System and Method for Elastic Scaling in a Push to Talk (PTT) Platform using User Affinity Groups

• US 20160205519A1
• Filed: 01/13/2016
• Published: 07/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kodiak Networks Inc (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Kodiak Networks Inc (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Patel, Krishnakant M., Kandula, Ramu, Vempati, Brahmananda R., Negalaguli, Harisha Mahabaleshwara, Chandana, Pratap
• Granted Patent: US 9,775,008 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0897 by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5041 characterised by the time relationship between creation and deployment of a service
• 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 65/1073 Registration or de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4061 Push-to services, e.g. push-to-talk or push-to-video
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/10 Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-On-Call services

Abstract

An embodiment method includes receiving, by a first push-to-talk (PTT) service hosted on a processor, a session initiation request from a PTT client of a user and identifying, by the first PTT service, a user affinity group of the user. The user is assigned to the user affinity group in accordance with a prediction the user will communicate with first users in the user affinity group more frequently than second users in different user affinity groups. The method further includes determining, by the first PTT service, a PTT call server for the user affinity group. The PTT call server serves the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a first push-to-talk (PTT) service hosted on a processor, a session initiation request from a PTT client of a user;

identifying, by the first PTT service, a user affinity group of the user, wherein the user is assigned to the user affinity group in accordance with a prediction the user will communicate with first users in the user affinity group more frequently than second users in different user affinity groups; and

determining, by the first PTT service, a PTT call server for the user affinity group, wherein the PTT call server serves the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is assigned to the user affinity group, by a user activity tracker system, in accordance with heuristic analysis of historic calling patterns of the user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the historic calling patterns are determined in accordance with call logs provided by a plurality of PTT call servers, wherein the PTT call server is one of the plurality of PTT call servers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user is assigned to the user affinity group, by a user activity tracker system, in accordance with a group membership pattern of the user.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user is assigned to a user affinity group having a higher number of connections through group membership relations when the user qualifies for more than one user affinity group.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the PTT call server comprises a pool of dedicated media servers, and wherein the PTT call server places session initiation requests of the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group on a same media server of the pool of dedicated media servers when the same media server comprises sufficient resources to accommodate all the session initiation requests.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the PTT call server places a first portion of the session initiation requests of the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group on the same media server of the pool of dedicated media servers and a second portion of the session initiation requests of the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group on a different media server of the pool of dedicated media servers when the same media server does not comprise sufficient resources to accommodate all the session initial requests.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the PTT call server for the user affinity group comprises assigning the user affinity group to the PTT call server in accordance with processing loads of a plurality of PTT call servers at a deployment site, wherein the PTT call server is one of the plurality of PTT call servers.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising determining the processing loads in accordance with performance indicator metrics of the plurality of PTT call servers, wherein the performance indicator metrics include PTT call setup latency, a number of active pre-established PTT sessions, a number of active PTT calls, a number of active PTT call legs, a number of media codec resources in active use, or a combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the PTT call server comprises:

triggering creation of the PTT call server at a deployment site when none of PTT call servers at the deployment site have sufficient capacity for the user affinity group; and

assigning the user affinity group to the PTT call server.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising reassigning the user affinity group to a different PTT call server when the PTT call server assigned to the user affinity group is overloaded.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, by a second PTT service, a registration request from the PTT client; and

assigning, by the second PTT service, the PTT client to a first deployment site, wherein the first deployment site is one of a plurality of geographically diverse deployment sites of a PTT platform providing a PTT service to the user.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein assigning the PTT client to the first deployment site is in accordance with a geographic proximity of the PTT client to the first deployment site.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein assigning the PTT client to the first deployment site is in accordance with a weighted round robin scheme, wherein a weight assigned to each of the plurality of geographically diverse deployment sites is proportional to an available spare load bearing capacity of a respective one of the plurality of geographically diverse deployment sites.

15. The method of claim 12 further comprising redirecting the PTT client to a second deployment site of the user affinity group when the first deployment site is different than the second deployment site.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

selecting potential deployment sites for each PTT client of the first users belonging to the user affinity group, wherein selecting the potential deployment sites is independent from the user affinity group; and

assigning the second deployment site for the user affinity group, wherein the second deployment site is one of the potential deployment sites selected for a greatest number of PTT clients of the first users belonging to the user affinity group.

17. The method of claim 12 further comprising reassigning the PTT client to a second deployment site when the first deployment site fails, wherein the second deployment site is a different one of plurality of geographically diverse deployment sites than the first deployment site.

18. The method of claim 1 further comprising, transmitting, by the PTT call server, a reconnect message to the PTT client to re-establish a pre-established PTT session when the PTT call server detects the PTT client is online and has no active pre-established PTT sessions.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the PTT call server transmits the reconnect message to the PTT client when the user affinity group is assigned to the PTT call server.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the PTT call server transmits the reconnect message when another PTT client makes a PTT call to the PTT client.

21. A push-to-talk (PTT) platform component comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable storage medium storing programming for execution by the processor, the programming including instructions to;

host a session initiation protocol (SIP) proxy service;

receive a SIP INVITE request from a PTT client of a user;

identify a user affinity group of the user, wherein the user is assigned to the user affinity group in accordance with a prediction the user will communicate with first users in the user affinity group more frequently than second users in different user affinity groups; and

determine a PTT call server for to the user affinity group, wherein the PTT call server serves the user and the first users belonging to the user affinity group.

22. The PTT platform component of claim 21, wherein the user is assigned to the user affinity group, by a user activity tracker system, in accordance with heuristic analysis of historic calling patterns of the user, group membership patterns of the user, or a combination thereof.

23. The PTT platform component of claim 21, wherein the PTT call server is a virtual PTT call service encapsulated in one or more containers and hosted on one or more processors.

24. The PTT platform component of claim 21, wherein the instructions to determine the PTT call server comprises further instructions to assign the user affinity group to the PTT call server in accordance with processing loads of a plurality of PTT call servers at a deployment site, wherein the PTT call server is one of the plurality of PTT call servers.

25. A push-to-talk (PTT) platform comprising:

a plurality of service clusters, wherein each of the plurality of service clusters provides a different function, and wherein the plurality of service clusters includes;

a session initiation protocol (SIP) proxy service encapsulated in a first container cluster and hosted on one or more first processors, wherein the SIP proxy service is configured to;

receive a session initiation request from a PTT client of a user;

identify a user affinity group of the user; and

determine a first PTT call server for to the user affinity group, wherein the first PTT call server serves all users belonging to the user affinity group and assigned to a deployment site where the first PTT call server is located;

a plurality of PTT call servers, wherein each PTT call server of the plurality of PTT call servers is encapsulated in a second container cluster and hosted on one or more second processors, and wherein the first PTT call server is one of the plurality of PTT call servers; and

a user activity tracker encapsulated in a third container cluster and hosted on one or more third processors, wherein the user activity tracker is configured to assign the user to the user affinity group;

a service orchestrator configured to scale a capacity of the PTT platform in accordance with one or more PTT service metrics.

26. The PTT platform of claim 25, wherein the user activity tracker assigns the user to the user affinity group in accordance with heuristic analysis of historic calling patterns of the user, group membership patterns of the user, or a combination thereof.

27. The PTT platform of claim 25, wherein service orchestrator automatically substitutes a malfunctioning container in the PTT platform with a new container.