Elastic capacity management with a cloud cable modem termination system (cCMTS)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10587474-B2
Application number	US-201715823953-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 28, 2017
Priority date	Nov 28, 2017
Publication date	Mar 10, 2020
Grant date	Mar 10, 2020

Abstract

Elastic capacity management of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes with a cloud Cable Modem Termination System (cCMTS) may be provided. First, a cCMTS instance may be spawned by an orchestrator. Next, the cCMTS instance may be synchronized with states of a physical Cable Modem Termination System (pCMTS). Underlay routing may then be configured between a plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the cCMTS instance. Then a plurality of R-PHY node connections respectively corresponding to the plurality of R-PHY nodes may be switched from the pCMTS to the cCMTS instance.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising: receiving, by an orchestrator, a request for resource capacity expansion from at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes; spawning, by the orchestrator, a cloud Cable Modem Termination System (cCMTS) instance; synchronizing the cCMTS instance with states of a physical Cable Modem Termination System (pCMTS), wherein synchronizing the cCMTS instance comprises: synchronizing the cCMTS instance from a database on a second data path different from a first data path between a plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the pCMTS, wherein the cCMTS instance comprises a first cCMTS subnet and a second cCMTS subnet, wherein the first CCMTS subnet forms the second data path between the database and the cCMTS, wherein the second cCMTS subnet forms a third data path between the cCMTS instance and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, wherein the pCMTS comprises a first pCMTS subnet and a second pCMTS subnet, wherein the first pCMTS subnet forms a fourth data path between the database and the pCMTS, wherein the second pCMTS subnet forms the first data path between the pCMTS and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, and wherein the pCTMS sends the states to the database on the fourth data path, and shutting down the third data path between the plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the cCMTS instance; configuring underlay routing between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the cCMTS instance; and switching on the third data path comprising a plurality of R-PHY node connections respectively corresponding to the plurality of R-PHY nodes from the pCMTS to the cCMTS instance.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising creating, by the at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes, the request for resource capacity expansion based on rules provided to the at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes from the orchestrator.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein spawning the cCMTS instance comprises spawning the cCMTS instance based upon the received request for resource capacity expansion.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein spawning the cCMTS instance comprises spawning the cCMTS instance that comprises a set of microservices and containers with Cable Modem Termination System core resources based on new requirements generated from traffic status on the plurality of R-PHY nodes.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein synchronizing the cCMTS instance comprises using a separate subnet from the first data path between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the pCMTS.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein configuring the underlay routing between the plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the cCMTS instance comprises configuring the underlay routing between the plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the cCMTS instance wherein an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the cCMTS instance is the same as an IP address of the pCMTS.

7. A system comprising: a memory storage; and a processing unit coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processing unit is operative to: receive a request for resource capacity expansion from at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes; spawn a cloud Cable Modem Termination System (cCMTS) instance; synchronize the cCMTS instance with states of a physical Cable Modem Termination System (pCMTS) obtained from a database, wherein the processing unit being operative to synchronize the cCMTS instance comprises the processing unit being operative to: synchronize the cCMTS instance on a second data path different from a first data path between a plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the pCMTS, wherein the cCMTS instance comprises a first cCMTS subnet and a second cCMTS subnet, wherein the first CCMTS subnet forms the second data path between the database and the cCMTS, wherein the second cCMTS subnet forms a third data path between the cCMTS instance and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, wherein the pCMTS comprises a first pCMTS subnet and a second pCMTS subnet, wherein the first pCMTS subnet forms a fourth data path between the database and the pCMTS, wherein the second pCMTS subnet forms the first data path between the pCMTS and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, and wherein the pCTMS sends the states to the database on the fourth data path, and shut down the third data path between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the cCMTS instance; configure underlay routing between a plurality of R-PHY nodes and the cCMTS instance; and switch on the third data path comprising a portion of a plurality of R-PHY node connections respectively corresponding to a portion of the plurality of R- PHY nodes from the pCMTS to the cCMTS instance.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the processing unit being operative to spawn the cCMTS instance comprises the processing unit being operative to spawn the cCMTS instance based upon the received request for resource capacity expansion.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the cCMTS instance comprises a set of microservices and containers with Cable Modem Termination System core resources based on new requirements generated from traffic status on the plurality of R-PHY nodes.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the processing unit being operative to synchronize the cCMTS instance comprises the processing unit being operative to use a separate subnet from the first data path between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the pCMTS.

11. The system of claim 7 , wherein an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the cCMTS instance is different than the IP address of the pCMTS.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores a set of instructions which when executed perform a method executed by the set of instructions comprising: receiving a request for resource capacity expansion from at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes; spawning a cloud Cable Modern Termination System (cCMTS) instance; synchronizing the cCMTS instance with states of a physical Cable Modem Termination System (pCMTS) obtained from a database, wherein synchronizing the cCMTS instance comprises: synchronizing the cCMTS instance on a second data path different from a first data path between a plurality of remote physical layer (R-PHY) nodes and the pCMTS, wherein the cCMTS instance comprises a first cCMTS subnet and a second cCMTS subnet, wherein the first CCMTS subnet forms the second data path between the database and the cCMTS, wherein the second cCMTS subnet forms a third data path between the cCMTS instance and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, wherein the pCMTS comprises a first pCMTS subnet and a second pCMTS subnet, wherein the first pCMTS subnet forms a fourth data path between the database and the pCMTS, wherein the second pCMTS subnet forms the first data path between the pCMTS and the plurality of R-PHY nodes, and wherein the pCMTS sends the states to the database on the fourth data path, and shutting down the third data path between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the cCMTS instance; configuring underlay routing between the plurality of R-PHY nodes and the cCMTS instance; and switching on the third data path comprising a plurality of R-PHY node connections respectively corresponding to the plurality of R-PHY nodes from the pCMTS to the cCMTS instance.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12 , wherein the request for resource capacity expansion is created by the at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes based on rules provided to the at least one of the plurality of R-PHY nodes from an orchestrator.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12 , wherein spawning the cCMTS instance comprises spawning the cCMTS instance based upon the received request for resource capacity expansion.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Chen Yuling
• Chan Tung-Fai
• Bernstein Alon Shlomo

Classifications

• H04L69/323

  in the physical layer [OSI layer 1] · CPC title

• H04L41/0806

  for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play · CPC title

• H04L41/0896 Primary

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L41/0895

  Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements · CPC title