Method and apparatus for messaging in the cloud

• US 9,432,321 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2011
• Issued: 08/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Steiner, Moritz M., Wood, Thomas L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Luu, Le H
• Application Number:
  US13/329,357
• Publication Number:
  US 20130159374A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,716 Days
• Field of Search: 709/226, 709/228
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1066 Session management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1086 session scope modification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions

Abstract

The distributed message handling system is created by using session states to represent the plurality of session contexts in the message handling system. The session states are flat representations of the session context which completely describe the session. Utilizing the session states to handle system message requests allows the message handling system to distribute the handling of the message requests to a plurality of state machines. Advantageously, the distributed messaging system allows the message handling system to dynamically allocate message handling resources to application instances based on demand. Such dynamic allocation allows providers to efficiently allocate resources to meet demand while meeting application execution demands.

Claims

1. A distributed message handling apparatus, comprising:

a data storage; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the data storage, the processor configured to;

retrieve a session state representing an initial session context based on a session id of a received message;

extract an event parameter from the received message, the event parameter associated with a session parameter relevant to the session state;

create a session context based on the session state and the session parameter;

execute the session context; and

create an updated session state based on the executed session context;

wherein the initial session context is different from the session context being executed; and

wherein the data storage comprises the updated session state associated with the state machine and a secondary session state associated with a second state machine of a second distributed message handling apparatus.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the session state comprises a session id, a plurality of session parameters and a current node identifier.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of session parameters are formatted as name-value pairs.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the processor is further configured to:

retrieve a second session state based on a second session id of a received message; and

recreate a sequence of messages for the second session id based on the second session state and a flow definition.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

transmit the updated session state to the second distributed message handling apparatus; and

receive the secondary session state from the second distributed message handling apparatus.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the received message is a call setup message.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a first session parameter associated with the session state is updated based on the session parameter;

and wherein the session parameter in the initial session context has a different value than the session parameter in the session context.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the initial session context does not include the session parameter, and wherein the session context includes the session parameter.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the event parameter is a connection fields IP address.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

receive a second message;

forward the received message to a second distributed message handling apparatus based on a second determination that the apparatus does not contain a second session context associated with the second message;

wherein the retrieval of the session state is based on a first determination that the apparatus contains the session context.

11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the message is a call setup message.

12. A distributed message handling apparatus in a distributed message handling system, the distributed message handling apparatus, comprising:

a data storage, the data storage comprising a session data store; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the data storage, the processor configured to;

receive a plurality of messages;

forward at least a first message of the plurality of messages to a second distributed message handling apparatus in the distributed message handling system; and

process at least a second message of the plurality of messages, the process comprising the processor configured to;

retrieve a session state representing an initial session context from the session data store based on the second message;

extract an event parameter from the received message, the event parameter associated with a session parameter relevant to the session state;

create a session context based on the session state and the session parameter;

execute the session context;

create an updated session state based on the executed session context; and

store the updated session state in the data storage;

wherein the initial session context is different from the session context being executed; and

wherein the data storage comprises the updated session state associated with the state machine and a secondary session state associated with a second state machine of a second distributed message handling apparatus.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the session state comprises a session id, a plurality of session parameters and a current node identifier.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein at least the first message and the second message include a session id.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to:

determine whether the session data store contains session state information for the message based on the session id;

wherein a determination to forward the first message and a determination to process the second message are based on the determination of whether the session data store contains session state information for the message.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processor is further configured to:

start the state machine in response to determining to process the second message.

17. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the processor is further configured to:

receive a migrated session state from a third distributed message handling apparatus in the distributed message handling system; and

update the session data store based on the migrated session state.

18. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the state machine comprises a flow definition.

19. A method for handling a received message in a distributed message handling system, comprising:

at a processor communicatively coupled to a data storage, retrieving a session state representing an initial session context based on a session id of the received message;

extracting, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, an event parameter from the received message, the event parameter associated with a session parameter relevant to the session state;

creating, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, a session context based on the session state state and the session parameter;

executing, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, the session context; and

creating, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, an updated session state based on the executed session context;

wherein the initial session context is different from the session context being executed; and

wherein the data storage comprises the updated session state associated with the state machine and a secondary session state associated with a second state machine of a second distributed message handling apparatus.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein act of creating the session context comprises:

translating, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, an updated session state using an updated session context created by the state machine; and

transmitting, by the processor in cooperation with the data storage, the updated session state to a session data store.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the session state comprises a session id, a plurality of session parameters and a current node identifier.