System and method for managing communications sessions in a network

• US 20070005770A1
• Filed: 03/17/2006
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Kramer, Reto, Langen, Anno
• Granted Patent: US 7,870,265 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066

Abstract

In an embodiment, a system for managing communications sessions is provided. The system embodiment includes a connection to a packet network that receives incoming calls. A stateful tier manages communications sessions established for the at least one incoming call. A stateless tier comprising one or more applications provides service(s) to the communications sessions in the stateful tier. One or more servers allocate and/or manage resources corresponding to the communications sessions established for the incoming calls in the stateful tier. The servers maintain the applications in the stateless tier for providing services to the communications sessions in the stateful tier.

Claims

1. A system for managing communications sessions, the system comprising:

a connection to a packet network that receives at least one incoming call;

a stateful tier that manages at least one communications session established for the at least one incoming call;

a stateless tier comprising at least one application for providing a service to the at least one communications session in the stateful tier; and

at least one server, wherein the at least one server allocates and/or manages resources corresponding to the at least one communications session established for the incoming call in the stateful tier, and wherein the at least one server maintains the at least one application in the stateless tier for providing services to the at least one communications session in the stateful tier.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein managing communications sessions and applications in separate tiers enables communications sessions to be managed using fewer resources, thereby enabling response time for creating communications sessions in the packet network to be reduced.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one server further comprises:

a communications mechanism and protocol enabling coordination of applications in the stateless tier with communications sessions in the stateful tier.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the stateful tier comprises:

a persistence mechanism for persisting communications session information in persistent storage, thereby reducing memory required for managing the communications sessions.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the stateless tier comprises:

a management mechanism for executing business logic in at least one stateless node, such that a failure of any one application affects at most in-flight traffic for a stateless node associated with the application, thereby enabling applications to be fault tolerant.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein an incoming call comprises:

a request received from sender to initiate communications with an intended recipient.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein resources include at least one stripe associated with a unique identifier associated with the incoming call, thereby enabling processes managing communications sessions to be able to rapidly switch between communication session contexts.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a load balancer that distributes processing load of managing communications sessions over a plurality of processing resources in the stateful tier.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an application builder comprising at least one tool for building the applications associated with the stateless tier.

10. The system of claim 2, wherein providing reduced response time for creating communications sessions in the packet network comprises:

performing processing for initiating a communications session within 50 milliseconds.

11. A method for managing communications sessions in a network, the method comprising:

receiving, from a sender, a request to initiate at least one communications session;

allocating resources for managing the at least one communications session in a stateful tier and associating application processing with the communications session in a stateless tier; and

managing the at least one communications session using the stateful tier and managing applications associated with the at least one communications session using the stateless tier.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein managing the at least one communications session using the stateful tier and managing applications associated with the at least one communications session using the stateless tier enables processes for managing the at least one communications session to be distributed such that there is relatively few common resources associated with the processes, thereby reducing a likelihood that a failure of any such process results in a loss of information associated with the at least one communications session.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

sending a request to initiate a communications session to another computational entity in accordance with the request received from the sender, thereby enabling establishing the at least one communications session.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving, from a sender, a request to initiate a communications session comprises:

receiving, at a back-to-back user agent, an incoming call, the call indicating an entity with which the session is to be established for exchanging information having at least one multimedia component.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein exchanging information having at least one multimedia component comprises at least one of:

voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), images, motion picture images, music and data.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein allocating resources for managing the communications session in a state tier and associating application processing with the communications session in a stateless tier comprises:

allocating a stripe associated with a unique identifier associated with the request, thereby enabling processes managing communications sessions to be able to rapidly change communication sessions being managed.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein allocating a stripe associated with a unique identifier associated with the request comprises:

replicating a stripe having a relatively small size, thereby enabling reducing garbage collection processing required to maintain the stateful tier.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein allocating a stripe associated with a unique identifier associated with the request, thereby enabling processes managing communications sessions to rapidly change communication sessions being managed comprises:

allocating the stripe in the stateful tier, wherein the stateful tier comprises an in memory database for storing at least one stripe.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein enabling processes managing communications sessions to rapidly change communication sessions being managed, comprises:

enabling processes that manage communications sessions to manage at least 30 million simultaneous call attempts.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein allocating resources for managing the communications session in a stateful tier and associating application processing with the communications session in a stateless tier comprises:

associating application processing with the communications session in a stateless tier, wherein the stateless tier comprises a separate computing environment from the stateful tier, thereby enabling the stateful tier to use fewer resources for supporting the application.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the stateless tier comprises at least one node associated with at least one stripe in the stateful tier.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the at least one node comprises a SIP application built on a SIP servlet.

23. The method of claim 11, wherein managing the communications session using the stateful tier for managing communications and the stateless tier for managing applications associated with the communications session comprises:

synchronizing processing in the stateless tier with processing in the stateful tier.

24. The method of claim 11, wherein managing the communications session using the stateful tier for managing communications and the stateless tier for managing applications associated with the communications session comprises:

managing processes that backup communication session information of the stateful tier.

25. The method of claim 11, wherein managing the communications session using the stateful tier for managing communications and the stateless tier for managing applications associated with the communications session comprises:

receiving a request for state information corresponding to a communications session; and

serving the state information retrieved from a stripe managed by the stateful tier.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein receiving a request for state information corresponding to a communications session comprises:

receiving the request from a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servlet.

27. A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for managing communications sessions, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:

receiving, from a sender, a request to initiate at least one communications session;

allocating resources for managing the at least one communications session in a stateful tier and associating application processing with the communications session in a stateless tier; and

managing the at least one communications session using the stateful tier and managing applications associated with the at least one communications session using the stateless tier.