than the priority of the second terminal equipment, the control plane network element sends a second update instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first update instruction to the first user plane network element;

the first update instruction is configured to instruct the first user plane network element to update a local forwarding control table entry information set based on forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device, the second update instruction is configured to instruct the second user plane network element to update a local forwarding control table entry information set based on forwarding control table entry information of the second terminal device, and the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to the plurality of user plane network elements.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first update instruction carries forwarding control entry information for the first terminal device and the second update instruction carries forwarding control entry information for the second terminal device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first terminal device has a priority that exceeds a target priority and the second terminal device has a priority that is lower than the target priority, the method further comprising:

before determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element in response to the priority of the first terminal device exceeding the target priority;

correspondingly, the first updating instruction does not carry forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal equipment, and the second updating instruction carries forwarding control table entry information of the second terminal equipment.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the method further comprises:

the control plane network element sends a stop update instruction corresponding to the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment to the first user plane network element, and the stop update instruction indicates that the first user plane network element does not update a local forwarding control table information set based on the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment when receiving the forwarding control table information of the first terminal equipment issued in advance.

5. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are the same user plane network element or the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element are different user plane network elements.

6. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the first terminal device is a terminal device migrated from a third user plane network element to the first user plane network element, and the second terminal device is a terminal device migrated from a fourth user plane network element to the second user plane network element;

the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are the same user plane network element, or the third user plane network element and the fourth user plane network element are different user plane network elements.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein interfaces on the third user plane network element and the first user plane network element that receive traffic of the first terminal device belong to a first class of interfaces, and interfaces on the fourth user plane network element and the second user plane network element that receive traffic of the second terminal device belong to a second class of interfaces;

the priority of the first terminal equipment is the priority of the first warm standby group, and the priority of the second terminal equipment is the priority of the second warm standby group.

8. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the priority of the first terminal device is the priority of the traffic of the first terminal device and the priority of the second terminal device is the priority of the traffic of the second terminal device.

9. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

10. The method of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the method further comprises:

the control plane network element receives the priority of the first terminal device and the priority of the second terminal device sent by the Authentication Authorization Accounting (AAA) server.

11. A method of sending an instruction, the method being applied to a communication network comprising a user switching function USF network element and a broadband network gateway BNG system, the BNG system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements;

the method comprises the following steps:

in response to the priority of the first terminal device being higher than the priority of the second terminal device, the USF network element sends a second migration instruction to the second user plane network element after sending the first migration instruction to the control plane network element;

The first migration instruction instructs to migrate the first terminal device to a first user plane network element, the second migration instruction instructs to migrate the second terminal device to a second user plane network element, and the first user plane network element and the second user plane network element belong to the plurality of user plane network elements.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein before the USF network element sends a second migration instruction to the second user plane network element, the method further comprises:

and the USF network element receives the priority of the first terminal equipment and the priority of the second terminal equipment, which are sent by the control plane network element.

13. The method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the communication network further comprises a handover function SF element, and interfaces corresponding to the first user plane element and the second user plane element are configured on the SF element;

the method further comprises the steps of:

responding to the priority of the first terminal equipment being higher than the priority of the second terminal equipment, the USF network element sends a second interface configuration instruction to the SF network element after sending the first interface configuration instruction to the SF network element;

The first interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal device and the first user plane network element, and the second interface configuration instruction instructs the SF network element to bind the interfaces corresponding to the first terminal device and the second user plane network element.

14. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein the priority of the first terminal device is a contracted service level SLA of the first terminal device, and the priority of the second terminal device is a SLA of the second terminal device.

15. A method for transmitting information, wherein the method is applied to a broadband network gateway BNG system in a communication network, the BNG system comprising a control plane network element and a plurality of user plane network elements;

the method comprises the following steps:

before a first terminal device is migrated to a first user plane network element, responding to the fact that the priority of the first terminal device exceeds a target priority, and sending keep-alive information of the first terminal device to the first user plane network element by the control plane network element;

the keep-alive information is used for responding to a keep-alive request message sent by the first terminal equipment by the first user plane network element, and the first user plane network element belongs to the plurality of user plane network elements.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises:

when determining to migrate the first terminal device to the first user plane network element, the control plane network element sends a first update instruction to the first user plane network element;

the first update instruction carries forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device, and the first update instruction is used for indicating the first user plane network element to update a local forwarding control table entry information set based on the forwarding control table entry information of the first terminal device.

17. A network device comprising a memory and a processor;

the memory is used for storing program instructions;

the processor is configured to invoke a program stored in the memory to cause the network device to perform the method of any of claims 1-10.

18. A network device comprising a memory and a processor;

the memory is used for storing program instructions;

the processor is configured to invoke a program stored in the memory to cause the network device to perform the method of any of claims 11-14.

19. A network device comprising a memory and a processor;

the memory is used for storing program instructions;

the processor is configured to invoke a program stored in the memory to cause the network device to perform the method of any of claims 15-16.

20. The control surface network element is characterized by comprising a receiving and transmitting module and a processing module;

the transceiver module is configured to perform transceiver-related operations in the method according to any one of claims 1-10;

the processing module is configured to perform operations of the method according to any of claims 1-10 other than the transceiver-related operations.

21. The USF network element is characterized by comprising a receiving and transmitting module and a processing module;

the transceiver module is configured to perform transceiver-related operations in the method according to any one of claims 11-14;

the processing module is configured to perform operations of the method according to any of claims 11-14 other than the transceiver-related operations.

22. The control surface network element is characterized by comprising a receiving and transmitting module and a processing module;

The transceiver module is configured to perform transceiver-related operations in the method according to any one of claims 15-16;

the processing module is configured to perform operations of the method according to any of claims 15-16 other than the transceiver-related operations.

23. A computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein which, when run on a processor, implement the method of any one of claims 1-10, or implement the method of any one of claims 11-14, or implement the method of any one of claims 15-16.

24. A computer program product comprising instructions which, when run on a processor, implement the method of any one of claims 1 to 10, or implement the method of any one of claims 11 to 14, or implement the method of any one of claims 15 to 16.

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