CN108737144B

CN108737144B - Method and device for resource management

Info

Publication number: CN108737144B
Application number: CN201710270078.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王震宇
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2017-04-24
Filing date: 2017-04-24
Publication date: 2021-06-29
Anticipated expiration: 2037-04-24
Also published as: WO2018196651A1; CN108737144A

Abstract

The application provides a method and equipment for resource management, wherein the method comprises the steps of determining service rebuilding capacity of a service unit of a Virtual Network Function (VNF), wherein the service rebuilding capacity is used for indicating the influence degree of the VNF on the service of the VNF after the VNF is migrated between different physical machines; and adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF. In the embodiment of the application, when the infrastructure needs to perform resource adjustment, the VNF that needs to be adjusted may be selected according to the service reestablishment capability of the currently running service unit, so that the resource adjustment process has no influence on the service of the VNF or has a smaller influence on the service. According to the embodiment of the application, under the condition that the VNF service is normally processed, the resources of the physical machine in the NFV system can be optimally managed, and the utilization rate of the resources of the physical machine is improved.

Description

Method and device for resource management

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for resource management in the field of telecommunications.

Background

Conventional telecommunication systems are made up of various dedicated hardware devices, with different applications using different hardware devices. With the increase of network scale, the system becomes more complex, and a plurality of challenges are brought, including development online of new services, operation and maintenance of the system, resource utilization rate and the like.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technology can be simply understood as migrating the functions of various Network elements used in a telecommunication Network from the current dedicated hardware platform to a common Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) server. Each network element used in the telecommunication network is converted into independent application through NFV technology, the network element can be flexibly deployed on a unified infrastructure platform constructed by other equipment such as a standard server, a storage and a switch, the resources of infrastructure hardware equipment are pooled and virtualized through virtualization technology, virtual resources are provided for upper-layer application, application and hardware decoupling is achieved, each application can rapidly increase the virtual resources to achieve the purpose of rapidly expanding the system capacity, or the virtual resources can be rapidly reduced to achieve the purpose of shrinking the system capacity, and the elasticity of the network is greatly improved. A shared resource pool is formed by adopting a universal COTS server, newly developed services do not need to be independently deployed with hardware equipment, and the online time of the new services is greatly shortened.

The foundation of NFV technology includes cloud computing technology and virtualization technology. Hardware devices such as a general COTS (chip on the fly) calculation/storage/network and the like can be decomposed into a plurality of virtual resources through a virtualization technology so as to be used by various upper-layer applications. The decoupling between the application and the hardware is realized through a virtualization technology, so that the virtual resource supply speed is greatly increased; by the cloud computing technology, elastic expansion of application can be achieved, matching of virtual resources and service loads is achieved, utilization efficiency of the virtual resources is improved, and response rate of a system is improved.

In the NFV system architecture, the physical machine resources are not fully used due to uneven use of Virtual Network Function (VNF) resources or different VNF deployment times.

Disclosure of Invention

The application provides a resource management method and equipment, which can perform optimized management on resources of a physical machine in an NFV system.

In one aspect, a method for resource management is provided, including: determining a traffic rebuilding capability of a traffic unit of a Virtual Network Function (VNF), wherein the traffic rebuilding capability is used for indicating the influence degree of the VNF on the traffic of the VNF after the VNF is migrated between different physical machines; and adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF.

In the embodiment of the application, when the infrastructure needs to perform resource adjustment, the VNF that needs to be adjusted may be selected according to the service reestablishment capability of the currently running service unit, so that the resource adjustment process has no influence on the service of the VNF or has a smaller influence on the service. According to the embodiment of the application, under the condition that the VNF service is normally processed, the resources of the physical machine in the NFV system can be optimally managed, and the utilization rate of the resources of the physical machine is improved.

It can be understood that the higher the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is, the higher the migration capability of the VNF of the service unit is, that is, the smaller the influence of the VNF on the service when migrating between different physical machines is. For example, a high traffic re-establishment capability may indicate that the VNF can migrate between different physical machines and the migration does not affect traffic of the VNF, a medium traffic re-establishment capability may indicate that the VNF affects traffic of the VNF after migrating between different physical machines, that is, the traffic may be temporarily interrupted but may be automatically restored without human intervention, and a low traffic re-establishment capability may indicate that the traffic of the VNF is interrupted after migrating between different physical machines and may affect traffic of other VNFs.

In a possible implementation manner, before adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, the method further includes

Determining that there is traffic between a first VNF located on a first physical machine and a second VNF located on a second physical machine;

wherein, according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF includes:

if the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the first VNF is a first value, the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the second VNF is a second value, and the traffic re-establishment capability of the first value is higher than the traffic re-establishment capability of the second value, the first VNF is migrated to the second physical machine with idle resources.

In the embodiment of the application, the VNFs with inter-board traffic are moved to the same physical machine, so that the former traffic of the VNFs can be changed into the intra-board traffic with stronger traffic capacity and efficiency, and thus the service capacity can be improved.

