US 12,445,811 B2
Data path selection in mobile network using user plane function peer information
Souvik Mondal, Karnataka (IN); Sujin Kumar Anagani, Morrisville, NC (US); Sudeep Kumar Pandey, Acton, MA (US); Krishna Kishore Venkata Dubagunta, Karnataka (IN); and Naveen Kumar Sampath, Bangalore (IN)
Assigned to CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on May 16, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/318,449.
Prior Publication US 2024/0388877 A1, Nov. 21, 2024
Int. Cl. H04W 4/08 (2009.01); H04W 40/02 (2009.01)
CPC H04W 4/08 (2013.01) [H04W 40/02 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
at user plane functions (UPFs) of a network, creating a multicast group of the UPFs to enable inter-UPF communication between the UPFs in a multicast domain and, by each UPF:
exchanging messages with peer UPFs of the UPFs in the multicast domain to learn peer attributes of the peer UPFs; and
reporting the peer attributes of the peer UPFs to a session management function (SMF) of the network; and
at the SMF, selecting, for a data session, particular UPFs of the UPFs to be configured into a UPF chain of a data path for traffic from user equipment to a data network, based on the peer attributes of the peer UPFs as reported by the UPFs.