SOFTWARE UPGRADES FOR OFFLINE CHARGING SYSTEMS WITHIN A NETWORK

摘要

Systems and methods for performing a software upgrade for a first offline charging system (OFCS) having a plurality of virtual machines implementing charging functions for offline charging. For the upgrade, a controller identifies a subset of the virtual machines in the first OFCS to remove from service, transmits a request to a distributor to reduce the distribution of the accounting requests in proportion to the number of the virtual machines removed from service, and removes the subset of virtual machines from service in the first OFCS. The controller also constructs updated virtual machines having the software upgrade in a second OFCS to replace the virtual machines removed from the first OFCS, and transmits a request to the distributor to increase distribution of the accounting requests to the second OFCS in proportion to the number of the updated virtual machines constructed in the second OFCS.

主权项

1. A charging system comprising:
a controller coupled to a first offline charging system having a plurality of virtual machines implementing charging functions for offline charging, and coupled to a front-end distributor configured to distribute accounting requests to the first offline charging system; the controller configured to provide a software upgrade by iteratively performing the following:
identify a subset of the virtual machines in the first offline charging system to remove from service;transmit a first request to the front-end distributor to reduce the distribution of the accounting requests to the first offline charging system in proportion to a number of the virtual machines removed from service in the first offline charging system;remove the subset of virtual machines from service in the first offline charging system;construct updated virtual machines having the software upgrade in a second offline charging system to replace the virtual machines removed from service in the first offline charging system; andtransmit a second request to the front-end distributor to increase distribution of the accounting requests to the second offline charging system in proportion to a number of the updated virtual machines constructed in the second offline charging system.