Systems and methods for scalable distributed global infrastructure for real-time multimedia communication

• US 9,232,191 B2
• Filed: 07/31/2013
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Blue Jeans Network, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Periyannan, Alagu, Anand, Raghavan, Grupenhoff, Michael, Kalluri, Ravi Kiran, Weber, Emmanuel, Villait, Anil
• Primary Examiner(s): Laekemariam, Yosef K
• Application Number:
  US13/955,646
• Publication Number:
  US 20140098180A1
• Time in Patent Office: 888 Days
• Field of Search: 379/14.01, 379/14.02, 379/14.03, 379/14.07, 379/14.09, 379/93.21, 379/158, 379/202.01, 379/205.01, 348/14.01, 348/14.02, 348/14.03, 348/14.08, 348/14.09, 348/14.1, 348/14.16, 348/211.12
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/10 Multimedia information
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/265 Mixing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/141 between two video terminals, e.g. videophone telephonic communication systems combined with television receiver for reception of entertainment or information matter H04M11/085
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/152 Multipoint control units therefor

Abstract

A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to support the operation of a Virtual Media Room or Virtual Meeting Room (VMR), wherein each VMR can accept from a plurality of participants at different geographic locations a variety of video conferencing feeds of audio and video streams from video conference endpoints. A globally distributed infrastructure that supports operations of the VMR through a plurality of MCUs (Multipoint Control Unit) built from off-the-shelf components instead of custom hardware as media processing nodes, each configured to process the plurality of audio and video streams from the plurality of video conference endpoints in real time. Each single VMR can be implemented and supported across the infrastructure of globally distributed set of servers/media processing nodes co-located in Points of Presence (POPs) for Internet access, wherein such massively distributed architecture can support thousands of simultaneously active VMRs and yet is transparent to the users of the VMRs.

Claims

1. A video-conferencing system comprising:

a virtual meeting room engine configured to accept a plurality of audio and video streams from a plurality of video conference endpoints, each video conference endpoint being associated with one or more participants to a video conference and a communication protocol, wherein the communication protocol associated with at least two of the video conference endpoints are different from one another; and

a globally distributed infrastructure configured to support operations of the virtual meeting room engine, the globally distributed infrastructure comprising a plurality of multipoint control units (MCUs) as media processing nodes, each MCU configured to process the plurality of audio and video streams from the plurality of video conference endpoints in real time, at least some of the MCUs configured to work together as a single MCU when hosting a video conference, wherein the MCUs are configured to use multicast communication and multi-bit-rate stream distribution and are geographically distributed in Points of Presence (POPs) at third party data centers to process audio and video streams transmitted from video conference endpoints that are associated with different communication protocols.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the MCUs are built from off-the-shelf components instead of custom hardware.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the off-the-shelf components comprise at least one of a commercial off-the-shelf central processing unit and a commercial off-the-shelf graphics processing unit.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the off-the-shelf components are clustered to achieve unlimited scaling for the MCUs.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the off-the-shelf components are clustered both locally on a LAN and across geographies to achieve the unlimited scaling.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the MCUs are further configured to support scalable mixing and composition of the plurality of audio and video streams.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the globally distributed infrastructure is further configured to distribute the audio and video streams from the video conference endpoints at least one of locally on a LAN present in each POP and across multiple POPs on a WAN.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the globally distributed infrastructure is further configured to allow connections from other globally distributed private networks.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the globally distributed infrastructure is further configured to isolate processing of incoming connections in one or more separate, independent, unprivileged processes.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the globally distributed infrastructure is further configured to enable firewall traversal for legacy video conference endpoints to communicate with other video conference endpoints.

11. A method for operating a video conference, the method comprising:

accepting a plurality of audio and video streams from a plurality of video conference endpoints, each endpoint being associated with one or more participants to a video conference and a communication protocol, wherein the communication protocol associated with at least two of the video conference endpoints are different from one another;

supporting operations of the video conference using a plurality of geographically distributed multipoint control units (MCUs) as media processing nodes, each MCU configured to use multicast communication and multi-bit-rate stream distribution and to process the plurality of audio and video streams from the plurality of video conference endpoints in real time, at least some of the MCUs configured to work together as a single MCU when hosting a video conference to generate a video conference stream compatible with the video conference endpoints.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the MCUs are built from off-the-shelf components instead of custom hardware.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the off-the-shelf components comprise at least one of a commercial off-the-shelf central processing unit and a commercial off-the-shelf graphics processing unit.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising clustering the off-the-shelf components to achieve unlimited scaling for the MCUs.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising clustering the off-the-shelf components both locally on a LAN and across geographies to achieve the unlimited scaling.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising minimizing latency by directing the audio and video stream from each of the video conference endpoints to a POP closest thereto.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising distributing the audio and video streams from the video conference endpoints at least one of locally on a LAN present in each POP and across multiple POPs on a WAN.