PHASE BASED PRIORITIZATION OF IMS SIGNALING MESSAGES FOR OVERLOAD THROTTLING

• US 20110258261A1
• Filed: 04/15/2010
• Published: 10/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Zilbershtein, Itai E., Spector, Pesah, Levy, Noa
• Granted Patent: US 8,589,498 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2416 Real-time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/32 by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing overload protection in a communications system are provided. More particularly, an importance or priority rating of a message received at a communication server is determined. If the communications system is in an overload state, and if the importance rating of the received message is not sufficiently high, overload protection is applied. Overload protection can include denying service to a requested or in process communications system associated with the message.

Claims

1. A method of providing overload protection in a communication system, comprising:

determining whether a communication system overload condition is present in the communication system;

determining an importance rating of a first communication session message associated with the communication system;

in response to determining an overload condition and an importance rating for the first communication session message that is less than one of an importance rating of a second communication session message or a first threshold, applying a throttling procedure to the first communication session.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing an ingress/egress module;

providing a communication server, wherein the ingress/egress module is running on the communication server, wherein the ingress/egress module determines the importance rating of the first communication session message.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the ingress/egress module applies the throttling procedure to the first communication session.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the throttling procedure includes generating a service unavailable message.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining an importance rating of a second communication session message associated with the communication system;

comparing the importance rating of the first communication session message to the importance rating of the second communication session message, wherein the importance rating of the first communication session message is less than the importance rating of the second communication session message.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining an importance rating of a second communication session message associated with the communication system;

comparing the importance rating of the first communication session message and the importance rating of the second communication session message to a threshold importance rating, wherein the importance rating of the first communication session message is less than the threshold importance rating.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein neither the importance rating of the first communication session message nor the importance rating of the second communication session message is at least a threshold amount, and wherein an overload protection procedure is applied to the second communication session in addition to the first communication session.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the importance rating of the first communication session message to a threshold importance rating, wherein the importance rating of the first communication session message is less than the threshold importance rating.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the importance rating for the first communication session message is determined from a phase of the first communication session message.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the importance rating for the first communication session message is determined by the number of communication system resources assigned to the communication session being established in connection with the first communication session message.

11. A communication system, comprising:

a first communication device;

a first communication server, wherein the first communication device is interconnected to the first communication server;

application programming running on at least one of the first communication server and a second communication server, wherein the application programming;

determines whether a communication system overload condition is present in the communication system,

determines an importance rating of a communication session message associated with the communication system,

in response to determining an overload condition and a first importance rating for the first communication session message, executes an overload procedure.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a communication network;

a first communication server, wherein the communication session message is provided to the first communication server by the communication network.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the application programming includes a plurality of applications.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of applications include an ingress/egress module.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the overload procedure is performed at least in part by the ingress/egress module, and wherein the overload procedure includes sending a service unavailable message to the first communication device.

16. A communication server, comprising:

a network interface;

memory;

a processor;

application programming executed by the processor in association with the memory,

wherein the application determines an importance rating of a first communication session message received by the application programming through the network interface,

wherein the application determines an importance rating of a second communication session message received by the application programming through the network interface,

wherein the application identifies the one of the first or second communication session messages having a lower importance rating,

wherein an overload procedure is applied in connection with the one of the first or second communication session messages having the lower importance rating.

17. The communication server of claim 16, wherein the overload procedure includes sending a service unavailable message to a first communication device interconnected to the communication server through a communication network interconnected to the network interface, and wherein the first communication device is associated with the one of the first or second communication session messages having the lower importance rating.

18. The communication server of claim 16, wherein the phase of the first communication session message is greater than the phase of the second communication session message, wherein the second communication session message has a lower importance rating than the first communication session message, and wherein the overload procedure is applied with respect to the communication session set up associated with the second communication session.

19. The communication server of claim 18, wherein the overload procedure includes terminating the communication session set up associated with the second communication session.

20. The communication server of claim 16, wherein the first and second communication session messages include session initiation protocol (SIP) messages, wherein the first and second communications session messages are part of first and second communications sessions respectively, and wherein the first and second communications sessions have different importance ratings.