US 2010/0077088 A1Published application

System for controlling multimedia broadcast multicast service for load distribution and control method thereof

AssigneesElectronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

InventorsEun-Hee Hyun, Cheol-Hye Cho, Young-Jick Bahg

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Provided is a broadcast multicast service control system capable of distributively processing excessively given load under environments that have to offer MBMS service by linking with several mobile communication networks, and a control method thereof. The service control system provides a multimedia broadcast multicast service including a service announcement function of announcing service information, a security function of executing generation and distribution of keys for user authentication and information protection, and a proxy and transport function of transmitting/receiving control signals and traffics to/from a mobile communication network to provide the multimedia broadcast multicast service, and the service control system includes: a plurality of service control units, a load management unit, a service distribution policy management unit, and a processing load distribution policy management unit.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A service control system for providing a multimedia broadcast multicast service including a service announcement function of announcing service information, a security function of executing generation and distribution of keys for user authentication and information protection, and a proxy and transport function of transmitting/receiving control signals and traffics to/from a mobile communication network to provide the multimedia broadcast multicast service, comprising:

a plurality of service control units, each including a membership function of executing management and authority verification of subscriber information and service information and a session and transmission function of executing schedule management and control for session and of executing the function for contents transmission, the service control units being multiplexed in a plurality of nodes;
a load management unit which is mounted on each of the multiplexed service control units, and, if a load value periodically measured exceeds a reference value, requests to refer to the load value upon allocation and at the same time transmits the measured load value, notifies an overload state and an overload release state, predicts a load in response to a load prediction request, and transmits the predicted load value;
a service distribution policy management unit for requesting the load management unit to predict a load by input of new service information, selecting a service control unit to perform a new service based on the load prediction value received from the load management unit, notifying registration of new service to the selected service control unit, and managing to exclude or add the corresponding service control unit from or to a subject of the service distribution depending on the overload state or overload release state notified from the load management unit;
and
a processing load distribution policy management unit, when control messages such as an authentication request and a registration request are received from a mobile communication network, for allocating one of the multiplexed service control units in a round robin fashion if the load value received from the load management unit is less than the reference value, allocating one service control unit through load value comparison of the service control units if the load value exceeds the reference value and then transferring the control messages received from the mobile communication network to the allocated service control unit, and managing a transaction for response processing to the control messages.

2 more elements

A service control method for use in a multimedia broadcast multicast service system, wherein a plurality of service control nodes including a membership function, a session and transmission function and a load management unit for managing a load are multiplexed to provide a multimedia broadcast multicast service over a mobile communication network, and the multimedia broadcast multicast service system includes a service distribution policy management unit for processing a request for registration of a new service and a processing load distribution policy management unit for transmitting/receiving control messages to/from the mobile communication network and allocating a service control node to process the control messages received from the mobile communication network, comprising the steps of:

a) at the service distribution policy management unit, requesting the load management unit of each service node to predict a load in response to a request for registration of a new service;
b) at the load management unit, predicting the load in response to the request for load prediction and transferring the predicted load to the service distribution policy management unit;
c) at the service distribution policy management unit, comparing the predicted loads of the service control nodes, allocating a service control node for a service to be newly registered and notifying the allocated service control node of registration of the new service;
d) at the processing load distribution policy management unit, receiving the measured load of each of the service control nodes and storing the same;
e) at the processing load distribution policy management unit, if control messages such as a session start request and a session stop request are received, comparing the measured loads of the service control nodes;
f) if the measured load of each of the service control nodes does not exceed a reference value in the step e), allocating one service control node in a round robin fashion;
g) if the measured load of each of the service control nodes exceeds the reference value in the step e), comparing the measured loads of the service control nodes and allocating one service control node;
h) transferring the control messages received from the mobile communication network to the service control node allocated in the step f) or g), and managing a transaction for processing responses to the control messages;
and
i) if the messages received from the mobile communication network correspond to the response messages to the messages transmitted from the service control node to the mobile communication network, transferring the message received from the mobile communication network to the service control node that waits for the response messages by using a transaction identifier.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.