In a possible implementation manner, if a third physical machine only has a VNF whose service reestablishment capability of a service unit is a first value and has idle resources, adjusting resources of a physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit includes:

migrating the VNF on the third physical machine to other physical machines with idle resources except the third physical machine, wherein the other physical machines have the VNF with the service rebuilding capability of the service unit as a second value;

wherein the traffic reconstruction capability of the first value is higher than the traffic reconstruction capability of the second value.

Therefore, the VNF can be intensively deployed on the infrastructure, idle physical machines are powered off, the resource utilization rate of each physical machine is improved, and the hardware overhead of the NFV system architecture is saved.

In a possible implementation manner, before adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, the method further includes:

allocating at least one VNF on a fourth physical machine, wherein the sum of the maximum resource requirements of VNFs except for a VNF of which the traffic rebuilding capability of a traffic unit is a first value is less than or equal to the resources of the physical machine, the traffic rebuilding capability of the traffic unit of the other VNFs is a second value, and the traffic rebuilding capability of the first value is higher than that of the second value;

migrating the VNF of which the traffic rebuilding capability of the traffic unit is the first value to other physical machines except the fourth physical machine with idle resources when the sum of actual resource requirements of the VNFs in the at least one VNF reaches a threshold value, wherein the threshold value is less than or equal to the resources of the fourth physical machine.

In this way, the physical machine can be over-divided, that is, when the load of the VNF on the physical machine is low, the number of VNFs whose application total amount exceeds the capacity of the physical machine can be allocated on the physical machine, and at this time, the sum of the maximum demands of all the VNFs on the physical machine on the resource is greater than the resource on the physical machine. When the resources required by the VNF reach the maximum required resources, the VIM may migrate the VNF with high re-establishment capability on the physical machine to another physical machine, and quickly give the resource promised for the VNF. At this time, the traffic of the migrated VNF is not affected, and the traffic of other VNFs in the physical machine is not affected.

In one possible implementation, the method further includes:

determining a priority of traffic of the VNF;

and under the condition that the resources of the fifth physical machine are insufficient, adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF and the priority of the service.

In one possible implementation, the method is performed by a virtualized infrastructure manager VIM, and adjusting resources on a physical machine occupied by a VNF on the fifth physical machine according to a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the VNF and a priority of the traffic includes:

migrating the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine as the first value to other physical machines with idle resources except the fifth physical machine.

It is to be understood that, if the reconfiguration capability of the VNF of the high-priority traffic is Free, the migrating the VNF with the high reconfiguration capability on the physical machine to another physical machine with idle resources, other than the fifth physical machine, may include migrating the VNF of the high-priority traffic to another physical machine.

If the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the service unit being the first value is migrated and cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the first priority, migrating the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the fifth physical machine being the second value and the third priority to the other physical machines;

if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the third priority cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority after being migrated, migrating the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine to the VNF of the other physical machine, where the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the second priority;

the service reconstruction capability of the first value is higher than that of the second value, the first priority is higher than the second priority, and the second priority is higher than the third priority.

In a possible implementation manner, the method is executed by a VNF manager, and adjusting resources on a physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the VNF and a priority of the traffic includes:

the VNF, in which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit which stops running is a first value and a third priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is a second value and the third priority, is used for stopping running;

if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the third priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the third priority VNF, the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority still cannot be met, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the second priority;

if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the second priority after the VNF cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority, stopping running the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the third value and the VNF of the third priority;

the VNF manager sends a notification message to the VIM, wherein the notification message comprises information of VNFs needing to stop running;

the service reconstruction capability of the first value is higher than that of the second value, the service reconstruction capability of the second value is higher than that of the third value, the first priority is higher than the second priority, and the second priority is higher than the third priority.

Therefore, the embodiment of the application can guarantee the requirement of the VNF of the high-priority service on the resources under the condition that the resources of the physical machine are insufficient.

In one possible implementation, the determining the priority of the traffic of the VNF includes:

determining the priority of the service of the VNF according to the description of the Virtual Network Function (VNFD) of the VNF, wherein a first field of the VNFD carries information of the priority of the service of the VNF. The information of the priorities may also be expressed in cardinality, i.e. numbers from 0 to N are used to represent the priorities of the VNFs.

In a possible implementation manner, the determining the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the virtual network function VNF includes:

determining, according to a VNFD of the VNF, a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the VNF, where a second field in the VNFD carries information of the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the VNF. The information of the service re-establishment capability may be expressed by a radix, that is, numbers from 0 to N are used to express the re-establishment capability of the service unit of the VNF.

In a second aspect, a device for resource management is provided, where the device is configured to perform the method in the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect, and specifically, the device includes a module configured to perform the method in the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect.

