Arbitration server for determining remediation measures in response to an error message from a content provider

• US 8,972,587 B1
• Filed: 12/20/2012
• Issued: 03/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Reeves, Raymond Emilio, Youngs, Simon, Koller, Gary Duane
• Primary Examiner(s): CHANNAVAJJALA, SRIRAMA T
• Application Number:
  US13/722,694
• Time in Patent Office: 803 Days
• Field of Search: 719314-315, 707691-694, 707698-699, 707/758, 707/825, 726 10- 12, 709/203, 709/206, 709215-220, 709/223, 709/227, 709/237, 370242-245, 370/229, 370/252, 711/118, 711/125
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/00 Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units interface circuits for specific input/output devices G06F3/00 ; multiprogram control therefor G06F9/46; multiprocessor systems G06F15/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• 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

A system and media are provided for applying a policy associated with a content provider to handle an error message received from the content provider in response to a request from a user device. An error reply from the content provider in response to the request from the user device is received at a gateway, A reply to the user device is generated based on the error reply. The reply to the user device includes an indication of one or more user-agent measures for the user device to take. The user-agent measures are selected from: (A) updating a durable resource identifier to point to a new location for a resource, (B) updating a service identifier to point to a new provider of the service, (C) modifying an existing caching policy for the content provider, and (D) retrying the request at a specified future time.

Claims

1. A system for applying a policy associated with a content provider to handle an error message received from the content provider in response to a request from a user, wherein the policy includes a remediation measure, the system comprising:

a gateway that includes one or more processing devices, wherein the gateway is configured to

A) forward user requests from users to content providers,

B) receive an error message from a content provider in response to a user request forwarded to the content provider,

C) check a cache of remediation measures for an applicable remediation measure to handle the error message based on one or more details of the error message,

D) when the applicable remediation measure is not found in the cache, then request the applicable remediation measure from an arbitration server, and

E) apply the applicable remediation measure in response to receiving the error message;

an arbitration server that includes one or more processing devices, wherein the arbitration server is configured to

A) receive the arbitration request from the gateway,

B) update an error database server with the one or more details of the error message,

C) retrieve from an arbitration database the applicable remediation measure, and

D) send the applicable remediation measure to the gateway; and

the error database server that includes one or more processing devices, wherein the error database server is configured to

A) store the one or more details of error messages received from a plurality of arbitration servers,

B) store remediation measures,

C) determine the applicable remediation measure based on the one or more details of the error message, and

D) send the applicable remediation measure to the arbitration server in response to the arbitration request from the arbitration server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more details of the error message include one or more of an identification of the user or an identification of the content provider.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the arbitration server is further configured to

A) check the error database server for a count of errors associated with the content provider, and

B) when the count exceeds a specified threshold, push a remediation policy to the gateway.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the arbitration server is further configured to

determine, on the basis of an existing arbitration agreement with the content provider, a user-agent measure for the user device to perform in response to the error, the user-agent measure selected from the set consisting of

A) update a durable resource identifier to point to a new location for the resource,

B) update a service identifier to point to a new provider of the service,

C) modify an existing caching policy for the content provider, and

D) resubmit the request at a specified future time;

and

include the user-agent measure in the applicable remediation measure.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the arbitration server is further configured to

determine, on the basis of an existing arbitration agreement with the content provider, one or more injunction measures the content provider is obligated to perform to remediate the error, the one or more injunction measures selected from the set consisting of:

A) alter an error message to conform to a specified format;

B) remove a hyperlink that points to a removed resource;

C) update a hyperlink that points to a relocated resource to point to an updated location for the resource; and

D) restore availability of a nonresponsive server; and

send an arbitration injunction that includes the one or more injunction measures to the content provider.

6. The computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein the arbitration injunction further includes one or more punitive actions to perform if the content provider fails to conform to the arbitration injunction.

7. The computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein the arbitration server is further configured to

A) receive a remediation notice indicating that the error has been corrected subsequent to the arbitration injunction sent to the content provider, and

B) push an update to the gateway indicating that the remediation policy is no longer valid.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the arbitration server is further configured to

A) determine that the content provider cannot accept an arbitration injunction;

B) automatically determine contact information for the content provider; and

C) send a message to the content provider using the contact information, the message including a notification of the error.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein determine contact information for the content provider includes determine a domain associated with the content provider and one of the following:

construct an email address by adding a role username to the domain; and

look up the domain in a database including contact information for the domain.

10. One or more computer-readable media having embodied thereon computer-readable instructions that, when executed, perform a method of applying a policy associated with a content provider to handle an error message received from the content provider in response to a request from a user device, the method comprising:

receiving from a gateway an error reply from the content provider in response to the request from the user device;

generating a reply to the user device based on the error reply, wherein the reply to the user device includes an indication of one or more user-agent measures for the user device to perform, the user-agent measures selected from the set consisting of

A) updating a durable resource identifier to point to a new location for a resource,

B) updating a service identifier to point to a new provider of the service,

C) modifying an existing caching policy for the content provider, and

D) retrying the request at a specified future time.

11. The media of claim 10, wherein the method further includes receiving from the user device one or more remediation policies, wherein each remediation policy identifies an error condition and one or more remediation measures to perform in response to the error condition, the one or more remediation measures being selected from the set consisting of:

A) forwarding an error reply indicating the error condition unchanged;

B) providing cached content;

C) rewriting the error reply to include a redirection to an alternate page;

D) rewriting the error reply to include an alternate status code;

E) providing a standardized error page in place of the error reply provided by the content provider;

F) resending the request to an alternate content provider; and

G) redirecting future requests sent to the content provider to the alternate content provider.