SDN-based mobile communication system and method for operating such system

1. A method for operating an SDN-based mobile communication system, the method comprising:

providing a control plane function that possesses information from an access network about location and/or proximity of devices and information about rules and/or policies for setting up sessions for the devices, wherein the system comprises a mobile network comprising the control plane and a data plane, with a network controller being implemented between the control plane and the data plane;

upon a particular device's request for session establishment, receiving, via signaling and by the control plane, device related information directly from the access network;

based on the device related information that is received directly from the access network, performing, by the control plane, selection of an abstract data plane node or a group of abstract data plane nodes; and

providing, by the control plane, the selected abstract data plane node or the selected group of abstract data plane nodes to the network controller, wherein the network controller selects one or multiple data plane nodes that are suitable to act as policy enforcement points for enforcing rules in the data plane that are for enabling connectivity for the particular device based on the particular device's request for session establishment and the selected abstract data plane node or the selected group of abstract data plane nodes.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the device related information includes a location attribute that represents information about the location and/or the proximity of a corresponding device.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the network controller maps the location attribute to the suitable data plane nodes for policy enforcement.

4. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:

using, by the control plane, the location attribute to map the location to a virtual data plane node on the control plane function's abstract view of the data plane; and

passing an identifier of the virtual data plane node to the network controller, wherein the network controller maps the identifier to the suitable data plane node for policy enforcement.

5. The method according to claim 2 , further comprising:

using, by the control plane, the location attribute to identify a group of virtual data plane nodes on the control plane function's abstract view of the data plane; and

passing, by the control plane, a group identifier, which identifies the selected group of virtual data plane nodes, to the network controller, wherein the network controller maps the group identifier to the suitable data plane node for policy enforcement.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the device related information includes information related to context and/or information related to the network of the service being used by a device.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the control plane function is implemented as an integrated gateway control function (GW-C), and the control plane comprises a combined Serving Gateway and PDN Gateway.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the policy enforcement points are implemented to replace Serving Gateway and PDN Gateway components sitting in the data plane.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein one of the data plane nodes selected to act as the policy enforcement points functions as an edge policy enforcement point terminating an interface towards a radio or a fixed line access node.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein one of the data plane nodes selected to act as the policy enforcement points functions as an edge policy enforcement point being located on a radio or a fixed line access node.

11. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the GW-C determines an edge policy enforcement point based on a device's location information received via signaling with a mobility management entity, wherein the GW-C resolves the device's location information into the edge policy enforcement point eligible for the device's location according to topology information maintained on the GW-C.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the one or multiple data plane nodes selected to act as the policy enforcement points function as root policy enforcement points comprising forwarding elements under management of the network controller that are closest to respective services requested by the particular device.

13. The method according to claim 1 , wherein root policy enforcement point selection and configuration is triggered reactively upon interception of traffic to and/or from the respective device at the network controller, or

wherein a default root policy enforcement point is selected by pre-provisioning a data plane node with appropriate rules to serve as the root policy enforcement point and by configuring an edge policy enforcement point with rules to deliver traffic to the respective device from the default root policy enforcement point and/or forward traffic from the respective device through the default root policy enforcement point.

14. A SDN-based mobile communication system, the system comprising:

a mobile network comprising a control plane and a data plane;

the control plane that implements a control plane function, wherein the control plane is configured to:

hold information from an access network about location and/or proximity of devices, and information about rules and/or policies for setting up sessions for the devices;

upon a particular device's request for session establishment, receive, via signaling, device related information directly from the access network;

based on the device related information that is received directly from the access network, perform selection of an abstract data plane node or a group of abstract data plane nodes; and

provide the selected abstract data plane node or the selected group of abstract data plane nodes to a network controller; and

the network controller implemented between the control plane and the data plane, wherein the network controller comprises an interface for collaborative operation with the control plane and is configured to select one or multiple data plane nodes that are suitable to act as policy enforcement points for enforcing rules in the data plane that are for enabling connectivity for the particular device based on the particular device's request for session establishment and the selected abstract data plane node or the selected group of abstract data plane nodes.