In a third aspect, an apparatus for resource management is provided, the apparatus comprising: a memory, a processor, and a transceiver. Wherein the memory is configured to store instructions and the processor is configured to execute the instructions stored by the memory, and when the processor executes the instructions stored by the memory, the execution causes the processor to perform the first aspect or the method of any possible implementation manner of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, there is provided a computer readable medium for storing a computer program comprising instructions for carrying out the method of the first aspect or any possible implementation manner of the first aspect.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system architecture of NFV according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 2 is a schematic flow chart diagram of a method of resource management according to one embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a method for resource management according to an embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a resource management method according to another embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a resource management method according to another embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 6 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for resource management according to one embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 is a schematic block diagram of an apparatus for resource management according to another embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

The technical solution in the present application will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a system architecture diagram of an NFV, which NFV system 100 may be used in various networks, such as implemented in a data center network, an operator network, or a local area network. The NFV System 100 includes an NFV Management and Orchestration System (NFV Management and organization, NFV MANO)101, an NFV Infrastructure layer (NFV Infrastructure, NFVI)130, a plurality of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) 108, a plurality of Element Management (EM) 122, Network services, VNFs, and Infrastructure descriptions (VNF and Infrastructure descriptions) 126, and an Operation Support Management System (Operation-Support System/Business Support System, OSS/BSS) 124. Among other things, the NFV management and orchestration system 101 includes a NFV Orchestrator (NFV editor, NFVO)102, one or more VNFMs (VNF managers, VNFM)104, and a Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM) 106. NFVI 130 includes computing hardware 112, storage hardware 114, network hardware 116, Virtualization Layer (Virtualization Layer), virtual computing 110, virtual storage 118, and virtual network 120. Network services, VNF and infrastructure description 126 and OSS/BSS 124 are discussed further in the ETSI GS NFV 002V1.1.1 standard.

The NFV management and orchestration system (NFV MANO)101 is used to perform monitoring and management of VNF108 and NFVI 130. The NFVO 102 may implement network services (e.g., L2 and L3 VPN services) on the NFVI 130, and may also perform resource-related requests from one or more VNFMs 104, send configuration information to the VNFMs 104, and collect state information of the VNFs 108. Additionally, NFVO 102 may communicate with VIM 106 to enable allocation and/or reservation of resources and exchange configuration and status information for virtualized hardware resources. The VNFM 104 may manage one or more VNFs 108. The VNFM 104 may perform various management functions such as instantiating, updating, querying, scaling, and/or terminating the VNF108, among others. VIM 106 may perform functions for resource management, such as managing allocation of infrastructure resources (e.g., adding resources to virtual containers) and operational functions (e.g., collecting NFVI fault information). The VNFM 104 and VIM 106 may communicate with each other for resource allocation and exchange configuration and status information for virtualized hardware resources.

The NFVI 130 includes hardware resources, software resources, or a combination of both to complete the deployment of the virtualized environment. In other words, the hardware resources and virtualization layer are used to provide virtualized resources, e.g., as virtual machines and other forms of virtual containers, for VNF 108. The hardware resources include computing hardware 112, storage hardware 114, and network hardware 116. The computing hardware 112 may be commercially available hardware and/or custom hardware to provide processing and computing resources. The storage hardware 114 may be storage capacity provided within a network or storage capacity residing within the storage hardware 114 itself (local storage located within a server). In one implementation, the resources of the computing hardware 112 and the storage hardware 114 may be pooled together. The network hardware 116 may be a switch, a router, and/or any other network device configured with switching functionality. The network hardware 116 may span multiple domains and may include multiple networks interconnected by one or more transport networks.

A virtualization layer within NFVI 130 may abstract hardware resources from the physical layer and decouple VNF108 to provide virtualized resources to VNF 108. The virtual resource layer includes virtual compute 110, virtual memory 118, and virtual network 120. Virtual compute 110 and virtual storage 118 may be provided to VNF108 in the form of virtual machines, and/or other virtual containers. For example, one or more VNFs 108 may be deployed on one Virtual Machine (Virtual Machine). The virtualization layer abstracts the network hardware 116 to form a Virtual network 120, and the Virtual network 120 may include Virtual switches (Virtual switches) that are used to provide connections between Virtual machines and other Virtual machines. In addition, the transport network in the network hardware 116 may be virtualized using a centralized control plane and a separate forwarding plane (e.g., software defined network, SDN).

As shown in fig. 1, VNFM 104 may interact with VNF108 and EM 122 to manage the VNF's lifecycle and exchange configuration and status information. VNF108 may be configured to virtualize at least one network function performed by one physical network device. For example, in one implementation, the VNF108 may be configured to provide functionality provided by different network elements in the IMS network, such as network functionality of a P-SCSCF, S-CSCF, or HSS. EM 122 is configured to manage one or more VNFs 108.

In the NFV system architecture, there are multiple physical machines, each of which may provide various types of hardware resources such as computing hardware, storage hardware, or networking hardware. The virtualization layer pools the computing, storage, and networks of a large number of physical machines, providing virtual machines for use by application VNFs, one VNF using one or more virtual machines.

A Virtualized Network Function module description (VNFD) describes the operation process for a Virtualized Network Function module and the lifecycle management for the Virtualized Network Function module instance, which describes a configuration template of deployment and operation behavior of the Virtualized Network Function module. In the embodiment of the present application, the definition of the VNFD is extended, so that the VNFD supports describing the migration capability of an application, where the application is the VNF or the VNF instance in the embodiment of the present application. The migration capability may represent a degree of influence of the VNF on the traffic of the VNF after migration between different physical machines. Migration of a VNF between different physical machines may be understood as revocation of the VNF on one physical machine, releasing the resources of the physical machine it occupies, and redeploying the VNF on another physical machine, i.e. allocating the resources of the other physical machine to the VNF. In this embodiment, migration of the VNF between different physical machines may also be referred to as rebuilding of the VNF between different physical machines.

