System and method for implementing network experience shifting

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9733975-B2
Application number	US-201615148721-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 6, 2016
Priority date	Apr 3, 2014
Publication date	Aug 15, 2017
Grant date	Aug 15, 2017

Abstract

Novel tools and techniques are provided for implementing network experience shifting, and, in particular embodiments, using either a roaming or portable hypervisor associated with a user or a local hypervisor unassociated with the user. In some embodiments, a network node in a first network might receive, via a first network access device in a second network, a request from a user device to establish roaming network access, and might authenticate a user associated with the user device, the user being unassociated with the first network access device. Based in part on a determination that the user is authorized to access data, content, profiles, and/or software applications that are accessible via a second network access device, the network node might establish a secure private connection through a hypervisor communicatively coupled to the first network access device to provide the user with access to her data, content, profiles, and/or software applications.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving, at a network node in a first network and via a first network access device in a second network, a request from a first user device to establish roaming network access, a first user of the first user device being associated with a second network access device in the first network and being unassociated with the first network access device, the second network access device being located in a different geographical location from the first network access device;
authenticating, with the network node, the first user;
determining, with the network node, whether the first user is associated with the second network access device;
determining, with the network node, whether the first user is authorized to access at least one of data, content, profiles, or software applications that are accessible by the second network access device; and
based on a determination that the first user is associated with the second network access device and that the first user is authorized to access at least one of data, content, profiles, or software applications that are accessible by the second network access device, pushing, with the network node, one or more virtual network functions (“VNFs”) to a hypervisor that is in communication with the first network access device and executing instances of the VNFs on the hypervisor.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network node comprises one of a gateway device, a network switch, a network functions virtualization (“NFV”) entity, or a software defined network (“SDN”) controller, wherein the NFV entity comprises at least one of a NFV orchestrator, a network functions virtualization infrastructure (“NFVI”) system, a NFV management and orchestration (“MANO”) system, a VNF manager, a NFV resource manager, a virtualized infrastructure manager (“VIM”), a virtual machine (“VM”), a macro orchestrator, or a domain orchestrator.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first network and the second network are associated with the same network service provider.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first network and the second network are associated with different network service providers.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hypervisor and the first user device are associated with the first user and unassociated with the first network access device.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the hypervisor and the first user device are the same device, and are embodied as a roaming hypervisor, wherein the one or more VNFs that are pushed to the roaming hypervisor are VNFs that are already subscribed to by the first user.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein authenticating, with the network node, the first user comprises:
establishing, with the hypervisor, a communication link with the second network access device via the network node; and
authenticating the hypervisor using one of the second network access device or the network node.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein authenticating, with the network node, the first user comprises:
establishing a communication link with a portal;
receiving, at the portal, authentication information from at least one of the first user or the first user device; and
authenticating, via the portal, the first user based on the received authentication information.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hypervisor comprises a compute resource, a memory, and a storage.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the hypervisor is one of integrated with the first network access device, communicatively coupled to a host port of the first network access device, communicatively coupled to a universal serial bus (“USB”) port of the first network access device, communicatively coupled to a local area network (“LAN”) port of the first network access device, or communicatively coupled to a communication port of the first network access device that is different from any of the host port, the USB port, and the LAN port.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first user device comprises one of a tablet computer, a smart phone, a mobile phone, a portable gaming device, a laptop computer, a portable hypervisor, a modem, a radio device, or a token chip device.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first network access device and the second network access device is each selected from a group consisting of a customer premises equipment (“CPE”), a router, a switch, a network element, a demarcation device, a WiFi gateway device, a hypervisor platform, and one or more virtual machine-based host machines.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the CPE comprises at least one of an optical network terminal (“ONT”), a network interface device (“NID”), an enhanced NID (“eNID”), a residential gateway (“RG”) device, a business gateway (“BG”) device, or a virtual gateway (“vG”) device.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request from the first user device is automatically sent from the first user device via the first network access device, without user input from the first user.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first user device and the first network access device communicate with each other using at least one of machine-to-machine (“M2M”) communication, M2M protocols, Internet of Things (“IoT”) communication, IoT protocols, or IoT proxy functions.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the request from the first user device to establish roaming network access comprises receiving, at the network node, the request from the first user device to establish roaming network access via the first network access device and via a docking station that is communicatively coupled to the first network access device.

17. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
based on a determination that the first user is associated with the second network access device and that the first user is authorized to access at least one of data, content, profiles, or software applications that are accessible by the second network access device, establishing, with the network node, a secure private LAN between the first network access device and the second network access device over the first network and the second network.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing, with the network node, an application programming interface (“API”) with access to the hypervisor over the at least one of the first network or the second network.

19. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
mapping, with the network node, one or more virtual extensible local area networks (“VXLANs”) to the hypervisor.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein mapping one or more VXLANs to the hypervisor comprises mapping one or more VXLANs to one or more LAN ports of the first network access device, wherein the hypervisor is communicatively coupled to at least one of the one or more LAN ports.

21. A network node in a first network, comprising:
at least one processor; and
a non-transitory computer readable medium communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer software comprising a set of instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the network node to:
receive, via a first network access device in a second network, a request from a first user device to establish roaming network access, a first user of the first user device being associated with a second network access device in the first network and being unassociated with the first network access device, the second net

Assignees

• Centurylink Ip Llc

Inventors

• Cook Charles I
• Mcbride Kevin M
• Post Matthew J
• Walker William R

Classifications

• H04W8/18

  Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title

• G06F9/45558 Primary

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title