METHODS, SYSTEMS AND DEVICES FOR FORKED ROUTING

• US 20120158995A1
• Filed: 12/01/2011
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Openet Telecom Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Openet Telecom Limited (Amdocs Ltd.)
• Inventors: McNamee, Alan, Dunne, Cameron Ross, McCann, Fergus, O'Sullivan, Michael, Byrne, Niall, Hogan, Joe
• Granted Patent: US 8,725,896 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/238
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/304 Route determination for signalling traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1004 Server selection for load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1044 Group management mechanisms management of multicast group membership H04L12/185; reconfiguring of node membership in a computing system to eliminate errors G06F11/1425
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• 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 67/5651 Reducing the amount or size of exchanged application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• 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

Methods, servers and systems for communicating signaling information in a policy and charging control network within a telecommunications signaling network, may include receiving a message encoding signaling information in a dynamic context router operating at the application layer. The dynamic context router may determine whether the received message is to be replicated, and if so, the dynamic context router may identify a primary destination to which the received message is to be sent and secondary destinations to which replicated messages (“fork-routed messages”) are to be sent. The message may be replicated into multiple fork-routed messages, with the original message sent to the primary destination and the fork-routed messages sent to secondary destination components. The replicated fork-routed messages may be the same as or different from the received message, and may be sent using the same protocol or different protocols.

Claims

1. A method of communicating signaling information in a telecommunications signaling network, comprising:

receiving, in a processor, a message encoding signaling information from a source component;

identifying a primary destination component to which the received message is to be sent;

determining if the received message is to be fork-routed in which the received message is also sent to at least one secondary destination component;

identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent;

replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages if it is determined that the received message is to be fork-routed;

sending the received message to the identified primary destination component; and

sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using application level information from within the received message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using contextual information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages differs from the received message due to the amount of information present in the fork routed message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages is generated in a format different from a format of the other fork-routed messages.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components comprises transmitting each of the multiple fork-routed messages such that a different protocol is used for at least one of the transmitted messages.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components causes at least one secondary destination component to generate at least one response message; and

the method further comprises;

identifying two or more response messages generated from a single fork-routed message; and

discarding redundant response messages.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the response messages are Diameter messages.

9. A server configured for communicating signaling information in a telecommunications signaling network, comprising:

a processor configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising;

receiving a message encoding signaling information from a source component;

identifying a primary destination component to which the received message is to be sent;

determining if the received message is to be fork-routed in which the received message is also sent to at least one secondary destination component;

identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent;

replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages if it is determined that the received message is to be fork-routed;

sending the received message to the identified primary destination component; and

sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components.

10. The server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using application level information from within the received message.

11. The server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using contextual information.

12. The server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages differs from the received message due to the amount of information present in the fork routed message.

13. The server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages is generated in a format different from a format of the other fork-routed messages.

14. The server of claim 9, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components comprises transmitting each of the multiple fork-routed messages such that a different protocol is used for at least one of the transmitted messages.

15. The server of claim 9, wherein:

the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components causes at least one secondary destination component to generate at least one response message; and

the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations further comprising;

identifying two or more response messages generated from a single fork-routed message; and

discarding redundant response messages.

16. The server of claim 15, wherein the processor is configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations such that the response messages are Diameter messages.

17. A non-transitory server-readable storage medium having stored thereon server-executable instructions configured to cause a server to perform operations for communicating signaling information in a telecommunications signaling network, the operations comprising:

receiving a message encoding signaling information from a source component;

identifying a primary destination component to which the received message is to be sent;

determining if the received message is to be fork-routed in which the received message is also sent to at least one secondary destination component;

identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent;

replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages if it is determined that the received message is to be fork-routed;

sending the received message to the identified primary destination component; and

sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components.

18. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using application level information from within the received message.

19. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that each of determining if the received message is to be fork-routed and identifying secondary destination components to which fork-routed messages are to be sent comprises using contextual information.

20. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages differs from the received message due to the amount of information present in the fork routed message.

21. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that replicating the received message into multiple fork-routed messages comprises replicating the received message such that at least one of the multiple fork-routed messages is generated in a format different from a format of the other fork-routed messages.

22. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components comprises transmitting each of the multiple fork-routed messages such that a different protocol is used for at least one of the transmitted messages.

23. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein:

the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that sending each of the multiple fork-routed messages to at least one of the identified secondary destination components causes at least one secondary destination component to generate at least one response message; and

the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations further comprising;

identifying two or more response messages generated from a single fork-routed message; and

discarding redundant response messages.

24. The non-transitory server-readable storage medium of claim 23, wherein the stored server-executable instructions are configured to cause a server processor to perform operations such that the response messages are Diameter messages.