In the embodiment of the present application, migration of the VNF may be achieved by restarting the service unit in the VNF. Specifically, if a service unit of the VNF is stateless, once the service unit is restarted, the original service can be immediately replaced by other similar service units without affecting the online service and the new service, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is considered to be high, and the migration capability of the VNF is considered to be high.

If the operation of the service unit of the VNF depends on its own state, such as service data of a memory, a specific configuration or a link with an opposite end, once the service unit is restarted, the original service is immediately interrupted, and a new service must be manually intervened, or the recovery time exceeds the minimum specification of an application system, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF is low, and the migration capability of the VNF is low.

If a service unit of a VNF temporarily affects services during the process of restarting the service unit, but the services can be recovered within a system tolerance time range without human intervention through user retry or other application-based automatic disaster recovery schemes, the service reestablishment capability of such a service unit of the VNF is medium, and the migration capability of the VNF is medium.

The information of the service rebuilding capability of the service Unit of the VNF may be described in a Virtualization Deployment Unit (VDU) corresponding to the service Unit in the VNFD, and the type of the VDU may be a Leaf node (Leaf). The information of the service re-establishment capability may be carried in a field of the VDU and may be expressed by a Cardinality (Cardinality), that is, numbers from 0 to N are used to express the re-establishment capability of the service unit of the VNF. For example, 0 indicates high reconstruction capability and can be expressed as Free (Free). 1 indicates a medium reconstruction capability and may be expressed as a limit (Limited). 2 indicates that the reconstruction capability is low, and can be expressed as (applicable).

When an application (i.e., VNF) is deployed, the NFV MANO 101 can know the attributes (including the rebuild capability) of the application according to the VNFD, and the VNFM 104 records the application and the application attribute relationship, and the VIM 106 records the resource and the application attribute relationship. In this way, the VNFM 104 may perform resource optimization according to the application and the rebuild capability of the application, and the VIM 106 may perform resource optimization according to the resource and the rebuild capability of the resource. Here, performing resource optimization may be understood as adjusting resources of a physical machine occupied by the VNF, so as to optimize resource utilization of the physical machine in the NFV system architecture.

Fig. 2 shows a schematic flow chart of a method of resource management according to an embodiment of the present application. The method comprises the following steps:

210, determining a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of a virtual network function VNF, where the traffic re-establishment capability is used to indicate a degree of influence of the VNF on traffic of the VNF after migration between different physical machines.

And 220, adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit.

Here, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF may be determined according to a field of the VNFD, which carries information of the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF. Specifically, reference may be made to the above description, and in order to avoid repetition, no further description is provided herein.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a method of resource management according to an embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present invention, the NFV system architecture includes a physical machine 1, a physical machine 2, and a physical machine 3. The physical machine 1 is deployed with VNF A and VNF X, wherein the reconstruction capabilities of the VNF A and the VNF X are both Free, the physical machine 2 is deployed with VNF Y, VNF B and VNF C, the reconstruction capabilities of the VNF Y, the VNF B and the VNF C are respectively Limited, Free and Limited, the physical machine 3 is deployed with VNF D, and the reconstruction capability of the VNF D is Limited. At this time, the physical machine 1 and the physical machine 3 have free resources, respectively.

Optionally, in the embodiment of the present invention, before adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF, it may be determined that traffic exists between a first VNF located on the first physical machine and a second VNF located on the second physical machine. Under the condition that traffic exists between a first VNF located on a first physical machine and a second VNF located on a second physical machine, if traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the first VNF is a first value, traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the second VNF is a second value, and the traffic re-establishment capability of the first value is higher than the traffic re-establishment capability of the second value, migrating the first VNF to the second physical machine with idle resources.

That is, in the case that there is traffic between a first VNF located on a first physical machine and a second VNF located on a second physical machine, if the re-establishment capability of the first VNF is high, the first VNF is migrated to the second physical machine having idle resources. Or, if the re-establishment capability of the second VNF is high, migrating the second VNF to the first physical machine with idle resources. Or, if the re-establishment capability of the first VNF is high and the re-establishment capability of the second VNF is high, migrating both the first VNF and the second VNF to other physical machines having idle resources except the first physical machine and the second physical machine.

Specifically, the connecting line between VNF X and VNF Y in fig. 3 indicates that there is traffic passing between VNF X and VNF Y, that is, there is data or signaling transmission between VNF X and VNF Y. Because VNF X and VNF Y are located on physical machine 1 and physical machine 2, respectively, traffic between VNF X and VNF Y needs to be transported through physical machine 1 and physical machine 2. And the flow capacity and efficiency between different physical machines is far lower than that inside the physical machines. Here, the flow rate between different physical machines may be referred to as an inter-plate flow rate. Therefore, when the VNFM or VIM determines that inter-board traffic exists in the NFV system architecture, the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF having inter-board traffic may be adjusted according to the reestablishment capability of the VNF.

