FLEXIBLY CONFIGURED PRESENCE SERVER

• US 20070198589A1
• Filed: 02/13/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Perzy, Gil, Rubinshtein, Galina, Tal-Aviv, Ofira, Segev, Uri, Houri, Avshalom
• Granted Patent: US 8,140,692 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

A presence server includes a receiver to receive a variety of publishing and subscribe requests from a variety of sources; a plurality of elements to process the requests; and a presence manager to flexibly configure the elements as a function of the type of the requests received. A method for processing presence information includes receiving a variety of publishing and subscribe requests from a variety of sources; processing the requests with a plurality of elements; and configuring the elements as a function of the type of the requests received.

Claims

1. A presence server comprising:

a receiver for receiving a variety of publishing and subscribe requests from a variety of sources;

a plurality of elements for processing the requests; and

a presence manager for flexibly configuring the elements as a function of a type of the requests received.

2. The presence server according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of elements comprises:

a plurality of aggregators, each aggregator aggregating presence segments from one type of entity; and

an aggregator manager for analyzing an incoming publishing request and for activating at least one of the aggregators which is compatible with the request.

3. The presence server according to claim 1, wherein the sources comprise at least one of the following entities:

a computer, a cell phone, a telephone, a personal digital assistant, a printer, and a fax machine.

4. The presence server according to claim 2, wherein the aggregators are removable.

5. The presence server according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of elements comprises a resource list manager for retrieving a list of resources from at least one resource list.

6. The presence server according to claim 5, wherein the resource list manager comprises means for accessing a URL to receive a requested resource list and means for providing the resource list to the presence manager.

7. The presence server according to claim 6, wherein the presence manager comprises means for processing an individual subscribe request for each member of the resource list.

8. The presence server according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of elements comprises an external provider manager for retrieving additional information about resources available from external providers.

9. A method for processing presence information comprising:

receiving a variety of publishing and subscribe requests from a variety of sources;

processing the requests with a plurality of elements; and

configuring the elements as a function of a type of the requests received.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the processing comprises:

analyzing each publishing request received from a logical entity to determine its type;

selecting an appropriate aggregator from among a set of pluggable aggregators to process each type of request; and

aggregating presence information segments from each type.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the processing comprises:

selecting an associated document processor to process each segment; and

creating a presence information document by manipulating and verifying all the segments from the logical entity.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein the sources comprise at least one of the following entities:

a computer, a cell phone, a telephone, a personal digital assistant, a printer, and a fax machine.

13. The method according to claim 9, wherein the processing comprises:

determining whether or not the subscribe request requires external provider information;

forwarding a request for external provider information to an external provider registry;

receiving the external provider information from the external provider registry; and

including the external provider information in a presence information document.

14. The method according to claim 9, wherein the processing comprises:

determining whether or not the subscribe request is associated with a list of resources;

forwarding a request for the list of resources to a resource list registry;

receiving the resource list from the resource list registry; and

creating a subscription for each member of the resource list.

15. A computer product readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for processing presence information, the method steps comprising:

receiving a variety of publishing and subscribe requests from a variety of sources;

processing the requests with a plurality of elements; and

configuring the elements as a function of a type of the requests received.

16. The computer product according to claim 15, wherein the processing comprises:

analyzing each publishing request received from a logical entity to determine its type;

selecting an appropriate aggregator from among a set of pluggable aggregators to process each the type of request; and

aggregating presence information segments from each type.

17. The computer product according to claim 16, wherein the processing comprises:

selecting an associated document processor to process each segment; and

creating a presence information document by manipulating and verifying all the segments from the logical entity.

18. The computer product according to claim 15, wherein the sources comprise at least one of the following entities:

a computer, a cell phone, a telephone, a personal digital assistant, a printer, and a fax machine.

19. The computer product according to claim 15, wherein the processing comprises:

determining whether or not the subscribe request requires external provider information;

forwarding a request for external provider information to an external provider registry;

receiving the external provider information from the external provider registry; and

including the external provider information in a presence information document.

20. The computer product according to claim 15, wherein the processing comprises:

determining whether or not the subscribe request is associated with a list of resources;

forwarding a request for the list of resources to a resource list registry;

receiving the resource list from the resource list registry; and

creating a subscription for each member of the resource list.