KR20160015586A - METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANAGING CHARGING OF PDN Gateway - Google Patents

Abstract

According to the present invention, a charging management method in a packet processing node comprises the following steps: collecting a packet transceived between a terminal and a content providing device; inspecting whether the collected packet is a charging packet of a charging policy target or a non-charging packet of a non-charging policy target; generating charging information which individually includes a charging packet amount corresponding to the charging packet, and a non-charging packet amount corresponding to the non-charging packet; and transmitting the generated charging information to a charging node.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing charge in a packet processing node,

The present invention relates to a billing management method in a packet processing node, and more particularly, to a billing management method in a packet processing node, and more particularly, to a billing management method in a packet processing node that selectively generates billing information and non-billing information for each of a billing packet and a non- To a method and apparatus for managing charges in a packet processing node suitable for transmission.

As is well known, a transmission control protocol (TCP) is a transmission control protocol between a terminal and a server, between a terminal and a terminal in the digital transmission, the Internet, etc., and is a protocol operating on an IP (internet protocol) Selection of routes, relaying of data packets, and assurance.

In packet traffic between a terminal and a server or between a terminal and a terminal, packets (up / down packets) are classified into charging packets and non-charging packets according to a charging policy or a non-charging policy. The classification is performed in a packet processing node (PGW: PDN Gateway) according to a prescribed standard, for example, in the case of an LTE communication system.

That is, the packet processing node (PGW) collects packets transmitted and received between the communication terminal and the content providing apparatus, and analyzes the collected packets to generate billing information (for example, P-CDR) And when the packet is a non-charging packet, the packet is automatically dropped.

Therefore, according to the conventional billing management method, since the information about the packets to be non-charged is discarded without being collected and managed, the packet charge amount and the usage amount are inconsistent, thereby satisfying the various service demands (VoC) of the customers There is a problem that it is bound to have limitations.

Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2011-0121977, published on November 09, 2011.

The present invention generates billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to a billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to a non-billing packet, generates new billing information, and transmits a new billing management Technique.

The problems to be solved by the present invention are not limited to those mentioned above, and another problem to be solved by the present invention can be clearly understood by those skilled in the art from the following description will be.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for checking whether a collected packet is transmitted between a terminal and a content providing apparatus and whether the collected packet is a charging packet for a charging policy object or a non-charging packet for a non- Generating billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to the billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to the non-billing packet, and transmitting the generated billing information to the billing node To the packet processing node.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a content distribution system, comprising: a packet collection unit for collecting packets transmitted and received between a terminal and a content providing apparatus; and a header analyzing unit for analyzing header information of the collected packets to determine whether the current packet is a charging packet, A billing information generating unit for generating billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to the billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to the non-billing packet, And a billing information transmitter for delivering the billing information to the billing node.

In the present invention, the collected packets are inspected to generate billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to the billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to the non-billing packet, respectively, and then transmits the billing information to the billing node. (I.e., providing high quality customer service) to the various service requests (VoC) of the customers, and can also increase the amount of packets (non-billing packets) It is possible to analyze and understand the causes in detail.

1 is a block diagram of a mobile communication system suitable for applying an accounting management apparatus in a packet processing node according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a block diagram of an accounting management apparatus in a packet processing node according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a main procedure for processing billing management based on a billing packet and a non-billing packet according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a field diagram exemplarily showing a part of a P-CDR field to which some fields are added according to the present invention.

First, the advantages and features of the present invention, and how to accomplish them, will be clarified with reference to the embodiments to be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments, but, on the contrary, It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

In the following description of the present invention, detailed description of known functions and configurations incorporated herein will be omitted when it may make the subject matter of the present invention rather unclear. It is to be understood that the following terms are defined in consideration of the functions of the present invention, and may be changed according to intentions or customs of a user, an operator, and the like. Therefore, the definition should be based on the technical idea described throughout this specification.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram of a mobile communication system suitable for applying an accounting management apparatus in a packet processing node according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1, a mobile communication system includes a user equipment (UE) 102, an eNodeB 104, a mobility management entity (MME) 106, a signal processing node (SGW) A Serving Gateway 108, a PDW Gateway 110, a Policy & Charging Rule Function (PCRF) 112 and an Offline Charging System (OFCS) .

First, the communication terminal 102 may be a mobile terminal, a smart phone, a PMP, a smart pad, a smart book, a tablet PC, a netbook, a notebook, (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network)) to access the base station 104 through any one of a plurality of remote radio units (not shown), and is provided via the base station 104 The communication services related to the packet-based charging policy can be provided.

