Method and system for a multitenancy telephone network

• US 8,315,369 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2010
• Issued: 11/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Inventors: Lawson, Jeffrey, Wolthuis, John, Cooke, Evan
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Quynh
• Application Number:
  US12/716,127
• Publication Number:
  US 20100232594A1
• Time in Patent Office: 994 Days
• Field of Search: 379/220.01, 379/265.09
• US Class Current: 379/220.01
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2564 for a higher-layer protocol, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• 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 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2473 Telephone terminals interfacing a personal computer, e.g. using an API (Application Programming Interface) details of API H04M7/0021
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/34 Charging, billing or metering arrangements for private branch exchanges
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/39 using speech synthesis speech synthesis per se G10L13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/40 using speech recognition speech recognition per se G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/36 Statistical metering, e.g. recording occasions when traffic exceeds capacity of trunks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/367 Traffic or load control
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5158 in combination with automated outdialling systems devices for signalling identity of wanted subscriber H04M1/26
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5235 Dependent on call type or called number [DNIS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0033 Notification or handling of incoming calls by a computer
• 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: Y02D 10/00 : Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A method and system for operating a multitenancy telephony system including a call queue that stores call requests received from a plurality of users; an expandable and contractible telephony resource cluster that establishes call sessions for call requests; a analysis system that calculates capacity requirements of the system; a resource allocator that manages the scaling and operation of the telephony resource cluster; and a plurality of telephony network channels that are used as telephony communication channels for call sessions.

Claims

1. A system for operating a multitenancy telephony system comprising:

a call queue that stores call requests received from a plurality of users, wherein the call requests are ordered in the call queue according to a user inter-request rate limit and a user cap on the maximum number of requests in a specified time for a user;

a scalable telephony resource cluster that establishes call sessions for call requests;

an analysis system that calculates capacity requirements of the system;

a resource allocator that manages the scaling and operation of the telephony resource cluster; and

a plurality of telephony network channels that are used as telephony communication channels for call sessions.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis system receives call queue data to calculate capacity requirements and wherein the resource allocator additionally manages allocation and operation of a plurality of call queues.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein a call request is received from a telephony application, and wherein the analysis system analyzes the telephony application for capacity requirements, accesses past capacity requirement data, and monitors current capacity loads to calculate the capacity requirements of the system.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the call queue includes an additional queue for telephony message requests.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony resource cluster includes a plurality of allocated telephony network channels that are a subset of the plurality of telephony network channels;

and the resource allocator includes a distributed call controller that scales the number of allocated telephony network channels and connects call requests to a channel of the allocated telephony network channels.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the telephony resource cluster includes a plurality of telephony resources.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the plurality of telephony resources includes a plurality of call routers, wherein a call router makes and receives telephony communications through the telephony network channels and communicates with an application server of the user using an application layer protocol.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a call router network that is a data channel between at least two call routers.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising a service application that coordinates the operation of a telephony application that includes at least two call sessions on at least two call routers.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the telephony resource cluster includes a plurality of allocated telephony network channels that are a subset of the plurality of telephony network channels;

and the resource allocator includes a distributed call controller that scales the number of allocated telephony network channels and connects call requests to a channel of the allocated telephony network channels.

11. A method, performed by a telephony network having a static number of telephony channels, comprising the steps of:

providing network access to users;

receiving call requests from a subset of the users;

selecting a subset of the received call requests using a load balancer;

assigning each selected call request to a unique call router;

creating a call session for each selected call request using the assigned call routers;

selecting a subset of the created call sessions using the distributed call controller; and

assigning each selected call session to a unique telephony channel;

wherein the number of users with network access is allowed to exceed the number of telephony channels, and the number of call requests received is allowed to exceed the number of telephony channels.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the user is an application server running a telephony application.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising placing the received call requests into a call queue.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising ordering the call queue based on an inter-request rate limit and a maximum number of requests in a specified time cap of a user.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising calculating network capacity requirements based on the call queue.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising calculating network capacity requirements by analyzing the telephony application, accessing past capacity requirements data, and monitoring current capacity loads.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the call request is a telephony message request, and further comprising placing the telephony message request into a message queue.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising allocating a subset of the telephony channels as outbound channels.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising allocating a subset of network resources as call routers.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising communicating between the application server and the call router according to an application layer protocol.

21. The method of claim 12, further comprising coordinating a plurality of call sessions belonging to a single telephony application, wherein the plurality of call sessions are assigned to a plurality of call routers.