Webserver with telephony hosting function

• US 20060222166A1
• Filed: 03/31/2005
• Published: 10/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simons, David James, Bearon, Anthony John, Ramakrishna, Anand
• Granted Patent: US 7,688,805 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.90
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

A telephony application host has a web service environment and a telephony application proxy. The web service environment is adapted to host one or more instances of a telephony application. The telephony application proxy is adapted to receive telephony messages associated with the one or more instances of the telephony application and to proxy each received telephony message into a web request. The telephony application is adapted to process the web request within the web service environment.

Claims

1. A telephony application host comprising:

a web service environment adapted to host one or more instances of a telephony application; and

a telephony application proxy adapted to receive telephony-related messages associated with the one or more instances of the telephony application and to proxy each received telephony message into a web request, the telephony application adapted to process the web request within the web service environment.

2. The telephony application host of claim 1 further comprising:

computer readable application code stored in a memory of the telephony application host comprising the telephony application.

3. The telephony application host of claim 1 wherein the telephony application host comprises a web server.

4. The telephony application host of claim 1 wherein the telephony application host is coupled to the web service environment and adapted to associate each proxied web request with a selected instance of the one or more instances of the telephony application.

5. The telephony application host of claim 4 and further comprising:

a pool of active application instances representative of the one or more instances of the telephony application that are active in the web services environment.

6. The telephony application host of claim 5 wherein the telephony application host is adapted to interact with the pool of active application instances to return a unique instance of the active application corresponding to a specific request.

7. The telephony application host of claim 1 and further comprising:

a listener application instantiated within the telephony application proxy and adapted to make web requests into the telephony application host to activate an outbound call.

8. A method for managing telephony sessions comprising:

hosting one or more instances of a telephony application in a web service environment, the telephony application comprising a web-based service, each of the one or more instances corresponding to an incoming call identifier; and

returning a particular instance of the telephony application to manage multiple invocations of the web service based on the incoming call identifier.

9. The method of claim 8 and further comprising:

proxying telephony messages into HTTP-based requests; and

passing the HTTP-based requests to the web service environment.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of hosting further comprises:

maintaining an active application instance pool based on the incoming call identifier.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein each invocation of the web service has an associated call identifier, the method further comprising:

searching the active application instance pool for the incoming call identifier that matches the associated call identifier of the invocation; and

returning the particular instance of the telephony application if a match is found.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein each invocation of the web service has an associated call identifier, the method further comprising:

searching the active application instance pool for the incoming call identifier that matches the associated call identifier of the invocation;

creating an application instance within the web service environment if a match is not found; and

adding the incoming call identifier of the created application instance to the active application instance pool.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein a state of each telephony session is managed via an active application instance pool based on the incoming call identifier.

14. A system for hosting telephone calls over a network, the system comprising:

a web server having a web service environment for hosting one or more web services;

a telephony application proxy adapted to communicate with a telephony access point and to proxy telephony messages into web requests; and

a telephony application web service adapted to operate on the web and telephony messages within the web service environment.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein an instance of the telephony application web service is associated with each in-coming call based on an unique call identifier.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein each web request contains a unique message identifier corresponding to a unique call identifier.

17. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

a telephony application host adapted to receive the web requests and to associate each web request to a unique instance of the telephony application web service based on a unique identifier contained within the web request.

18. The system of claim 17 further comprising:

an active application instance pool comprising an active list of unique instances of the telephony application web service, each unique instance having a call identifier, wherein telephony application host interacts with the active application instance pool to associate each web request with its associated unique instance based on a correspondence between the call identifier and the unique identifier

19. The system of claim 14 and further comprising:

a listener application instantiated within the telephony application proxy and adapted to make web requests into the web server to activate an outbound call.

20. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

computer readable application code stored in a memory of the system comprising a telephony application providing a particular web service.