Next, the base station 104 can define (name) an eNodeB, a base station equipment, a base station device, or the like as an equipment capable of supporting next generation technologies and services such as LTE (or VoLTE) Based on the control management of the radio resources, such as radio bearer control, radio admission control, connection mobility control, and dynamic resource allocation to the communication terminal, (Radio resource management) function. Here, the base station 104 may be defined as a digital unit (DU), for example.

The mobility management node 106 may be a node that manages the mobility of a terminal through a signal control charge between the base station 104 and the signal processing node 108. The mobility management node 106 may include a session management, Management, paging, and subscriber authentication functions. In other words, the mobility management node 106 processes the control signal when there is a request for association from the communication terminal or another network node, for example, from the signal processing node 108 or the packet processing node 110, or a radio bearer establishment request And receives the subscriber profile information, authentication and location related data from the home subscriber server (e.g., HSS), and sets up the EPS bearer or IP tunnel And mobility management can be provided.

The signal processing node 108 processes the payload traffic according to a preset session based on a communication policy in the network provided from the policy management node 114 through the packet processing node 110 A user plane node that performs session control and the like and interworks with a base station through an S1-U interface and supports handoff in an LTE mobile communication system and 3GPP, 110 and an EPS bearer (Evolved Packet System bearer), and transmitting PDU (Packet Data Unit) using tunneling.

Next, the packet processing node 110 allocates the IP of the terminal device according to the communication and charging policy provided from the policy management node 112, and allocates the IP of the terminal device to the user plane Node, functions to maintain routing information with the signaling node 108 and the external network for packet service, provide tunneling and IP routing functions, and forward the PDU to the signal processing node 108 and the external network .

The policy management node 112 provides dynamic QoS and billing rules according to a service data flow to manage and enforce communication policies and billing policies in the mobile communication system And the like.

The packet processing node 110 also inspects (analyzes) packets (up / down packets) transmitted and received between a content providing apparatus (not shown) and a communication terminal via DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) It is possible to provide the function of generating billing information including a billing packet amount and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to a non-billing packet, and transmitting the billing information thus generated to the billing node 114, , The packet processing node 110 may include a component as shown in FIG. 2 as an example.

Here, the billing node 114 collects billing information transmitted from the packet processing node 110 based on a billing policy provided from the policy management node 112, and then transmits billing information (not shown) The billing node 114 may be defined as an offline charring system (OFCS), for example, in the case of an LTE communication system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a billing management apparatus in a packet processing node according to an embodiment of the present invention. The packet collecting unit 202, the packet checking unit 204, the billing information generating unit 206, 208, a policy management unit 210, and the like.

2, the packet collector 202 collects and stores packets (up / down packets) transmitted and received between a communication terminal and a content providing apparatus (not shown) for application of a charging policy or a non-charging policy And so on. Here, the packets collected through the packet collecting unit 202 may be billing packets to be subjected to billing policy, or non-billing packets to be subject to a non-billing policy.

Next, the packet checking unit 204 analyzes the header information of the packet collected through the packet collecting unit 202 to check whether the packet is a charging packet to be subjected to a charging policy or a non-charging packet to be subjected to a non-charging policy, And transmitting the inspection result (billing instruction or non-billing instruction) to the billing information generation unit 206. [

Here, the non-billing packet means a packet that does not charge based on the non-charging policy (i.e., an exception-processed packet). For example, the TCP connection control packet, the TCP retransmission packet, the TCP middle start, A checksum error, a header error, and the like.

The TCP connection control packet includes TCP SYN, SYN / ACK, ACK, TCP FIN, FIN / ACK, ACK, TCP RESET, session start and CDR generation, SYN 3way, session termination and CDR termination, RST Packets, and the like. In addition, TCP middle start means that some of the 3way handshake packets for TCP connection control do not exist or data packets are received without connection control packets.

Next, the billing information generation unit 206 generates billing information on a packet-by-packet basis based on the billing policy and the non-billing policy provided from the policy management unit 210, that is, from the packet checking unit 204 to the billing and non- (E.g., P-CDR) including the amount of the charging packet corresponding to the charging packet and the amount of the non-charging packet corresponding to the non-charging packet, and transfers the generated charging information to the charging information transmitting unit 208 Function can be provided.

Here, the billing information generated for the billing packet and the non-billing packet includes, for example, a data volume FBC uplink / downlink field indicating the amount of billing packets And a Free Volume Uplink / Downlink field 410 indicating the amount of non-charging packets. The free volume uplink / downlink field 410 may be a P-CDR format, Quot; means a business-specific field additionally inserted for realizing the present invention.

For this, the policy management unit 210 may provide functions such as storing and managing billing policy related information and non-billing policy related information transmitted through an interface with the policy management node 112 of FIG.

