The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for establishing a link between virtualized network functions. The method includes obtaining an internet protocol (IP) address of a connection point (CP) of a first virtualized network function (VNF) and identification information of the CP. The method also includes determining identification information of a second VNF corresponding to the identification information of the CP of the first VNF, sending the IP address of the CP of the first VNF and the identification information of the CP to the second VNF corresponding to the identification information of the second VNF. Additionally, the method includes starting a link connection establishment process between a CP of the second VNF and the CP of the first VNF.

An embodiment logical function architecture for next-generation 5G wireless networks may include a control plane comprising a software defined topology (SDT) logical entity configured to establish a virtual data-plane logical topology for a service, a software defined resource allocation (SDRA) logical entity configured to map the virtual data-plane topology to a physical data-plane for transporting service-related traffic over the wireless network, and a software defined per-service customized data plane process (SDP) logical entity configured to select transport protocol(s) for transporting the service-related traffic over a physical data-plane of the wireless network. An embodiment virtual service specific serving gateway (v-s-SGW) for next-generation 5G networks may be assigned specifically to a service being provided by a group of wirelessly enabled devices, and may be responsible for aggregating service-related traffic communicated by the group of wirelessly enabled devices.

Disclosed are various embodiments for on-demand application-driven network slicing. In one embodiment, it is determined that an application implemented in a particular computing device has an increased quality-of-service requirement in order to send or receive data via a communications network. The increased quality-of-service requirement is greater than an existing quality-of-service provided to the application by the communications network. The application sends a request that causes capacity in a network slice having the increased quality-of-service requirement in the communications network to be allocated for the application. The data is transmitted to or from the application using the network slice.

A controller network device receives command input for providing services over a service provider network and receives a verification request to verify an initial output of a control communication sent to a forwarding network device by a second controller network device in a group of peer controller network devices. The controller network device receives, from other controller network devices in the group of peer controller network devices, results that are responsive to the verification request and based on the command input and identifies a majority output from the results. The controller network device compares the initial output from the second controller network device to the majority output to determine that the initial output failed a verification vote and determines when a threshold number of control communications from the second controller network device, including the initial output, have failed verification votes.

Methods and apparatus to execute a workload in an edge environment are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a node scheduler to accept a task from a workload scheduler, the task including a description of a workload and tokens, a workload executor to execute the workload, the node scheduler to access a result of execution of the workload and provide the result to the workload scheduler, and a controller to access the tokens and distribute at least one of the tokens to at least one provider, the provider to provide a resource to the apparatus to execute the workload.

Methods and apparatus to execute a workload in an edge environment are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a node scheduler to accept a task from a workload scheduler, the task including a description of a workload and tokens, a workload executor to execute the workload, the node scheduler to access a result of execution of the workload and provide the result to the workload scheduler, and a controller to access the tokens and distribute at least one of the tokens to at least one provider, the provider to provide a resource to the apparatus to execute the workload.

Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. The methods include, for instance: providing a distributed virtual gateway for Network Virtualization over Layer 3 (NVO3) network. A gateway stack having three or more nodes is implemented as a distributed virtual gateway, providing Layer 2 or Layer 3 gateway services in a fail-safe manner. Nodes of the gateway stack are configured to autonomously process and forward inbound NVO3 data packets with known destination addresses without engaging a master of the gateway stack.

Aspects of methods and systems for frequency multiplexing suitable for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) are provided. A system for multiplexing signals according to frequency comprises a DOCSIS port interface, an upstream interface, a downstream interface, and a circulator subsystem. The DOCSIS port interface comprises a plurality of channel filters. The upstream interface is operably coupled to a first channel filter of the plurality of channel filters, and the downstream interface is operably coupled to a second channel filter of the plurality of channel filters. The circulator subsystem is able to direct a first signal from the upstream interface to the DOCSIS port interface and is able to direct a second signal from the DOCSIS port interface to the downstream interface.

Technical solutions are described for selecting components from multiple vendors for a system. An example computer-implemented method includes receiving, by a processor, an environment map that identifies a first component placeholder of the system. The computer-implemented method further includes identifying, by the processor, that the first component placeholder interfaces with a second component placeholder of the system. The computer-implemented method further includes determining, by the processor, a role assigned to the first component placeholder, where the role indicates a type of data that a first component at the first component placeholder communicates with a second component at the second component placeholder. The computer-implemented method further includes determining, by the processor, a list of components for selecting the first component, where each component from the list of components matches the role assigned to the first component placeholder.

A system and method are provided that automatically update a customer-support ticket in an online customer-support system. When the customer-support ticket is created or updated, the system applies a set of triggers, which modify the ticket based on business rules, wherein each trigger performs actions that modify the ticket when conditions for parameters associated with the ticket are satisfied. When applying a trigger to the ticket, the system evaluates the conditions for the trigger by evaluating an associated condition graph, which is a directed graph comprised of condition nodes, wherein each condition node specifies conditions on parameters associated with the ticket. During this evaluation, if a valid path through the condition graph is discovered, which comprises a sequence of satisfied condition nodes from the root node to a null node, the system fires the trigger, which involves performing actions associated with the trigger to update the ticket.