Specifically, VNF X may be migrated to physical machine 2 or VNF Y may be migrated to physical machine 1, or both VNF X and VNF Y may be migrated to other physical machines except for physical machine 1 and physical machine 2, so that VNF X and VNF Y are deployed on the same physical machine.

It can be appreciated that before determining to migrate a VNF to a physical machine, there is a need to ensure that there are free resources on the physical machine. If the physical machine has no Free resources, the VNF with Free rebuilding capability on the physical machine can be migrated. For example, in the scenario shown in fig. 3, VNF B with Free re-establishment capability on the physical machine 2 may be migrated to the physical machine 3, and then VNF X may be migrated to the physical machine 2, so that inter-board traffic between VNF X and VNF Y becomes intra-board traffic, that is, VNF X and VNF Y may transmit data or signaling through traffic inside the physical machine 2, and thus, traffic capability and efficiency between VNF X and VNF Y may be improved.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the present invention, if a third physical machine only has a VNF with a reestablishment capability of a first value and has idle resources, the VNF on the third physical machine may be migrated to another physical machine with idle resources, which is different from the third physical machine, where the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the other physical machine is a VNF with a second value. Here, the VNF of the first value may include a VNF with high traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit, and the VNF of the second value may include a VNF with medium traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit or low traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit.

For example, in the scenario shown in fig. 3, after the physical machine 1 and the physical machine 3 are unloaded to different degrees, and after the VNF X is migrated to the physical machine 2, the physical machine 1 has a VNF a with a rebuilding capability of Free, the physical machine has a VNF D with a rebuilding capability of limited and a VNF B with a rebuilding capability of Free, and both the physical machine 1 and the physical machine 3 have idle resources, the VNF on the physical machine 1 and the VNF on the physical machine 3 may be further integrated into one physical machine. In particular, VNF a with reconstruction capability Free may be migrated to the physical machine 3. Thus, the VNF may not be deployed on the physical machine 1, the physical machine 1 may be powered off, the resource utilization rate of each physical machine is improved, and the hardware overhead of the NFV system architecture is saved.

Optionally, in this embodiment of the present invention, before adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the reestablishment capability of the VNF, at least one VNF may be further allocated on a fourth physical machine, where a sum of maximum resource requirements of VNFs except a VNF whose service reestablishment capability of a service unit is a first value in the at least one VNF is less than or equal to the resources of the physical machine, where the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the other VNFs is a second value, and the service reestablishment capability of the first value is higher than the service reestablishment capability of the second value. That is, the sum of the maximum resource requirements of VNFs other than the VNF with the high reconstruction capability is less than or equal to the resource of the physical machine.

In the case of low VNF load, the VIM may allocate, on the physical machine, the number of VNFs whose total application amount exceeds the capacity of the physical machine, that is, at this time, the sum of the maximum demands of all VNFs on the physical machine for resources is greater than the resources on the physical machine. However, in this case, the VNF with high reconstruction capability must be present on the physical machine. In this embodiment, the number of VNFs whose total application amount exceeds the capacity of the physical machine may be referred to as an over-point.

It is understood that when the load of the VNF is low, the actually used resources are smaller than the resources requested by the VNF (i.e. the maximum demand for the resources), and as long as the sum of the actually used resources of the VNF running on the physical machine is not larger than the resources that the physical machine can provide, the VNF on the physical machine can normally run.

At this time, if the sum of the actual resource requirements of the VNFs in the at least one VNF reaches a threshold, migrating the VNF of which the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit is the first value to other physical machines having idle resources except for the fourth physical machine, wherein the threshold is less than or equal to the resource of the fourth physical machine.

Specifically, in the case of over-sharing, when the service of the VNF rises to the resource that it applies for, the VIM can quickly give the resource that it promises for the VNF. That is, when the resources required by the VNF reach the maximum resources required by the VNF, the VIM may migrate the VNF with the high rebuilding capability on the physical machine to another physical machine, and at this time, the service of the migrated VNF is not affected, and the service of another VNF in the physical machine is not affected.

Here, the threshold value may be configured in advance. For example, the threshold may be set to 80%, 85%, or 90% of the resources on the physical machine. That is, when the utilization rate of all VNFs on a physical machine for resources on the physical machine reaches 80%, 85%, or 90%, the VNF with the high rebuilding capability on the physical machine is migrated out of the physical machine.

For example, fig. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method of resource management according to an embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present invention, the NFV system architecture includes a physical machine 4 and a physical machine 5. VNF a, VNF B, and VNF C are deployed on the physical machine 4 at the beginning, where the reconstruction capabilities of VNF a and VNF B are both Limited, and the reconstruction capability of VNF C is Free. The resources that VNF a applies to VIM are 4 Central Processing Units (CPUs), which may be referred to as 4C for short, the resources that VNF B applies to VIM are 4C, and the resources that VNF C applies to VIM are 8C. The resource that the physical machine 4 can provide is 16C.

