US 11,836,542 B1
Instantiating VNFs which include VNFCs that are composed of independently manageable software modules
Keith William Melkild, Allen, TX (US)
Assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed by International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed on May 18, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/324,040.
Application 17/324,040 is a continuation of application No. 16/421,231, filed on May 23, 2019, abandoned.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/675,531, filed on May 23, 2018.
Int. Cl. G06F 9/54 (2006.01); G06F 9/455 (2018.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01)
CPC G06F 9/542 (2013.01) [G06F 9/45558 (2013.01); H04L 63/0428 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45562 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45595 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A hardware-implemented Virtual Network Function Manager (VNFM) configured to:
in response to a request to instantiate a VNF Instance (VNFI), retrieve, from a VNF catalog, a VNF Descriptor (VNFD), the VNFD comprising one or more VNF Components Instances (VNFCIs), each VNFCI comprising a plurality of independently manageable VNFC software modules;
retrieve, from the VNF catalog, a software image including the plurality of independently manageable VNFC software modules based on a corresponding VNFC module descriptor in the VNFD;
instantiate each VNFCI, wherein, when the VNFM instantiates each VNFCI, the VNFM is for each VNFCI, to:
start a VM/container that includes the software image,
install the plurality of independently manageable VNFCI software modules in the VM/container, and
start the plurality of independently manageable VNFCI software modules in the VM/container; and
send a notification indicating that the VNFI is instantiated.