Method and system for communication between machine to machine M2M service provider networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9794327-B2
Application number	US-201214427040-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 10, 2012
Priority date	Sep 10, 2012
Publication date	Oct 17, 2017
Grant date	Oct 17, 2017

Abstract

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication has been described for communication in a single network in among others publications from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The publications describe a single network with defined entities, a resource structure and protocols. According to the invention, a solution is described for communication between entities residing in different M2M networks. Entities or applications residing in a first M2M network requiring information of an entity in another second M2M network submit a request with a target ID pointing to the entity in the second M2M network. The request is forwarded to the network node of the first network. The network node of the first network checks whether the target ID matches with an entity of a second network that according to a Domain Name Server (DNS) lookup has an address of a second network node of the second M2M network. On a match the request is routed towards the retrieved second network node of the second M2M network. The second network node routes the request further towards the second entity according to registration information stored in its resources. On reception of the request the second entity processes the request and returns a reply via the path created by the previous steps.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for communicating between a first Machine-to-Machine (M2M) entity in a first M2M network comprising a first M2M network domain anchored by a first network node operating as a Network Services Capability Layer (NSCL) entity within the first M2M network domain and a second M2M entity residing in a second M2M network comprising a second M2M network domain anchored by a second network node operating as an NSCL entity within the second M2M network domain, said second M2M network domain being distinct from said first M2M network domain, and said method comprising:
the first M2M entity transmitting a request addressed for the second M2M entity in the direction of the first network node;
the first network node receiving the request comprising an identifier identifying the second M2M entity;
the first network node determining, based on the identifier, whether the second M2M entity resides within the first M2M network;
responsive to determining that the second M2M entity does not reside in the first M2M network, requesting a Domain Name server (DNS) node for a lookup on a hostname included in the request, the DNS node responding with an address of the second network node, based on having an address record mapped to the hostname;
the first network node using the address of the second network node to route the request to the second network node via a communication interface communicatively coupling the first and second M2M network domains;
the second network node forwarding the request to the second M2M entity; and
the second M2M entity receiving the request, processing the request and responding to the first M2M entity via a path created by the previous steps.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first M2M entity is one among one or more M2M entities registered to the first network node in the first M2M network domain, which has a first domain name, and the second M2M entity is one among one or more M2M entities registered with the second network node in the second M2M network domain, which has a second domain name.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising the second network node creating a unique hostname for each of the one or more M2M entities registered registered with the second network node in the second M2M network domain.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising the second network node requesting the DNS node to create records for the one or more M2M entities registered with the second network node.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the address record in the DNS node comprises a unique hostname record, pointing to the address of the second network node.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the DNS node has for the second M2M entity residing in the second M2M network a subdomain, pointing to the address of the second network node.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the second M2M entity receiving the unique hostname of the second M2M entity.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising the second M2M entity storing the unique hostname of the second M2M entity in as an attribute within an M2M resource structure hosted by the second M2M entity.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein an application, residing in the second M2M network and registering with the second M2M entity, retrieves the unique hostname of the second M2M entity.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first M2M entity is an application residing in the first M2M network.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second M2M networks each use an M2M resource structure having a REpresentational State Transfer (RESTful) architecture style.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first and second M2M networks comply with the M2M standards published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

13. A system comprising:
a first Machine-to-Machine (M2M) entity registered in a first M2M network comprising a first M2M network domain, the first M2M entity configured to transmit a request addressed for a second M2M entity in the direction of a first network node anchoring the first M2M network and operative as a Network Services Capability Layer (NSCL) entity within the first M2M network domain;
the first network node comprising communication interface circuitry configured to receive the request, and further comprising processing circuitry configured to:
determine, based on an identifier included in the request, whether the second M2M entity resides within the first M2M network;
responsive to determining that the second M2M entity does not reside in the first M2M network, request a Domain Name Server (DNS) node for a lookup on a hostname included in the request, the DNS node responding with an address of a second network node anchoring a second M2M network comprising a second M2M network domain and operative as an NSCL entity within the second M2M network domain, the second M2M network domain being distinct from the first M2M network domain and the second M2M entity being registered with the second network node, said DNS node having an address record mapped the hostname; and
route the request towards the second network node, via the communication interface circuitry; and

wherein the second network node is configured to forward the request to the second M2M entity, and the second M2M entity is configured to receive the request, process the request and respond to the first M2M entity via a path created by the previous node and entity operations.

14. A method in a first network node operative as a Network Services Capability Layer (NSCL) entity within a first Machine-to-Machine (M2M) network comprising a first M2M network domain, the method comprising:
receiving a request from a first M2M entity registered in the first M2M network domain, the request targeting a second M2M entity;
determining, based on an identifier included in the request, whether the second M2M entity resides in the first M2M network;
responsive to determining that the second M2M entity does not reside in the first M2M network, requesting a Domain Name Server (DNS) node for a lookup on a hostname included in the request;
receiving a response from the DNS node that includes an address of a second network node operative as an NSCL entity within a second M2M network comprising a second M2M network domain distinct from the first M2M network domain, the second M2M entity being registered to the second network node; and
routing the request to the second network node using the address received from the DNS node.

15. A first network node configured to operate as a Network Services Capability Layer (NSCL) entity in a first Machine-to-Machine (M2M) network comprising a first M2M network domain, the first network node comprising:
communication interface circuitry configured to communicate with one or more other network nodes hosting one or more other M2M entities within the first M2M network domain, and to communicate with nodes in one or more external networks;
processing circuitry configured to:
receive a request from a first M2M entity registered in the first M2M network domain, the request targeting a second M2M entity;
determine, based on an identifier included in the request, whether the second M2M entity resides in the first M2M network;
responsive to determining that the second M2M entity does not reside in the first M2M network, request a Domain Name Server (DNS) node for a lookup on a hostname included in the request;
receiving a response from the DNS node that includes an address of a second network node operative as an NSCL entity within a second M2M network comprising a second M2M network domain distinct fro

Assignees

• Pareglio Barbara
• van der Velden Hendrikus Andrianus Antonia Maria
• ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M (publ)

Inventors

• Pareglio Barbara
• van der Velden Hendrikus Andrianus Antonia Maria

Classifications

• H04L67/10 Primary

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L61/1511

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W4/005

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W4/70 Primary

  Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC] · CPC title

• H04L61/4511

  using domain name system [DNS] · CPC title