SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSING MEDIA REQUESTS DURING A TELEPHONY SESSIONS

• US 20100142516A1
• Filed: 09/28/2009
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Inventors: Cooke, Evan, Lawson, Jeffrey, Wolthuis, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,611,338 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1013 Network architectures, gateways, control or user entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1045 Proxies, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2473 Telephone terminals interfacing a personal computer, e.g. using an API (Application Programming Interface) details of API H04M7/0021
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0021 Details of Application Programming Interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/003 Click to dial services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0075 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

In a preferred embodiment, the method of caching media used in a telephony application includes: receiving a media request; sending the media request to a media layer using HTTP; the a media layer performing the steps of checking in a cache for the media resource; processing the media request within a media processing server; and storing the processed media in the cache as a telephony compatible resource specified by a persistent address. The system of the preferred embodiment includes a call router and a media layer composed of a cache and media processing server.

Claims

1. A method of caching media for use in a telephony applications comprising:

receiving a media request;

sending the media request to a media layer using HTTP;

where the media layer performs the following steps;

checking in a cache for a telephony compatible media resource specified by the media request;

processing the media request within a media processing server to form a telephony compatible media resource; and

storing the processed media in the cache as a telephony compatible media resource specified by persistent address.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically allocating cache resources and media processing server resources of the media layer.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising mapping the media request to a persistent Universal Resource Identifier (URI), wherein a call router handling a telephony session between a caller and an application maps the media request to the URI and the telephony session initiates the media request, and wherein the persistent URI has embedded media parameters that uniquely identify contents of the media resource.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the media request is made through a media layer application programming interface (API).

5. The method of claim 4, wherein media request is caching media for an application prior to a telephony session requesting the resource.

6. The method of claim 1, where the step of processing the media request includes encrypting the telephony compatible media resource, and wherein the step of storing the processed media in the cache includes storing the encrypted media resource in a third party server.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising checking for a directive indicating to not cache the media and following the directive.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing the media request includes retrieving media from an external server and converting the retrieved media to a telephony compatible media format with a transcoding proxy server.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein HTTPS is used for network communication between the media layer and the external server and HTTP is used for network communication within the media layer.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing media includes converting Text-To-Speech according to parameters of the media request.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the media parameters include voice parameters for the Text-To-Speech conversion.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising streaming the media from an external server through the media processor, through the cache, and to the call router.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the call router writing the media resource to disk prior to using the resource.

14. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

using HTTP communication protocol for sending the media request wherein the HTTP message includes the text to be converted to speech;

if a telephony compatible media resource is identified in the cache by the persistent URI, forwarding the cached media resource to the call router;

if a telephony compatible media resource is not identified in the cache by the persistent URI, forwarding the media request to a Text-To-Speech server;

caching speech audio generated by the Text-To-Speech server according to cache directives; and

returning the speech audio to the call router.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising forwarding the speech audio to a transcoding proxy server and converting the speech audio to a telephony compatible media format prior to caching the speech audio.

16. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

if a telephony compatible media resource is identified in the cache by the persistent URI, forwarding the cached media resource to the call router;

if a telephony compatible media resource is not identified in the cache by the persistent URI, retrieving the media from the external server, wherein HTTPS is used for network communication between the media layer and the external server and HTTP is used for network communication within the media layer and between the call router and the media layer;

if the media requires conversion, converting the media to a telephony compatible media format with the transcoding proxy server;

caching the telephony compatible media according to cache directives; and

returning the telephony compatible media to the call router.

17. A system for caching media used in a telephony applications comprising:

a call router that receives media requests, and handles application communication between a telephony device and an application server;

a media layer that is an intermediary layer between the call router and application resources, that uses an HTTP messaging protocol, the media layer including;

a cache server that stores telephony compatible media; and

a media processing server that processes the media request to create telephony compatible media.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising a Media Layer API that provides programmatic access of the media layer from an external service.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the media processing server is a Text-To-Speech server that converts text to speech audio.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the media processing server is a transcoding proxy server that converts between media types.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the media processing server includes a Text-To-Speech server that converts text to an audio recording and a transcoding proxy server that converts media to a telephony compatible format.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the media layer independently scales cache servers, Text-To-Speech servers, and transcoding proxy servers, and the media layer includes a load balancer that automatically manages the capacity of the servers of the media layer.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein HTTPS is used for network communication between the media layer and the application server and HTTP is used for network communication within the media layer and between the call router and the media layer.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the cache stores media in an external server.