MAINTAINING REAL-TIME CONVERSATIONS OVER UNRELIABLE CONNECTIONS

• US 20080120427A1
• Filed: 11/17/2006
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ramanathan, Rajesh, Samdadiya, Parag
• Granted Patent: US 7,650,384 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1066 Session management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

A method and system for maintaining real-time conversations over unreliable connections is provided. The reliable messaging system initiates a conversation from a sending participant to a receiving participant by sending an invitation to join the conversation to the receiving participant. Once a connection is established, the reliable messaging system associates the conversation with the connection. If the connection is lost, then the reliable messaging system attempts to restore the connection by sending an invitation to the participant that was disconnected. If the reliable messaging system is able to restore the connection, then the new connection is associated with the previous conversation, and the conversation can continue.

Claims

1. A method in a computing device for maintaining a real-time conversation over an unreliable connection, the method comprising:

creating a first connection from an endpoint associated with a sending participant to an endpoint associated with a receiving participant;

associating the real-time conversation with the first connection;

detecting that the first connection has been lost;

upon detecting that the first connection has been lost,

creating a second connection from an endpoint associated with the sending participant to an endpoint associated with the receiving participant; and

associating the real-time conversation with the second connection.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, upon detecting that the first connection has been lost, caching messages until the connection is restored.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein creating a second connection comprises attempting to connect to the same endpoint of the receiving participant as the first connection.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein creating a second connection comprises, when a connection to the same endpoint of the receiving participant as the first connection cannot be established before a timeout expires, attempting to connect to another endpoint associated with the receiving participant.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising, when a connection is established with another endpoint associated with the receiving participant, displaying a message to the sending participant indicating that the sending participant is communicating with a different endpoint.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the conversation is associated with a conversation window in a user interface displayed to the sending participant and the receiving participant and wherein the same conversation window is used to continue the conversation after the second connection is established.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying a delivery status indication in association with a message displayed in a conversation window.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising, upon detecting that the first connection has been lost, delaying the display of an error to the sending participant.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning an identifier to each message sent as part of the conversation.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein creating a first connection comprises exchanging identifiers that identify the endpoint associated with the sending participant and the endpoint associated with the receiving participant.

11. A computer-readable medium encoded with instructions for controlling a computing device to restore a connection to an identified endpoint associate with a user, by a method comprising:

sending an invitation to join a conversation to each of multiple endpoints associated with a user;

receiving an indication of an identified endpoint associated with the user that accepted the invitation;

detecting that the connection with the identified endpoint has been lost;

and

sending an invitation to the identified endpoint to restore the connection and continue the conversation.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 further comprising, when the connection to the identified endpoint cannot be restored, sending an invitation to at least one of the other endpoints associated with the user.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the invitation contains an identifier identifying the endpoint of the sender.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein receiving an indication of an identified endpoint associated with the user that accepted the invitation comprises receiving an endpoint identifier in an acknowledgment to the invitation.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein detecting that the connection with the identified endpoint has been lost comprises receiving an error response from a proxy server.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 further comprising, upon detecting that the connection with the identified endpoint has been lost, caching messages sent to the user until the connection is restored.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 further comprising, when two endpoints attempt to restore the connection at the same time, selecting one of the endpoints to continue attempting to restore the connection.

18. A computer system for maintaining an instant messaging conversation using an unreliable connection medium, comprising:

a conversation management component configured to manage a conversation between a first user and a second user across connections;

a detect lost connection component configured to detect the loss of a connection over which the conversation is being conducted;

a restore connection component configured to restore a lost connection; and

a message cache component configured to cache messages while the connection is being restored.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the conversation management component invokes the restore connection component to restore the connection to an endpoint that was previously connected.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the conversation management component invokes the restore connection component to connect to a different endpoint associated with the first or second user when the connection to the previously connected endpoint cannot be restored.