Emulation of room lock and lobby feature in distributed conferencing system

• US 20080256182A1
• Filed: 04/10/2007
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sekaran, Dhigha D., Wolfe, Kenneth, Wyatt, Doug
• Granted Patent: US 8,880,598 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission

Abstract

Architecture for a session lock and lobby feature in a distributed conferencing framework for a conferencing session. Under a lock scenario, once a user enters the session, the session can be locked to prevent other individuals from entering, even if the individuals were invited to the session. Locking can be accomplished manually by a session participant and/or automatically based on criteria. The lobby feature allows a session participant to be aware of users in the lobby and pending access to the session by providing notification and/or identification of the user attempting to gain access to the session. The session leader can selectively allow access to the session. The architecture facilitates lock and lobby features in multiple identical, leaderless, conference servers which together form a distributed conferencing system. The lock and lobby features can employ media session protocols such as session initiation protocol (SIP) and centralized conference control protocol (C3P).

Claims

1. A computer-implemented conferencing management system, comprising:

a conferencing component for establishing a conferencing session of session participants, the participants connected to the conferencing session via distributed media access components and based on a session protocol; and

a session management component for managing access to the conferencing session of a would-be session participant relative to a session lobby.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the session protocol is session initiation protocol (SIP).

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the session protocol is centralized conference control protocol (C3P).

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the session component facilitates notification of one of the session participants of the would-be session participant when the would-be session participant is associated with the session lobby.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the one of the session participants denies access to the session of the would-be session participant.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the one of the session participants allows access to the session of the would-be session participant.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the would-be session participant is authenticated by the conferencing component prior to association with the session lobby.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the conferencing component signals one of the distributed media access components associated with the would-be session participant to deny access to the conferencing session by would-be session participant, based on an unsuccessful authentication.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the conferencing component signals one of the distributed media access components associated with the would-be session participant to allow access to the conferencing session by would-be session participant, based on a successful authentication.

10. A computer-implemented method of managing a conferencing session, comprising:

establishing a conferencing session of session participants via distributed access components;

receiving a request for session access from a new user via one of the distributed media access components;

enabling a session lock to prevent access to the session; and

controlling access to the session by the new user based on the lock.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising controlling access to the conferencing session by the new user via at least one of SIP or C3P.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising authenticating the new user via the one of the distributed media access components using enterprise credentials.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising authenticating the new user via the one of the distributed media access components using digest data.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising sending a lesser amount of session information to the new user based on initiation of an authentication process.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising sending a greater amount of session information to the new user based on successful authentication of the new user.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising notifying the session participants during the conferencing session of the request of the new user.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing a full media stream from the one of the distributed media access components based on session access by the new user, the access granted by one of the session participants.

18. The method of claim 10, further comprising notifying a subset of the session participants that the new user is attempting to gain access to the conferencing session, and granting access to the session based on the subset.

19. The method of claim 10, further comprising managing existence of a lobby feature for the conferencing session.

20. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer-implemented means for establishing a conferencing session of session participants via distributed access components;

computer-implemented means for receiving a request for session access from a new user via one of the distributed media access components;

computer-implemented means for enabling a session lock to control access to the session; and

computer-implemented means for controlling access to the session by the new user.