However, when the load of the VNF is low, for example, the resource utilization rate of the VNF a, the VNF B, and the VNF C is only 30% of the resource of the physical machine 4, 70% of the resource above the physical machine 4 is in an idle state. At this time, other VNFs may also be deployed on the physical machine 4. For example, VNF X, VNF Y, and VNF Z may be re-deployed on the physical machine 4 with the re-establishing capabilities of Limited, and Free, respectively, and the requested resources are all 4C. Here, it is only necessary to ensure that the sum of the resources requested by the VNF for which the reconstruction capability on the physical machine is not Free is not greater than the resources provided by the physical machine 4. For example, VNFs with reconstruction capability not Free on the physical machine 4 at this time are VNF a, VNF B, VNFX, and VNF Y, and the total of the resources applied by these VNFs is 16C, which is equivalent to the resources that can be provided by the physical machine 4. When the load of the VNF on the physical machine 4 is low, all VNFs on the physical machine 4 can operate normally.

When the traffic volume of the VNF on the physical machine 4 increases, and when the utilization rate of the resources on the physical machine by all the VNFs reaches 90%, the VNF C on the physical machine 4 may be migrated to the physical machine 5, so that the shortage of the resources provided by the physical machine 4 may be avoided, and it is ensured that the traffic of all the VNFs is not affected.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the definition of the VNFD may also be extended, so that the VNFD supports describing the priority of the application. The priority may indicate the likelihood that traffic is handled preferentially when traffic conflicts or resources are scarce. It can be appreciated that traffic with high priority can be preferentially handled when traffic conflicts or resources are insufficient. Typically, the priority of important or urgent traffic is relatively high.

The information of the service priority of the VNF may also be described in a VDU corresponding to the service unit in the VNFD, and the type of the VDU may be a Leaf node (Leaf).

The information of the priority may be carried in a field of the VDU and may be expressed by a Cardinality (Cardinality), i.e., information of the priority of the traffic of the VNF is expressed by numbers of 0 to N. The information of the priority may be carried on a field of the VNFD, and the type of the VDU in which the priority is deployed may be Leaf. The information of the priorities may also be expressed in cardinality, i.e. numbers from 0 to N are used to represent the priorities of the VNFs. For example, 0 indicates that the VNF has a high priority for traffic, i.e. a first priority, such as emergency call traffic. 1 denotes a medium priority, i.e. a second priority, of traffic of the VNF, e.g. general traffic. 2 means that the VNF has a low priority for traffic, i.e. a third priority, when traffic is not urgent, e.g. non-real time traffic analysis.

Similarly, when the VNF is deployed, the NFV MANO 101 may obtain the priority of the application according to the VNFD, and the VNFM 104 and the VIM 106 may optimize the resource according to the reconstruction capability and the priority when the resource of the physical machine is insufficient, that is, adjust the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF.

Optionally, in a case that resources of a fifth physical machine are insufficient, in order to guarantee the demand of the VNF of the high-priority service on the resources, the VNF, of which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine is the first value, may be migrated to another physical machine, other than the fifth physical machine, that has idle resources; if the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the service unit being the first value is migrated and cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the first priority, migrating the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the fifth physical machine being the second value and the third priority to the other physical machines; if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the third priority cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority after being migrated, migrating the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine to the VNF of the other physical machine, where the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the second priority; the service reconstruction capability of the first value is higher than that of the second value, the first priority is higher than the second priority, and the second priority is higher than the third priority.

That is, the VIM may migrate the VNF with the high rebuilding capability on the fifth physical machine to another physical machine with free resources other than the fifth physical machine. If the VNF with the High reconfiguration capability cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF with the High-priority service after the VNF with the High reconfiguration capability is migrated, the VNF with the medium reconfiguration capability and the Low service priority (Low) on the fifth physical machine may be migrated to another physical machine. If the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the high priority cannot be met after migrating the VNF with the medium rebuilding capability and the low priority, the VNF with the medium rebuilding capability and the medium service priority (Middle) on the physical machine may be migrated to the other physical machine.

Optionally, in order to guarantee the resource demand of the VNF of the high-priority service when the resource of the fifth physical machine is insufficient, the VNFM may further stop running the VNF of which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the first value and the third priority, or of which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the third priority; if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the third priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the third priority VNF, the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority still cannot be met, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the second priority; if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops running is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the second priority after the VNF cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority, stopping running the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the third value and the VNF of the third priority; the VNF manager sends a notification message to the VIM, the notification message including information of VNFs that need to be shut down.

That is, the VNFM may stop running a VNF with high reestablishment capability and low priority of traffic, or with medium reestablishment capability and low priority of traffic. If the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the high priority cannot be met after the operation of the VNF with the high reestablishment capability and the low priority of the service is stopped, the operation of the VNF of the service with the high reestablishment capability and the medium priority of the service is stopped, or the operation of the VNF of the service with the medium reestablishment capability and the medium priority of the service is stopped. If the resource requirements of the VNFs of the high-priority traffic cannot be met after the VNFs of the high-priority traffic are stopped, the VNFs of the low-priority traffic are stopped.