The billing information transmission unit 208 may provide a function of transmitting the billing information transmitted from the billing information generation unit 206 to the billing node 114 in Fig.

The billing node 114 of FIG. 1 processes the billing information into billing data and transmits the billing data to the billing system. As a result, in the billing system, billing data (for example, usage amount, (I.e., provide high-quality customer service based on billing), and can also increase the amount of exceptional packets (non-billing packets) And details of the causes and causes of the problem can be analyzed and understood.

Next, a series of processes for processing charge management at the packet processing node using the billing management apparatus according to the present invention having the above-described configuration will be described in detail.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a main procedure for processing billing management based on a billing packet and a non-billing packet according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the packet collection unit 202 collects packets (up / down packets) transmitted / received between the communication terminal and the content providing apparatus, and stores the collected packets in a storage unit (not shown).

Next, the packet checking unit 204 analyzes the header information of the packet collected in real time through the search of the storage unit to check whether the packet is a charging packet to be charged or a non-charging packet to be subjected to a non-charging policy (Step 304). Here, the non-accounting packet may be, for example, a TCP connection control packet, a TCP retransmission packet, a TCP middle start, a checksum error, a header error, or the like.

Based on the result of the checking in step 304, the packet checking unit 204 determines whether the packet is a charging packet or a non-charging packet and transmits the determination result to the charging information generating unit 206 (step 306 ).

In response, the billing information generator 206 generates a billing information (e.g., P-CDR) corresponding to the billing packet, that is, a data volume FBC uplink / downlink Field and a Free Volume Uplink / Downlink field indicating a non-billing packet amount, and transmits the generated billing information to the billing information transmitting unit 208 (step 308).

As a result, the billing information transmission unit 208 transmits the billing information generated through the billing information generation unit 206 to the billing node 114 in FIG. 1 (step 310).

Referring to FIG. 4, the total uplink packet accumulated through the billing node 114 is a sum of a data volume FBC uplink and a free volume uplink And the total downlink packet will be the result of summing the data volume FBC downlink and the free volume downlink.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the following claims. It is easy to see that this is possible. That is, the embodiments disclosed in the present invention are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention but to limit the scope of the present invention.

Therefore, the scope of protection of the present invention should be construed in accordance with the following claims, and all technical ideas within the scope of equivalents should be interpreted as being included in the scope of the present invention.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a data volume FBC uplink / downlink field indicating a billing packet amount based on a billing and non-billing policy and a free volume up It is possible to provide a billing management technique at a packet processing node capable of generating billing information including a free / uplink / downlink field and transmitting the billing information to the billing node.

The present invention including such a technical configuration can improve the billing accuracy by segmenting the billing data, effectively cope with various service requests (VoC) of customers, and can control the amount of exempted packets and their causes Can be analyzed and understood in detail.

202: Packet collecting unit 204: Packet examining unit
206: Charging information generating unit 208: Charging information transmitting unit
210:

Claims (7)

Collecting packets transmitted and received between a terminal and a content providing apparatus;
Checking whether the collected packet is a charging packet of a charging policy object or a non-charging packet of a non-charging policy object,
Generating billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to the billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to the non-billing packet,
The process of transmitting the generated billing information to the billing node
The method comprising the steps of: The method according to claim 1,
The non-
TCP connection control packet, TCP retransmission packet, TCP middle start, Checksum error, and Header error
A method for managing charge in a packet processing node. The method according to claim 1,
The accounting information includes a data volume FBC uplink / downlink field indicating the amount of the billing packet and a free volume uplink / downlink field indicating the amount of non-billing packets. Downlink < / RTI >
A method for managing charge in a packet processing node. A packet collecting unit for collecting packets transmitted and received between the terminal and the content providing apparatus;
A packet checking unit for analyzing header information of the collected packet to check whether the current packet is a charging packet of a charging policy object or a non-charging packet of a non-charging policy object;
A billing information generating unit for generating billing information including a billing packet amount corresponding to the billing packet and a non-billing packet amount corresponding to the non-billing packet,
And transmits the generated billing information to the billing node
And a packet processing node for processing the packet. 5. The method of claim 4,
The packet inspection unit may include:
When the collected packet is any one of a TCP connection control packet, a TCP retransmission packet, a TCP middle start, a checksum error, and a header error,
An apparatus for managing charge in a packet processing node. 5. The method of claim 4,
The charging information generation unit may include a data volume FBC uplink / downlink field indicating the amount of the billing packet and a free volume uplink / downlink field indicating the amount of the non- / Downlink < / RTI > field)
An apparatus for managing charge in a packet processing node. 5. The method of claim 4,
A policy management unit for managing charging policy related information and non-charging policy related information through an interface with the policy management node
Further comprising the steps of:

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