Feature Description

The SMF uses the NRF-provided, NF discovery service to discover network functions (NFs), such as Access and Mobile Function (AMF), Unified Data Management (UDM), and Policy Control Function (PCF). The SMF configures the preferred locality as provided in the "profile nf-pair" configuration of Network Repository Function (NRF) in the discovery query.

For each NF, the query parameters, also known as filters, are configurable. Based on these parameters, NRF returns all the NFs matching the query criteria for the SMF to discover NF profiles.

Note

The NF discovery and load-balancing capabilities are available only for UDM, PCF, CHF, and AMF.

NF discovery supports dynamic configuration change. With this feature, if the configurations were modified in the middle of the transaction or procedure, the ongoing transactions are not impacted.

The dynamic configuration change feature supports the following:

  • NRF transaction or procedure picks a configuration version (v1) and uses the same version until the NRF transaction or procedure completes.

  • If you change the configuration during an ongoing NRF transaction, then a new configuration version (v2) is created. However, the new configuration is applied in the new transaction.

The dynamic configuration changes apply to the following data structures:

  • NrfFailureProfileSt

  • NrfClntProfileSt

  • NrfGrpSt

  • NrfPairProfileSt

  • NrfMgmtGrpSt