Techniques for load distribution processing for call centers and other processing systems

• US 20030088660A1
• Filed: 08/31/2002
• Published: 05/08/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Interactive Intelligence Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Brown, Donald E., Florman, Bruce
• Granted Patent: US 7,117,244 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load

Abstract

A system of networked computers is disclosed having a number of servers and a number of clients. The clients are each provided with access to server selector service and the servers are each provided with access to a server reporter service. The server selector service is operable to obtain server processing load information from the server reporter service. The server selector service is responsive to a client activation request for a software task designated for server execution to select two or more servers to interrogate for server processing load information and designate one of the servers to execute the software task based on the server processing load information obtained by this interrogation.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

operating a computer system including several clients and several servers;

requesting execution of a software task with a first one of the clients;

selecting two or more servers in response to the request based on data maintained about the servers by a web service;

interrogating the two or more servers with the web service;

providing the web service information corresponding to processing load for each of the two or more servers in response to said interrogating; and

selecting one of the servers to execute the task as a function of the information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data corresponds to one or more prior server interrogations.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

requesting server execution of a software object with the web service from a second one of the clients;

selecting a subset of the servers with the web service based on server data maintained by the web service, the server data being determined from one or more prior server interrogation responses;

providing the web service a number of server characteristics each corresponding to server processing load for a different member of the subset in response to said requesting; and

designating one member of the subset to execute the software object in accordance with the server characteristics.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer system includes a host computer with a telephone switch coupled to a telephone network, and further comprising:

controlling the telephone switch with the host computer; and

directing a telephone call to a telephone associated with one of the clients during said controlling.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising measuring response time of each of the number of servers to said interrogating to at least partially determine processing load.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data maintained by the web service includes a plurality of estimates each corresponding to processing load for a different server.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising adjusting one of the estimates corresponding to the one of the servers selected to execute the task to reflect a processing load increase.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising adjusting one of the estimates to reflect a decrease in processing load in response to passage of a selected time interval determined relative to a most recent interrogation of a corresponding one of the servers.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

executing an application program with the web service, the software task being an object belonging to an object class selected for distributed processing among the servers;

intercepting the activation request from a nominal processing flow;

directing the activation request to a distribution routine of the web service; and

wherein the information corresponds to a number of current bids to execute the object, the current bids each being from a different one of the two or more servers, the data corresponds to bid estimates for the servers, and the two or more servers selected for said interrogating correspond to the lowest bid estimates.

10. A system of networked computers, comprising:

a number of servers; and

a number of clients, the clients each having access to a server selector web service and the servers each being provided with a server reporter, the server selector web service being operable to obtain server processing load information from the server reporter of any of the servers; and

wherein the server selector web service is responsive to a client activation request for a software object designated for server execution by one of the clients to select two or more servers to interrogate for the server processing load information based on data maintained by the server selector web service about the servers and designate one of the servers to execute the software object.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the server reporter of each of the servers includes means for bidding on the execution of the software object.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the server selector web service includes means for generating a number of estimates each representative of server processing load and each corresponding to a different one of the servers.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the server selector web service is operable to maintain the data to indicate which of the servers has the capability to execute the software object.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the server selector web service is operable to base the data on one or more prior interrogations of one or more of the servers.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the clients and the servers each reside on a different one of the networked computers, and at least one of the networked computers includes a telephone switch coupled to a telephone network and a telephone associated with one of the clients.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the server reporter is operable to return a pointer to an instance of the software object if a corresponding one of the servers has a processing load below a predefined threshold.

17. A system of networked computers, comprising:

a number of servers; and

a number of clients, the clients each having access to a server selector web service on a first server and a server reporter web service on a second server, the server selector web service being operable to obtain server processing load information from the server reporter web service; and

wherein the server selector web service is responsive to a client activation request for a software object designated for server execution by one of the clients to select two or more servers to interrogate for the server processing load information based on data maintained by the server selector web service about the servers and designate one of the servers to execute the software object.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the first server and the second server are the same.

19. A system of networked computers, comprising:

a number of servers; and

a number of clients, the clients each having access to a server selector service and the servers each being provided with a server reporter, the server selector service being operable to receive a client activation request by one of the clients over standard internet protocols and to obtain server processing load information from the server reporter of any of the servers; and

wherein the server selector service is responsive to the client activation request for a software object designated for server execution to select two or more servers to interrogate for the server processing load information based on data maintained by the server selector service about the servers and designate one of the servers to execute the software object.