In this embodiment of the present invention, after making a decision to stop operating the VNF, the VNFM may further send a notification message to the VIM, where the notification message includes information of the VNF that needs to stop operating, so that the VIM may perform resource adjustment on the VNF on the physical machine according to the notification message, that is, the VIM cancels the VNF, or migrates the VNF to another physical machine. Here, the notification message may be transmitted through an interface between the VNFM and the VIM. In this embodiment of the present application, an existing interface in the NFV system may be compatible to transmit the notification message, or a new interface may be redefined to transmit the notification message, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present application.

For example, fig. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating a method of resource management according to an embodiment of the present application. In the embodiment of the present invention, the NFV system architecture includes a physical machine 6. VNF D, VNF E, VNF F, and VNF G are deployed on the physical machine 6 at the beginning, wherein the reconstruction capabilities of VNF D, VNF E, VNF, and VNF G are Free, Limited, and Free, respectively, the priorities of the services are Low, Middle, High, and High, respectively, the applied resources are 4C, 8C, and 8C, respectively, and the resource that the physical machine 6 can provide is 16C. When the traffic of VNFs on the physical machine 6 rises, the resource demand of all VNFs cannot be met. At this time, the VIM or the VNFM may revoke the VNF D with the Low priority (Low) and the VNF E with the medium priority (Middle) from the physical machine 6 to meet the resource demand of the VNF and the VNF G with the High priority (High) of the traffic.

Fig. 6 shows a schematic block diagram of an apparatus 700 for resource management according to an embodiment of the present application. The device 700 may be a VIM or a VNFM. The device 700 comprises a determining unit 710 and an adjusting unit 720.

A determining unit 710, configured to determine a traffic re-establishing capability of a traffic unit of a virtual network function VNF, where the traffic re-establishing capability is used to indicate a degree of influence of the VNF on traffic of the VNF after migration between different physical machines.

An adjusting unit 720, configured to adjust, according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF.

Optionally, the determining unit 710 is further configured to: it is determined that there is traffic between a first VNF located on a first physical machine and a second VNF located on a second physical machine.

If the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the first VNF is a first value, the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the second VNF is a second value, and the traffic re-establishment capability of the first value is higher than the traffic re-establishment capability of the second value, the adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to migrate the first VNF to the second physical machine with idle resources.

Optionally, if a third physical machine only has a VNF with a service reestablishment capability of a service unit being a first value and has an idle resource, the adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to migrate the VNF on the third physical machine to another physical machine with an idle resource, except for the third physical machine, where the other physical machine has a VNF with a service reestablishment capability of a service unit being a second value; wherein the traffic reconstruction capability of the first value is higher than the traffic reconstruction capability of the second value.

Optionally, the apparatus 700 further includes an allocating unit, configured to allocate, on a fourth physical machine, at least one VNF, where a sum of maximum resource requirements of VNFs except a VNF whose traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit is a first value is smaller than or equal to a resource of the physical machine, where the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the other VNFs is a second value, and the traffic re-establishment capability of the first value is higher than the traffic re-establishment capability of the second value.

At this time, the adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to migrate, when a sum of actual resource requirements of VNFs in the at least one VNF reaches a threshold, the VNF whose traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit is the first value to another physical machine with idle resources, except for the fourth physical machine, where the threshold is less than or equal to the resource of the fourth physical machine.

Optionally, the determining unit 710 is further configured to determine a priority of the traffic of the VNF.

The adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to, when the resources of the fifth physical machine are insufficient, adjust the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF and the priority of the service.

Optionally, the adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to migrate the VNF, where the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine is the first value, to another physical machine with idle resources except for the fifth physical machine.

And if the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the service unit being the first value is migrated and cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the first priority, migrating the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the fifth physical machine being the second value and the third priority to the other physical machines.

And if the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF with the third priority cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service with the first priority after the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is migrated to the second value and the VNF with the second priority, migrating the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine to the other physical machines.

Optionally, the adjusting unit 720 is specifically configured to stop operating the VNF of which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is a first value and a third priority, or of which the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is a second value and the third priority.

If the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops operating is the first value and the third priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the third priority VNF, the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority still cannot be met, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit stops operating is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the VNF of the second priority.

If the service reestablishment capability of the service unit which stops operating is the first value and the second priority, or the service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the second value and the second priority after the VNF cannot meet the resource requirement of the VNF of the service of the first priority, the service reestablishment capability of the service unit which stops operating is the third value and the VNF of the third priority.

The VNF manager sends a notification message to the VIM, the notification message including information of VNFs that need to be shut down.

Optionally, the determining unit 710 is specifically configured to determine, according to a virtual network function description VNFD of the VNF, a priority of a service of the VNF, where a first field of the VNFD carries information of the priority of the service of the VNF.

Optionally, the determining unit 710 is specifically configured to determine, according to the VNFD of the VNF, a service reestablishment capability of a service unit of the VNF, where a second field in the VNFD carries information of the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF.

It should be noted that in the embodiment of the present invention, the determining unit 710 and the adjusting unit 720 may be implemented by a processor. As shown in fig. 7, device 800 may include a processor 810, a memory 820, and a transceiver 830. Wherein memory 620 may be used for storing code, etc. executed by processor 610, and transceiver 830 may be used for transceiving data.

