Load balancing in a central conferencing routing server

• US 9,167,011 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2012
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ellison, Gregory Thomas, Broadworth, Andrew James
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thai
• Application Number:
  US13/708,678
• Publication Number:
  US 20130163435A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,047 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/18 for broadcast or conference , e.g. multicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0668 by dynamic selection of recovery network elements, e.g. replacement by the most appropriate element after failure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/44 Distributed routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/15 in relation to multipoint traffic arrangements for broadcast or multicast in data networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15

Abstract

Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computer program products, and the like, for collaboration conferencing with multiple participants over a communications network, and more specifically for a conferencing routing service for managing and routing collaboration participants. In one embodiment, the conferencing routing service may maintain a database of information or preferences associated with the conference requester and attempt to select a conference bridge based on the requester'"'"'s information. Further, the conferencing routing service may receive performance information from a plurality of conference bridges that are able to conduct the collaboration conference and select a conference bridge in response to the performance information.

Claims

1. A method for routing one or more collaboration conference access requests in a telecommunications network, the method comprising:

receiving a collaboration conference access request from a requester'"'"'s communication device;

associating an identification number with the collaboration conference access request, the identification number associated with a customer of the telecommunications network and a preference for a particular conference bridge of a plurality of conference bridges connected to the telecommunications network;

requesting operational information of at least one conference bridge of the plurality of conference bridges, the operational information comprising at least an available capacity for the at least one conference bridge;

accessing a database storing at least one routing rule associated with the identification number, wherein the at least one routing rule comprises a priority table, the priority table comprising a list of the plurality of conference bridges and a priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges, the priority level indicating the preference for the particular conference bridge;

selecting a conference bridge from the plurality of conference bridges associated with the telecommunications network and configured to host a collaboration conference, the selection occurring at least in response to the operational information of the at least one conference bridge and the at least one routing rule associated with the identification number; and

transmitting one or more routing messages to the telecommunications network, wherein the one or more routing messages include an indication of the selected conference bridge.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges is based at least on the geographic location of the plurality of conference bridges.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges is based at least on the technical capabilities of the plurality of conference bridges.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the technical capabilities of the plurality of conference bridges include at least one of wideband audio, video and audio integration and web-based conferencing.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one conference bridge of the plurality of conference bridges has a first priority associated with the at least one conference bridge in the priority table and wherein the requesting operation comprises obtaining operational information for the at least one conference bridge of the plurality of conference bridges with the first priority.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

calculating a percentage of available capacity for the at least one conference bridge; and

comparing the percentage of available capacity for the at least one conference bridge to a predetermined threshold value;

wherein, if the percentage of available capacity for the at least one conference bridge is less than the predetermined threshold value, the selecting operation comprises selecting the at least one conference bridge as the hosting conference bridge.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein at least a second conference bridge of the plurality of conference bridges has a second priority associated with the second conference bridge in the priority table, the second priority less than the first priority, and;

if the percentage of available capacity for the at least one conference bridge is greater than the predetermined threshold value, the requesting operation comprises obtaining operational information for the at least the second conference bridge of the plurality of conference bridges with the second priority.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the priority table comprises a subset of the plurality of conference bridges associated with the second priority, the subset of the plurality of conference bridges comprising more than one conference bridge but less than the entirety of the plurality of conference bridges.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the available capacity for the at least one conference bridge comprises at least one of total number of communication ports for the conference bridge and the number of currently active or reserved ports of the conference bridge.

10. A system for selecting a conference bridge associated with a network for hosting a collaboration conference event, the system comprising:

a network interface unit configured to receive a communication from a user of a communications network to establish a collaboration conference on the network;

a processing device in communication with the network interface unit; and

a computer-readable medium memory connected to the processing device configured to store information and instructions that, when executed by the processing device, performs the operations of;

associating an identification number with the collaboration conference communication from the user, wherein the identification number is associated with a preference for a particular conference bridge of a plurality of conference bridges connected to the network;

accessing a database configured to store at least one routing rule associated with the identification number associated with the user, the at least one routing rule comprising a priority table comprising a list of the plurality of conference bridges and a priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges, the priority level indicating the preference for the particular conference bridge;

transmitting one or more requests for performance information from one or more conference bridges of the plurality of conference bridges associated with the network, the performance operational information comprising at least an available capacity for the one or more conference bridges;

using at least the performance information to calculate a percentage of available capacity for the one or more conference bridges; and

selecting one of the one or more conference bridges associated with the network for hosting the conference event based at least on the calculated percentage of available capacity and the at least one routing rule associated with the identification number.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges is based at least on the geographic location of the plurality of conference bridges.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the priority level associated with each of the plurality of conference bridges is based at least on the technical capabilities of the plurality of conference bridges, the technical capabilities comprising at least one of wideband audio, video and audio integration and web-based conferencing.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein the instructions further perform the operation of:

comparing the percentage of available capacity for the one or more conference bridges to a predetermined threshold value; and

if the percentage of available capacity for any of the one or more conference bridges is less than the predetermined threshold value, storing an indication in the computer-readable medium that at least one of the one or more conference bridges is unavailable for hosting the collaboration conference.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein at least one of the one or more conference bridges is a time division multiplexing (TDM) telecommunication device.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein at least one of the one or more conference bridges is a session initiation protocol (SIP) based telecommunication device.

16. The system of claim 10 wherein the instructions, when executed by the processing device, cause the processing device to further perform the operation of:

transmitting one or more routing messages to the communications network, wherein the one or more routing messages include an indication of the selected conference bridge.

17. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

a plurality of collaboration conferencing routing servers comprising a master conferencing routing server executing a master control engine application and at least one slave conferencing routing server, wherein each of the plurality of collaboration conferencing routing servers comprises a database configured to store a state of at least one initiated collaboration conferences on the telecommunications network.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the request is referred from the at least one slave conferencing routing server to the network interface unit.