Webserver with telephony hosting function

• US 7,688,805 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2005
• Issued: 03/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simons, David, Bearon, Anthony, Ramakrishna, Anand
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsang; Fan
• Assistant Examiner(s): PATEL, HEMANT SHANTILAL
• Application Number:
  US11/095,775
• Publication Number:
  US 20060222166A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,825 Days
• Field of Search: 370351-356, 379 8817- 8818, 379/201.01, 455/445, 455/453, 709201-203, 709/208, 709227-229, 709/239, 709242-243
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML
• 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

Abstract

A telephony application host has a web service environment and a telephony application proxy. The web service environment is adapted to host one or more instances of a telephony application. The telephony application proxy is adapted to receive telephony messages associated with the one or more instances of the telephony application and to proxy each received telephony message into a web request. The telephony application is adapted to process the web request within the web service environment.

Claims

1. A telephony application host comprising:

a memory;

a processor communicatively coupled to the memory for executing instructions stored on the memory for implementing the following;

a web service environment adapted to host one or more instances of a telephony application; and

a telephony application proxy adapted to;

receive telephony-related messages associated with the one or more instances of the telephony application;

proxy a received telephony message into a web request to instantiate a particular instance of the telephony application;

manage a call state by ensuring that the particular instance of the telephony application is associated with a particular call related to the received telephony message to manage multiple invocations of a web service throughout the particular call, the particular call comprising a communication session between a first user device and another user device; and

instruct an access point associated with the particular call to route subsequent messages of the call directly to the particular instance of the telephony application.

2. The telephony application host of claim 1 further comprising:

computer readable application code stored in the memory of the telephony application host.

3. The telephony application host of claim 1 wherein the telephony application host comprises a web server.

4. The telephony application host of claim 1 wherein the telephony application proxy is coupled to the web service environment and adapted to associate each proxied web request with a selected instance of the one or more instances of the telephony application.

5. The telephony application host of claim 4 and further comprising:

a pool of active application instances representative of the one or more instances of the telephony application that are active in the web services environment.

6. The telephony application host of claim 5 wherein the telephony application host is adapted to interact with the pool of active application instances to return a unique instance of the active application corresponding to a specific request related to the received telephony message.

7. The telephony application host of claim 1 and further comprising:

a listener application instantiated within the telephony application proxy and adapted to make web requests into the telephony application host to activate an outbound call.

8. A method for managing telephony sessions comprising:

hosting one or more instances of a telephony application in a web service environment, the telephony application comprising a processor-executable set of instructions adapted to control telephony devices including telephone devices and computing devices adapted to voice communications, the telephony application to control voice connections via a web-based service, each of the one or more instances corresponds to an incoming call identifier;

receiving a first telephony message with a first call identifier from a first communication device to access a web service from a plurality of web services;

proxying the first telephony message into a first web-based message including the first call identifier to instantiate a first instance of a selected web-application associated with the web service in response to receiving the first telephony message;

sending a first re-direct message to a first access point associated with the first communication device to route all subsequent messages with the first call identifier to the first instance of the selected web application;

receiving a second telephony message with a second call identifier from a second communication device to access the web service;

proxying the second telephony message into a second web-based message including the second call identifier to instantiate a second instance of the selected web-application in response to receiving the second telephony message;

sending a second re-direct message to a second access point associated with the second communication device to route all subsequent messages with the second call identifier to the second instance of the selected web application; and

maintaining the first and second instances of the selected web-application for reuse with respect to the first and second communication devices to manage multiple invocations of the web service based on the first and second call identifiers;

wherein the first telephony message is related to a call between the first communication device and another user device.

9. The method of claim 8 and further comprising passing the web-based message to the web service environment.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of hosting further comprises:

maintaining an active application instance pool comprising the first and second instances of the web-based application, each instance within the active application instance pool is associated with a respective call identifier.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein each invocation of the web service has an associated call identifier, the method further comprising:

searching the active application instance pool for the incoming call identifier that matches the associated call identifier of the invocation; and

returning the particular instance of the telephony application if a match is found.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein each invocation of the web service has an associated call identifier, the method further comprising:

searching the active application instance pool for the incoming call identifier that matches the associated call identifier of the invocation;

creating an application instance within the web service environment if a match is not found; and

adding the incoming call identifier of the created application instance to the active application instance pool.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein a state of each telephony session is managed via an active application instance pool based on the incoming call identifier.

14. A system for hosting telephone calls over a network, the system comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory and for executing instructions stored on the memory for implementing the following;

a web server having a web service environment for hosting one or more web services;

a telephony application proxy adapted to communicate with a telephony access point and to proxy telephony messages from a communication device into web requests, each web request including call identification information associated with the communication device; and

a telephony application web service adapted to instantiate a telephony application to operate on the web requests within the web service environment in response to receiving a web request from the telephony application proxy;

wherein the telephone application proxy manages a call state between a first user device and another user device by utilizing the instantiated telephony application to service each of the web requests for the communication device throughout a particular call;

wherein the telephony application proxy is configured to transmit a re-direct message to an access point instructing the access point to route subsequent messages with the call identification information directly to the telephony application.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein an instance of the telephony application web service is associated with each in-coming call based on an unique call identifier.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the call identification information comprises an unique number associated with the communication device.

17. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

a telephony application host adapted to receive the web requests and to associate each web request to a unique instance of the telephony application web service based on the call identification information contained within the web request.

18. The system of claim 17 further comprising:

an active application instance pool comprising an active list of unique instances of the telephony application web service, each unique instance having a unique identifier, wherein telephony application host interacts with the active application instance pool to associate each web request with its associated unique instance based on a correspondence between the call identification information and the unique identifier.

19. The system of claim 14 and further comprising:

a listener application instantiated within the telephony application proxy and adapted to make web requests into the web server to activate an outbound call.

20. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

computer readable application code stored in a memory of the system comprising a telephony application providing a particular web service.