CONFERENCE RECONSTRUCTION IN SIP NETWORKS

• US 20170019437A1
• Filed: 07/17/2015
• Published: 01/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Arlington Technologies, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Avaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Phadnis, Mohan Vinayak, Nemani, Sreekanth Subrahmanya
• Granted Patent: US 10,601,880 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• 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

Abstract

During a Session Initiation Protocol dialog setup, the user agent sends an INVITE message with an SDP offer to the conference controller, and the conference controller provides to a media gateway a unique session identifier, a unique conference identifier, and optionally at least one of feature information and/or policy information. If the conference controller restarts, the media gateway may provide the conference controller the unique session identifier, the unique conference identifier, and the optional feature and/or policy information. The conference controller may then generate an out-of-dialog SIP REFER message that includes the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier and provide the message to the user agent. The user agent, upon receiving the REFER message, may identify a dialog needing replacing, and may provide the conference controller a new INVITE message that allows the conference controller to reconstruct the SIP dialog and optional feature and/or policy information if needed.

Claims

1. A method of managing a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) dialog between a network element and a conference controller, the method comprising:

determining that a signaling-disrupting event has occurred during a SIP conference call; and

reestablishing the SIP dialog between the network element and the conference controller.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein reestablishing the SIP dialog between the network element and the conference controller includes:

receiving at the network element, an out-of-dialog SIP REFER message including a Request-URI header, the Request-URI header including a unique conference identifier; and

sending, by the network element, an INVITE message to a device associated with the unique conference identifier.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

receiving, at the network element, a unique session identifier;

identifying a dialog based on the unique session identifier; and

terminating the identified dialog.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the identified dialog is for a call that is in a connection preserved state for the SIP conference call.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the conference controller, an INVITE message from the network element, the INVITE message including a session description protocol (SDP) offer.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

receiving, at the conference controller, a second INVITE message from the network element, the second INVITE message including the same SDP offer.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

receiving, at the conference controller, a unique session identifier and a unique conference identifier; and

generating, by the conference controller, a SIP REFER message including the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier are received in response to determining that the signaling-disrupting event has occurred during the SIP conference call.

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at a media gateway, a unique session identifier per ephemeral termination, wherein at least one media path is active between the media gateway and the network element.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

receiving, at the media gateway, a unique conference identifier; and

associating the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier to an ephemeral termination.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein when the SIP conference call spans multiple media gateways, the unique conference identifier is provided to all terminations for the SIP conference call on each one of the multiple media gateways.

12. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

providing the unique conference identifier, the unique session identifier, and a plurality of contexts within the media gateway having the unique conference identifier and the unique session identifier to the conference controller.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising:

receiving, at the media gateway, at least one of feature information and policy information; and

providing the at least one of feature information and policy information to the conference controller.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the conference controller, an INVITE message from the network element, the INVITE message including a session description protocol (SDP) offer;

generating a unique session identifier and a unique conference identifier;

providing the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier to a media gateway, wherein at least one media path is active between the media gateway and the network element;

in response to determining that the signaling-disrupting event has occurred during the SIP conference call;

receiving, at the conference controller, the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier;

generating, by the conference controller, an out-of-dialog SIP REFER message including a Request-URI header, the Request-URI header including the unique conference identifier; and

receiving, at the conference controller, a second INVITE message from the network element, the second INVITE message including the same SDP offer.

15. A system comprising:

a conference controller including;

a processor; and

memory including one or more instructions that when executed by the processor, enable the conference controller to;

determine that a signaling-disrupting event has occurred during a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) conference call; and

reestablish a SIP dialog between a network element and the conference controller.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the network element includes a SIP user agent.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the conference controller is further configured to:

receive a unique session identifier and a unique conference identifier; and

generate a SIP REFER message including the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier in at least one header of the SIP REFER message.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the unique session identifier and the unique conference identifier are received in response to determining that the signaling-disrupting event has occurred during the SIP conference call.

19. The system according to claim 15, wherein the unique session ID is received per ephemeral termination for a media gateway.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions that cause a processor to execute a method, the instructions comprising:

one or more instructions to establish a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) dialog between a SIP user agent and a conference controller;

one or more instructions to determine that a signaling-disrupting event has occurred during a SIP conference call having the established SIP dialog; and

one or more instructions to reestablish the SIP dialog between the SIP user agent and the conference controller.