SESSION BORDER CONTROL USING MULTIPLE PROCESSORS

• US 20080298362A1
• Filed: 05/30/2007
• Published: 12/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Oz, Doron, Ward, David D., Bhattacharya, Jisu, Ben-Dvora, Nir, Krishnamurthy, Chandrasekar
• Granted Patent: US 7,957,279 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/390
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/355 Application aware switches, e.g. for HTTP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/552 by ensuring the integrity of packets received through redundant connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment

Abstract

In one embodiment, a router receives a call request for establishing a multimedia exchange between two remote endpoints. The router selects a processing entity to manage a subset of connections with the remote endpoints according to an endpoint identification such as a remote address included in the call request. A different processing entity manages the remaining connections with the remote endpoints. Accordingly, the load of managing signaling for establishing the multimedia exchange is balanced between a plurality of processing elements that appear externally as a single entity such that modification of remote endpoint behavior is not required.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

receive a call request requesting a multimedia session between first and second remote endpoints;

select a first processing entity to manage at least one connection extending to the first remote endpoint based on an endpoint identification associated with the received call request; and

select a second processing entity to manage at least one connection extending to the second remote endpoint based on an endpoint identification associated with a different call request that is generated by the selected first processing entity.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processors are operable to load-balance signaling for the requested multimedia session between the processing entities that are separate from a centralized processor for the apparatus without requiring the first and second remote endpoints to use more than one address when addressing messages for transfer to the apparatus.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processors are further operable to:

input a remote address included in the locally generated call request into a hash function; and

select the second processing entity based on an output of the hash function.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the processors are further operable to input a remote address included in an answer sent from the second endpoint into the same selection function before providing the answer to the second processing entity.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the first and second processing entities respectively manage the connections by responding to packet loss associated with the connections.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first processing entity manages application layer connections with the first and second remote endpoints and the second processing entity manages a transport layer connection with the second remote endpoint.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the processors are further operable to select a third processing entity to manage a stateful connection with the first remote endpoint.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processors are further operable to select the first processing entity based on both the endpoint identification associated with the received call request and another endpoint identification observed from a layer five header included in the received call request.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the processors are further operable to:

select a layer five load balancer from a plurality of layer five load balancers according to the endpoint identification; and

select the first processing entity according to layer five load balancing by the selected layer five load balancer.

10. A system comprising:

means for distributing incoming requests for media exchanges to different processors located in one or more network devices based on endpoint identifications associated with the incoming call requests; and

means for exchanging messages between the different processors located in the one or more network devices to balance management of signaling for the multimedia sessions between different ones of the processors.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein signaling sent from remote endpoints for establishing at least one of the media exchanges is addressed using a single network address.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein for at least one of the requested media exchanges a first layer five connection extending between the one or more network devices and a first remote endpoint is managed by a different one of the processors than a second layer five connection extending between the one or more network devices and a second remote endpoint.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein one of the processors that manages the layer five connections is a master processing entity and the other one of the processors that manages the layer five connections is a slave processing entity that forwards received signaling for an associated session to the master processing entity.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein the incoming requests are distributed to the different processors according to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of remote endpoints that are included in the incoming requests.

15. The system of claim 10 further comprising means for distributing incoming answers to the incoming requests to the different processors based on endpoint identifications associated with the incoming answers.

16. The system of claim 10 wherein the endpoint identifications correspond to a network device interface that receives a respective one of the incoming requests.

17. A method comprising:

distributing incoming requests for media exchanges between remote endpoints to different processors located in one or more network devices based on endpoint identifications associated with the incoming call requests;

establishing connections extending between the one or more network devices and the remote endpoints for facilitating signaling exchange that establishes the requested media exchange; and

exchanging messages between the different processors located in the one or more network devices for balancing management of the connections between different ones of the processors.

18. The method of claim 17 comprising:

selecting from the processors a master processing entity for each requested media session; and

selecting from the processors at least one slave processing entity for each requested media session, the slave processing entities forwarding received signaling to respective ones of the master processing entities.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the master processing entities are selected according to both network addresses and information extracted from one or more layer five headers included in the corresponding ones of the incoming requests.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

hashing the endpoint identifications to identify hash values; and

comparing the hash values to processor identifications to select between the processors before distributing the incoming requests to the processors.