DISTRIBUTED ROUTING OF CONFERENCES USING CONFERENCE IDENTIFIER

• US 20100223334A1
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Published: 09/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sekaran, Dhigha, Yan, Hao, Narayanan, Sankaran, Vermette, Charles A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,005,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/604 Address structures or formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5069 for group communication, multicast communication or broadcast communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Users attempting to join a conference facilitated by an enhanced communication system employing a network communication protocol such as SIP and having a distributed architecture are enabled to request the conference through a numeric conference identifier. The conference directory identifier is assigned to an associated resource, rather than directly to a pool of resources in the communication system. If a pool is decommissioned, any conference directories with remaining data may be assigned to other pools, like users may be moved, to ensure continuity of the system.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for facilitating conferencing in a distributed communication system, the method comprising:

receiving a request to join a conference, the request including a numeric conference identifier associated with the conference;

determining a conference resource associated with the requested conference based on decoding the numeric conference identifier, wherein the conference resource is part of a distributed architecture of conference resources;

contacting the determined conference resource employing an enhanced network communication protocol; and

facilitating the conference if the contacted conference resource is capable of providing requested conference services.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

encoding the numeric conference identifier for the conference based on a combination of a conference directory identifier assigned to the conference resource and a local identifier at conference scheduling time; and

providing the numeric conference identifier to a user invited to join the conference.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the local identifier is a combination of a recently used identifier with a random number.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the combination of the conference directory identifier assigned to the conference resource and the local identifier are formatted according to a predefined algorithm to derive the numeric conference number such that the numeric conference identifier is a pseudo-random number unique to the requested conference.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

decoding the numeric conference identifier employing a predefined inverse algorithm.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the enhanced network communication protocol is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the conference resource includes determining a SIP Universal Resource Identifier (URI) of the conference resource.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference resource is part of a Unified Communication (UC) system, and wherein the request is received from subscriber of a non-UC network.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the non-UC network includes one of:

a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and a cellular phone network.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference includes one of an audio conference and a video conference.

11. A communication system for facilitating conferencing within a Unified Communication (UC) network with distributed resource architecture, the system comprising:

a plurality of communication servers configured to facilitate multi-modal communications including conferencing between end-points of the system employing Session Initiation Protocol (SIP);

a mediation server configured to facilitate communication with the plurality of communication servers employing SIP;

a Conference Auto Attendant (CAA) endpoint receiving communications from non-UC network, the CAA endpoint configured to;

receive a request to join a conference from a non-UC network caller, the request including a numeric conference identifier associated with the conference;

determine a communication server associated with the requested conference based on decoding the numeric conference identifier according to a predefined algorithm;

contact the determined communication server; and

facilitate the conference if the contacted communication server is capable of providing requested conference services.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the numeric conference identifier is generated at conference scheduling time employing a logical inverse of the predefined algorithm by combining a numeric identifier assigned to the communication server and a random number, and formatting the combination to derive the numeric conference identifier unique to the conference.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the reverse algorithm includes:

appending a ceiling function of a logarithm of the numeric identifier and the random number to generate a string of digits;

reversing the digits in the string of digits, wherein a first and a last digit in the string of digits remain in their place if the last digit is zero; and

replacing the digits with a combination of themselves and a digit to their left, wherein the first digit remains unchanged.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein

the numeric conference identifier is a pseudo-random number designed to increase a user confidence in uniqueness of the number;

a first digit of the numeric conference identifier is a non-zero digit; and

a plurality of conferences managed by the same communication server are assigned numeric conference identifier appearing to be unrelated.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the CAA endpoint is further configured to:

contact another communication server in response to one of;

receiving a notification from a first contacted communication server that the server is not responsible for the requested conference and receiving a notification that the first contacted communication server is not responsive.

16. The system of claim 11, further comprising a UC database server configured to store and retrieve issued numeric conference identifiers.

17. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for facilitating conferencing within a Unified Communication (UC) network with distributed resource architecture, the instructions comprising:

encoding a numeric conference identifier for a scheduled conference employing a predefined algorithm based on a combination of a conference directory identifier assigned to a conference resource responsible for the scheduled conference and a local identifier;

receiving a request to join the scheduled conference from a non-UC network caller, the request including the numeric conference identifier associated with the conference;

determining a SIP URI of the responsible conference resource associated with the requested conference based on decoding the numeric conference identifier employing an inverse of the predefined algorithm;

contacting the determined conference resource; and

facilitating the conference upon receiving an affirmative response from the contacted conference resource.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the request to join the scheduled conference is received and validated at a CAA endpoint prior to decoding of the numeric conference identifier.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the numeric conference identifier is a number unique to the scheduled conference with a non-zero first digit formatted such that a plurality of conferences associated with the same conference resource are assigned numeric conference identifiers that appear unrelated.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the conference is a multi-modal conference.