Facilitating Deployment of New Application Services in a Next Generation Network

• US 20090193071A1
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dailey, Robert F., Qiu, Chaoxin, Khan, Richard L.
• Granted Patent: US 8,606,901 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/2895 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data provider application, e.g. reverse proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• 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 disclosed application docking module (ADM) for use in a communication network includes a message monitor, an application monitor, and an anomaly handler. The message monitor monitors messages exchanged between a monitored application server and a session control layer resource of the network and the application monitor monitors a heartbeat of the application server. Based on the monitoring, the module determines when the application server is in an anomaly state. The anomaly state may indicate abnormal or otherwise unexpected application server messaging activity and/or an unexpected heartbeat status. The ADM processes application server messages on behalf of the application server when the application server is operating in an anomaly state. The ADM may, for example, block messages outgoing from the application server and process messages incoming to the application server by redirecting messages, returning messages to their sender, or generating an error code.

Claims

1. An application docking station suitable for use in a communication network, comprising:

a monitor to detect an anomaly state of the application server; and

an anomaly handler to process application server messages on behalf of the application server responsive to the monitor detecting the anomaly state;

wherein the anomaly state is indicative of a condition selected from the group consisting of unexpected messaging activity associated with the application server and an unexpected status of a heartbeat associated with the application server wherein the heartbeat status is indicative of whether the application server is operable.

2. The application docking station of claim 1, further comprising a message handler, operably connected to the anomaly handler, and operable, when activated, to redirect, respond to, or block the application server messages, and wherein the configuring of the application docking station comprises activating the message handler.

3. The application docking station of claim 1, wherein the message handler comprises a first message handler and wherein the application docking station further comprises a second message handler operably connected to the anomaly handler and wherein the first message handler is operable to redirect, respond to, or block a first type of application server message and wherein the second message handler is operable, when activated, to redirect, respond to, or block a second type of application server message.

4. The application docking station of claim 3, wherein the first type of application server message comprises an application server message between the application server and a first type of the session control layer resource and wherein the second type of application server message comprises an application server message between the application server and a second type of the session control layer resource.

5. The application docking station of claim 4, wherein the communication network comprises an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network and further wherein the first type of the session control layer resources comprises a call session control function (CSCF) and wherein the second type of the session control function comprises a home subscriber server (HSS).

6. The application docking station of claim 4, wherein the first type of application server message comprises a session initiation protocol (SIP) compliant message and wherein the second type of application server message comprises a Diameter compliant message.

7. The application docking station of claim 1, wherein the monitor includes:

a message monitor to monitor the messaging activity and wherein the messaging activity comprises messaging activity between the application server and a resource in a session control layer of the communication network; and

an application monitor operable to determine the heartbeat status of the application server.

8. The application docking station of claim 7, wherein the application monitor is operable to transmit a SIP compliant OPTIONS message to the application server to determine the heartbeat status.

9. The application docking station of claim 1, wherein the application docking station includes a plurality of application docking modules and wherein each application docking module is associated with a respective one of a plurality of application servers and wherein each application docking module includes a corresponding message monitor and a corresponding anomaly handler.

10. A method of deploying a service in a communication network, comprising:

providing an application server operable to enable the service via the network and further operable to exchange application server messages with a resource in a session control layer of the network, wherein the session control layer resource is selected from the group consisting of a session control function and a subscriber server; and

providing an application docking station operable to monitor application server messages exchanged between the application server and the session control layer resource and further operable to process at least a portion of the application server messages on behalf of the application server.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the communication network comprises an Internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) network.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the application server comprises a session initiation protocol (SIP) compliant application server.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the application docking station is operable to determine, from the monitoring, the application server being in an anomaly state, wherein the anomaly state indicates abnormal application server message activity.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the application docking station is operable to respond to the determining by enabling an anomaly handling policy operable to prevent the abnormal application server message activity from affecting the operability of the session control layer resource or the operability of a preexisting application server of the network.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the providing an application docking station comprises providing an application docking station operable to process the application server messages on behalf of the application server responsive to determining the application server being in the anomaly state.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the processing the application server messages on behalf of the application server comprises blocking, redirecting, or responding to the application server message on behalf of the application server.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the processing the application server messages comprises processing the application server messages based on a handling policy rule of the anomaly handling policy.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the handling policy rule includes a first rule applicable to application server messages from the session control layer resource wherein the processing of the application server messages based on the first rule comprises processing the application server message by returning an error code in response to an application server message, returning an application server message to the session control layer resource, or redirecting an application server message to a preexisting application server message.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the application server comprises an application server of an application server type selected from an originating SIP user agent type, a terminating SIP user agent type, a SIP proxy type, and a back-to-back SIP user agent type and wherein the processing of the application server messages comprises processing the application server messages based at least in part on the application server type of the application server.

20. The method of claim 10, wherein the subscriber server comprises a home subscriber server (HSS) and further wherein providing the application docking station comprises:

setting a forwarding destination of a filter criteria object associated with the application server to reflect a universal resource indicator of the application docking station;

configuring the HSS to permit access to the subscriber profile object by the application server;

configuring a Diameter message forwarder of the application server to forward application server messages to a Diameter message forwarder of the application server message; and

define anomaly handling rules for the application server message.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein providing the application docking station further comprises creating a runtime instance of the application docking station when the application server is initiated.

22. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions, stored on a tangible computer readable medium, for deploying a service in a communication network, the instructions comprising instructions to:

monitor application server messages exchanged between a session initiation protocol (SIP) application server and a session control layer resource of the communication network;

monitor a status of a heartbeat of the application server, wherein the heartbeat is indicative of an operability of the application server;

determine from the monitoring of the application server messages and the heartbeat when the SIP application server is in an anomaly state; and

responsive to the determining, block application server messages generated by the application server intended for the session control layer resource from reaching the session control layer resource and process, on behalf of the application server, application server messages from the session control function and intended for the application server.

23. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the instructions to process the application server messages on behalf of the application server include instructions to take an anomaly handling action selected from the group consisting of responding to the application server message with an error code message, returning the application server message to the session control layer resource, and forwarding the application server message to an alternative application server.

24. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the instructions to determine include instructions to determine whether an anomaly criteria is met wherein the anomaly criteria is selected from a group of criteria consisting of a message burst criteria satisfied when an application server message rate exceeds a specified application server message rate threshold, an error response criteria satisfied when an error response rate exceeds an error response rate threshold, and a latency criteria satisfied when a rate of message timeouts exceeds a timeout threshold.

25. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the instructions to determine comprise instructions to determine based on a comparison of a SIP message count and a Diameter message count.

26. The computer program product of claim 22, wherein the instructions to determine comprise instructions to determine based on a comparison of an historical message rate with a current message rate.