Voice over IP system recovery apparatus for service and packet groups based on failure detection thresholds

• US 20100027416A1
• Filed: 07/31/2008
• Published: 02/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Beauford, Kevin D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,040,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/225
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• 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 system comprising a SIP failure tracker, wherein the SIP failure tracker monitors SIP failures and issues an alert if a SIP failure threshold is exceeded.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a SIP failure tracker;

wherein the SIP failure tracker monitors SIP failures; and

wherein the SIP failure tracker issues an alert if a SIP failure threshold is exceeded.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the SIP failure tracker further comprises a:

a SIP failure monitor;

a SIP failure handler;

wherein the SIP failure handler is communicatively coupled to the SIP failure monitor and a call handler;

wherein the SIP failure monitor communicatively coupled to the call handler;

wherein the call handler sends a first failure message to the SIP failure handler; and

wherein the SIP failure monitor sends a failure threshold alert message to the call handler if the failure threshold is exceeded and issues an alert if the failure threshold is exceeded.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the failure message is a FAIL_X message.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the SIP failure handler prints out information contained in the FAIL_X message to a read only printer.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the FAIL_X message is an IS-41 message with user defined fields.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the user defined fields further comprises at least one of a service group number, failure reason and a failure type.

7. The system of claim 2 wherein the SIP failure monitor increments a fail count when the SIP failure monitor receives a failure alert message.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the SIP failure handler sends a failure alert message comprising a service group number to the SIP failure monitor.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein a fail count is maintained for each service group.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein a service group has an associated failure threshold.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein if the fail count for a service group exceeds a failure threshold, the SIP failure monitor sends a failure threshold alert message to the call handler.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the failure threshold as at least one of a hard failure threshold, static time window and a moving time window.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the call handler reroutes call traffic based on a service group number if the call handler receives a failure alert message associated with a service group number.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the failure threshold is configurable through a human machine interface.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the SIP failure monitor sends a failure threshold clear message comprising s service group number to the call handler when the fail count is cleared, and wherein the call handler routes calls to a service group when the fail count associated with the service group is cleared.

16. A method comprising the steps of:

receiving a failure message;

incrementing a fail count;

comparing the fail count to a failure threshold; and

rerouting call traffic if the fail count exceeds the failure threshold.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the failure message is a FAIL_X message.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the FAIL_X message further comprises at least one of a service group number, a failure reason and a failure type.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the fail count is compared with a failure threshold.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the step of comparing the fail count with a failure threshold further comprises tracking a fail count on a service group basis.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the step of comparing the fail count with a failure threshold further comprises maintaining at least one of a hard failure threshold, a static time window and a moving time window.