In implementation, the steps of the above method may be performed by integrated logic circuits of hardware or instructions in the form of software in the processor 810. The steps of a method disclosed in connection with the embodiments of the present invention may be directly implemented by a hardware processor, or may be implemented by a combination of hardware and software modules in the processor. The software module may be located in ram, flash memory, rom, prom, or eprom, registers, etc. storage media as is well known in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory 820, and the processor 810 reads the information in the memory 820 and combines the hardware to complete the steps of the above method. To avoid repetition, it is not described in detail here.

The device 700 shown in fig. 6 or the device 800 shown in fig. 7 can implement various processes corresponding to the method embodiments shown in fig. 2 to fig. 5, specifically, the device 700 or the device 800 may refer to the descriptions in fig. 2 to fig. 5, and is not described again here to avoid repetition.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the various illustrative elements and algorithm steps described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware or combinations of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the implementation. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present application.

It is clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, the specific working processes of the above-described systems, apparatuses and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, and are not described herein again.

In the several embodiments provided in the present application, it should be understood that the disclosed system, apparatus and method may be implemented in other ways. For example, the above-described apparatus embodiments are merely illustrative, and for example, the division of the units is only one logical division, and other divisions may be realized in practice, for example, a plurality of units or components may be combined or integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not executed. In addition, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be an indirect coupling or communication connection through some interfaces, devices or units, and may be in an electrical, mechanical or other form.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the units can be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the embodiment.

In addition, functional units in the embodiments of the present application may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist alone physically, or two or more units are integrated into one unit.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as a stand-alone product, may be stored in a computer readable storage medium. Based on such understanding, the technical solution of the present application or portions thereof that substantially contribute to the prior art may be embodied in the form of a software product stored in a storage medium and including instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device) to execute all or part of the steps of the method according to the embodiments of the present application. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media capable of storing program codes, such as a usb disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a Random Access Memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above description is only for the specific embodiments of the present application, but the scope of the present application is not limited thereto, and any person skilled in the art can easily conceive of the changes or substitutions within the technical scope of the present application, and shall be covered by the scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A method of resource management, comprising:

determining a traffic rebuilding capability of a traffic unit of a Virtual Network Function (VNF), wherein the traffic rebuilding capability is used for indicating the influence degree of the VNF on the traffic of the VNF after the VNF is migrated between different physical machines;

adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reconstruction capability of the service unit;

before adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, the method further includes:

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein if the third physical machine only has the VNF whose service reestablishment capability of the service unit is the first value and has the idle resource, adjusting the resource of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit includes:

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein before adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit, the method further includes:

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a priority of traffic of the VNF;

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the method is performed by a Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM), and wherein adjusting resources on the physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the VNF and a priority of the traffic comprises:

migrating the VNF with the service reestablishment capability of the service unit on the fifth physical machine being a first value to other physical machines except the fifth physical machine and having idle resources;

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the method is performed by a VNF manager, and wherein adjusting resources on the physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the VNF and the priority of the traffic comprises:

7. The method of any of claims 4-6, wherein the prioritizing traffic of the VNF comprises:

determining the priority of the service of the VNF according to the description of the Virtual Network Function (VNFD) of the VNF, wherein a first field of the VNFD carries information of the priority of the service of the VNF.

8. The method according to any of claims 4-6, wherein the determining of the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the virtual network function, VNF, comprises:

determining, according to a VNFD of the VNF, a traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit of the VNF, where a second field in the VNFD carries information of the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the VNF.

9. An apparatus for resource management, comprising:

a determining unit, configured to determine a traffic re-establishing capability of a traffic unit of a virtual network function VNF, where the traffic re-establishing capability is used to indicate a degree of influence of the VNF on traffic of the VNF after migration between different physical machines;

the adjusting unit is used for adjusting the resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit;

the determination unit is further configured to:

the adjusting unit is specifically configured to:

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein if the third physical machine only has a VNF with a first value of service reestablishment capability of the service unit and has a free resource, the adjusting unit is specifically configured to:

11. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:

the allocation unit is configured to allocate at least one VNF on a fourth physical machine, where a sum of maximum resource requirements of VNFs other than a VNF whose traffic re-establishment capability of a traffic unit is a first value in the at least one VNF is less than or equal to a resource of the physical machine, where the traffic re-establishment capability of the traffic unit of the other VNFs is a second value, and the traffic re-establishment capability of the first value is higher than the traffic re-establishment capability of the second value;

wherein the adjusting unit is specifically configured to:

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the determining unit is further configured to:

determining a priority of traffic of the VNF;

the adjusting unit is specifically configured to, when resources of a fifth physical machine are insufficient, adjust resources of the physical machine occupied by the VNF on the fifth physical machine according to the service reestablishment capability of the service unit of the VNF and the priority of the service.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein the adjusting unit is specifically configured to:

14. The device according to claim 12, wherein the adjusting unit is specifically configured to:

15. The device according to any of claims 12-14, wherein the determining unit is specifically configured to:

16. The device according to any of claims 12-14, wherein the determining unit is specifically configured to: