System and method for active call monitoring

• US 20030202112A1
• Filed: 04/28/2003
• Published: 10/30/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tandberg Telecom AS (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bowman, Kevin, Lemieux, James
• Granted Patent: US 7,777,777 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/261
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/147 Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals selecting H04Q

Abstract

A video call monitor manager creates a video call monitor engine for initiated video calls between plural video devices with the video call monitor engine having a monitoring thread for each video device of the video call, the monitor threads periodically polling their associated video devices for quality of service and state information to automatically detect quality of service threshold rule violations and state changes for broadcast to interested locations, such as video network administrators monitoring the video call. Each video call monitor engine monitors a video call state with a nested state machine structure of device state machines, device monitor state machines and call segment state machines nested to define a call state machine as a video call is initiated, with the call state machine monitoring the video call throughout its life so that interesting call state changes and quality of service changes are detected and broadcast to monitoring clients.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring video calls, the system comprising:

plural video devices interfaced with each other and operable to communicate video calls;

a video network platform interfaced with the video devices and operable to communicate control, quality and state information with the video devices;

a monitor manager associated with the video network platform and operable to generate a monitor engine for each video call, the monitor engine having a monitor thread associated with each video device of the video call, the monitor thread operable to periodically poll its associated video device to obtain the quality and state information, the monitor thread further operable to identify selected events associated with the video call from the quality or state information.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the quality information comprises video jitter and the selected event comprises a video jitter threshold associated with one or more of the video devices.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the quality information comprises audio jitter and the selected event comprises an audio jitter threshold associated with one or more of the video devices.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the quality information comprises video latency and the selected event comprises a video latency threshold associated with one or more of the video devices.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising a user interface in communication with the monitor manager and operable to select a quality information threshold and polling frequency.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein each monitor engine comprises as nested state machine operable to monitor the video call.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the video call comprises plural call segments, each call segment having plural video devices and wherein the nested state machine comprises:

a device state machines associated with each device and operable to detect device state changes;

a device monitor state machine interfaced with each device state machine and operable to apply the device states to detect device connection states;

a call segment state machine associated with each call segment and interfaced with the device monitor state machines of the call segment, the call segment state machine operable to apply the device monitor states to detect call segment states; and

a call state machine interfaced with the call segment state machines and operable to apply the call segment states to detect a call state.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the video network platform further comprises a dialer operable to control connecting and disconnecting the video devices, and wherein the monitor manager interfaces with the dialer to create a monitor thread for each dialer operation connecting video devices.

9. A method for monitoring video calls, the method comprising:

detecting initiation of a video call reservation having plural video devices organized as plural call segments;

creating a monitor engine having a key referenced to the reservation;

creating a monitor thread for each video device dialed to connect to the video call, the monitor threads associated to the video call with the key; and

periodically polling the video devices with the monitor threads to detect predetermined events.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein periodically polling further comprises:

obtaining predetermined quality of service information with each monitor thread for each associated video device; and

comparing the obtained quality of service information with a predetermined quality of service threshold to detect video connections having degraded quality.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the quality of service information comprises video jitter.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the quality of service information comprises audio jitter.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the quality of service information comprises video latency.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

selecting one or more quality of service thresholds for a video call; and

selecting polling frequency of monitor threads associated with the video call.

15. The method of claim 10 further comprising broadcasting that a video connection has a degraded quality.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein periodically polling further comprises:

obtaining predetermined video device state information with each monitor thread for each associated video device; and

organizing the obtained state information with as call segment states aggregated to determine a video call state.