Granted Patent B2

US 12,414,030 · App. 17/799,359 · Granted Sep 9, 2025

Inventors: Tingfang Tang (Beijing, CN); Dimitrios Karampatsis (Ruislip, GB); Genadi Velev (Darmstadt, DE)

Assignee: Lenovo (Beijing) Limited

H04W40/246H04W40/28H04W40/34

Abstract

Claims (30)

1. A method at a session management function (SMF), the method comprising:

obtaining information about an application server change for an application in response to server changes of a target application server, the information comprising traffic filtering information for flows of the application; and

determining, based at least in part on the information, whether to instruct a user equipment (UE) to rediscover the target application server for the application in an edge environment.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: obtaining a traffic routing preference for the application server change, and determining based on the obtained traffic routing preference for the application server change.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are obtained from an application function (AF) and the AF acknowledges a notification of a user plane management event.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are obtained from information corresponding to an AF update request.

5. An apparatus for performing a network function, the apparatus comprising:

at least one memory; and

at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the apparatus to:

obtain information about an application server change for an application in response to server changes of a target application server, the information comprising traffic filtering information for flows of the application; and

determine, based at least in part on the information, whether to instruct a user equipment (UE) to rediscover the target application server for the application in an edge environment.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein at least one processor is configured to cause the apparatus to obtain a traffic routing preference for the application server change, and the processor is configured to determine based on the obtained traffic routing preference for the application server change.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are obtained from an application function (AF) and the AF acknowledges a notification of a user plane management event.

8. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are obtained from information corresponding to an AF update request.

9. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are obtained from an application relocation exposure event notification that is received based on a subscription from an AF.

10. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the apparatus to instruct the UE to rediscover the target application server for the application.

11. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the apparatus to transmit configuration information to a user plane function (UPF) to steer traffic to and from the target application server for the application.

12. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application comprises an indication for the application server change or information about the target application server.

13. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change comprises information about the application server change for flows of the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change for the flows of the application.

14. An apparatus for performing a network function, the apparatus comprising:

at least one memory; and

at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the apparatus to:

obtain information about an application server change for an application in response to server changes of a target application server, the information comprising traffic filtering information for flows of the application; and

send the information about the application server change to a session management function (SMF) for the SMF to determine, based at least in part on the information, whether to instruct a user equipment (UE) to rediscover the target application server for the application in an edge environment.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the apparatus to obtain a traffic routing preference for the application server change and to cause the apparatus to send the traffic routing preference for the application server change to the SMF.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to cause the apparatus to send an application relocation exposure capability to the SMF so that the SMF subscribes to an application relocation exposure event notification.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are sent to the SMF while acknowledging a notification of a user plane management event.

18. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are sent to a core network via an application function (AF) update request.

19. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are sent to a core network via an application relocation exposure event notification that is transmitted based on a subscription from an application function (AF) of the apparatus.

20. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the information about the application server change for the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change are information about the application server change for the flows of the application and the traffic routing preference for the application server change for the flows of the application.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (13)