Distributed software defined wireless packet core system
A distributed software defined network (SDN) packet core system is configured to support a plurality of radio access technologies. The distributed SDN packet core system can include a cloud-based SDN centralized infrastructure instance and a plurality of local SDN infrastructure instances distributed in proximity to wireless access networks and radio access points thereof. The cloud-based centralized SDN infrastructure instance can be configured to handle network operations that are not latency sensitive. Each local SDN infrastructure instance can include a plurality of computer devices configured to execute a plurality of RAT specific control-plane modules and a plurality of RAT independent packet processing modules for performing latency sensitive network operations.
1. A distributed software defined network (SDN) packet core system comprising:
a policy module configured to manage policies for client devices associated with the distributed SDN packet core system; and
a plurality of computer devices arranged geographically in proximity, and communicatively coupled, to a respective plurality of radio access points associated with at least two radio access technologies (RATs) and separate from the plurality of computer devices, the computer devices being configured to execute software modules for processing control messages and data packets of communication flows associated with the respective radio access points as part of supporting a plurality of local SDN infrastructure instances, the software modules including:
a plurality of RAT-specific control-plane modules associated with the at least two radio access technologies (RATS), each RAT-specific control-plane module configured to execute signaling and control operations for communication flows associated with a respective RAT; and
at least one data-plane controller configured to receive packet processing requests from at least one RAT-specific control-plane module and forward the requests to one or more data-plane instances established as part of at least one of the plurality of local infrastructure SDN instances, wherein each of the one or more data plane instances includes a configuration module and at least one data-plane module, the configuration module configured to translate packet processing requests received from the at least one data-plane controller into a configuration specific to the at least one data-plane module;
wherein the at least one data-plane controller is configured to interact with the RAT-specific control-plane modules using a RAT-independent interface employing communication flow rules, receive one or more counter reports from one or more of the data-plane instances, determine at least one control-plane module to receive the one or more data counter reports, and forward the one or more data counter reports to the at least one control-plane module determined.
2. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one data-plane controller is further configured to: receive an update associated with a communication flow rule; and forward the update to the one or more data-plane instances configured to execute the communication flow rule.
3. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein each communication flow rule includes: an indication of at least one data packet header field value; and one or more instructions for applying to data packets including the at least one data packet header field value.
4. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one data plane controller is configured to: periodically check health statuses of the control-plane modules; and manage failure conditions determined based on the health statuses of the control-plane modules.
5. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the RAT-specific control-plane modules include RAT-specific front-end modules, each RAT-specific front-end module being communicatively coupled to, and configured to process signaling with, one or more radio access points associated with a respective RAT.
6. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein each front-end module is communicatively coupled to the one or more radio access points through respective transport tunnels.
7. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the respective transport tunnels include at least one of an Ethernet-over-IP tunnel, generic user datagram protocol (UDP) encapsulation (GUE) tunnel, generic route encapsulation (GRE) tunnel, 802.11 over GUE tunnel, GPRS tunneling protocol (GTP) tunnel and Internet Protocol (IP) security (IPSec) tunnel.
8. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein RAT-specific control-plane modules are communicatively coupled to the radio access points through a metropolitan area network.
9. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of local SDN infrastructure instances communicatively coupled to each other through at least one transit network.
10. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of local SDN infrastructure instances communicatively coupled to one or more data centers through one or more transit networks.
11. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one local SDN infrastructure instance of the plurality of local SDN infrastructure instances includes a data cache for caching data associated with a content provider.
12. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the RAT-specific network functions include at least a Serving Gateway (SGW) function and Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW) function specific to at least two of the respective RATs.
13. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration module is configured to translate communication flow rules received from the at least one data plane controller into at least one packet modification process.
14. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 13 , wherein the at least one packet modification process is performed by the at least one data plane module.
15. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration module is further configured to map rule table identifiers received from the at least one data plane controller to at least one modification table specific to the at least one data plane module.
16. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 15 , wherein each of the at least one modification table is indicative of one or more processes to be performed on data packets.
17. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein at least two of the plurality of computer devices are associated with a local SDN infrastructure instance, the local SDN infrastructure instance including a given RAT-specific control-plane module of the plurality of RAT-specific control-plane modules, the given RAT-specific control plane module being implemented separately from a data-plane module associated with the local SDN infrastructure instance.
18. The distributed SDN packet core system of claim 1 , wherein a control plane and a data plane associated with a given local SDN infrastructure instance are separated in the given local SDN infrastructure instance.