System and method for providing multimedia services

• US 8,194,642 B2
• Filed: 11/06/2006
• Issued: 06/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rosenberg, Jonathan D., Andreasen, Flemming S.
• Primary Examiner(s): PARK, JUNG H
• Application Number:
  US11/556,977
• Publication Number:
  US 20080126541A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,038 Days
• Field of Search: 370/351, 370/352, 709/223, 709/225, 709/226
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1063 Application servers providing network services systems providing special services to telephonic subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42

Abstract

In certain embodiments, the present invention comprises a system and method for providing feature services in a multimedia communication environment. The system and method comprise comparing signaling messages with control data to identify one or more service enablers and application servers that are responsive to the signaling message. Each responsive service enabler is invoked in accordance with an associated policy hook.

Claims

1. A method for providing feature services in a multimedia communication environment, the method comprising:

receiving a signaling message, which can be a request or a response;

running one or more scripts to compare the signaling message with control data to identify one or more service enablers that are responsive to the signaling message, the one or more service enablers selected from a group consisting of;

a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler, the one or more service enablers configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog, the one or more service enablers programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token; and

invoking each identified service enabler, wherein each identified service enabler operates in accordance with an associated policy hook, and the policy hook is externally configurable and controls the operation of the service enablers.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the service enablers is a service capability interaction manager that may maintain dialog state and may be further responsive to the dialog state.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the control data is selected from the group consisting of:

a signaling message response value or response parameter value;

provisioned data;

dynamic data; and

data acquired from an operating environment of the scripts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the scripts further identify one or more application servers that are responsive to the signaling message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the control data is in an XML document format and XPath is used to enable comparison with one or more elements in the XML document.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the service enablers are selected from the group consisting of:

a user identity service enabler;

a bearer interaction service enabler;

the privacy service enabler;

a request authorization service enabler;

a user data repository service enabler;

a presence service enabler;

a location service enabler;

the user security service enabler;

a SIP infrastructure security service enabler;

a service capability interaction manager service enabler;

a SIP compression service enabler;

the firewall traversal service enabler;

a request routing service enabler;

a voice-over-IP service peering enabler; and

an accounting service enabler.

7. The method of claim 1:

the one or more service enablers comprising a user identity service enabler; and

the user identity service enabler invoked to provide a valid public identity of a user to one or more elements of a system.

8. The method of claim 1:

the one or more service enablers comprising a request routing service enabler; and

the request routing service enabler invoked to provide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) layer routing of a plurality of SIP messages.

9. The method of claim 1, a binding maintained using an internal event and independent of an external request.

10. A multimedia communication system comprising:

one or more service enablers selected from a group consisting of a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler, the one or more service enablers configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog, the one or more service enablers programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token;

a policy hook associated with each service enabler, wherein the policy hook is externally configurable and controls the operation of the service enablers; and

a processing component operable to;

run one or more scripts to compare a signaling message with control data to identify one or more of the service enablers that are responsive to the signaling message; and

invoke each identified service enabler in accordance with the associated policy hook.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein at least one of the invoked service enablers is a service capabilities interaction manager which uses a user-specific script, and is operable to identify one or more other service enablers or application servers to provide user-specific multimedia communication features.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the identified application servers inserts one or more tokens into the same or a second signaling message, the service capabilities interaction manager receives that signaling message from the application server, and the service capabilities interaction manager compares the token(s) to the control data to identify one or more of the application servers to provide user-specific multimedia communication features.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein each service enabler is identified by a token that may be changed without requiring software upgrades.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the control data is selected from the group consisting of:

a signaling message response value or response parameter value;

provisioned data;

dynamic data;

data acquired from an external application; and

data acquired from an associated operating system.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the control data is one or more elements selected from an extensible markup language (XML) document using XPath.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the signaling message is associated with one or more media streams, and at least one of the service enablers is a bearer interaction management service enabler operable to associate an application identifier token with the signaling message and to associate a media stream identifier token with each media stream associated with the signaling message;

and further comprising;

sending the application identifier token and the media stream identifier token(s) to a policy server;

receiving one or more tokens from the policy server; and

providing the token(s) from the policy server to at least one of the service enablers where it can be used as input for further comparison with control data.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the service enablers are selected from the group consisting of:

a user identity service enabler;

a bearer interaction service enabler;

the privacy service enabler;

a request authorization service enabler;

a user data repository service enabler;

a presence service enabler;

a location service enabler;

the user security service enabler;

a SIP infrastructure security service enabler;

a service capability interaction manager service enabler;

a SIP compression service enabler;

the firewall traversal service enabler;

a request routing service enabler;

a voice-over-IP service peering enabler; and

an accounting service enabler.

18. The system of claim 10:

the one or more service enablers comprising a user identity service enabler; and

the user identity service enabler invoked to provide a valid public identity of a user to one or more elements of a system.

19. The system of claim 10:

the one or more service enablers comprising a request routing service enabler; and

the request routing service enabler invoked to provide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) layer routing of a plurality of SIP messages.

20. One or more computer-readable media storing a computer program for providing feature services in a multimedia environment, the computer code when executed by a processor is operable to:

compare a signaling message with control data to identify one or more service enablers or application servers that are responsive to the signaling message, the one or more service enablers selected from a group consisting of;

a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler, the one or more service enablers configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog, the one or more service enablers programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token; and

invoke each responsive service enabler in accordance with an associated policy hook, wherein the policy hook is externally configurable and controls the operation of the service enablers.

21. The computer-readable media of claim 20, wherein at least one of the service enablers is a service capability interaction manager that may maintain dialog state associated with a user communication session and may invoke additional service enablers responsive to the dialog state.

22. The computer-readable media of claim 20, wherein each service enabler is identified by a token that may be changed without requiring software upgrades.

23. The computer-readable media of claim 20, wherein the control data is selected from the group consisting of:

a signaling message response value or response parameter value;

provisioned data;

dynamic data;

data acquired from an external application; and

data acquired from an associated operating system.

24. The computer-readable media of claim 20, wherein the service enablers are selected from the group consisting of:

a user identity service enabler;

a bearer interaction service enabler;

the privacy service enabler;

a request authorization service enabler;

a user data repository service enabler;

a presence service enabler;

a location service enabler;

the user security service enabler;

a SIP infrastructure security service enabler;

a service capability interaction manager service enabler;

a SIP compression service enabler;

the firewall traversal service enabler;

a request routing service enabler;

a voice-over-IP service peering enabler; and

an accounting service enabler.

25. The computer-readable media of claim 20:

the one or more service enablers comprising a user identity service enabler; and

the user identity service enabler invoked to provide a valid public identity of a user to one or more elements of a system.

26. The computer-readable media of claim 20:

the one or more service enablers comprising a request routing service enabler; and

the request routing service enabler invoked to provide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) layer routing of a plurality of SIP messages.

27. A system for providing feature services in a multimedia communication environment, the method comprising:

means for receiving a signaling message;

means for identifying one or more service enablers that are responsive to the signaling message, the one or more service enablers selected from a group consisting of;

a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler, the one or more service enablers configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog, the one or more service enablers programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token;

means for invoking each responsive service enabler; and

means for controlling the operation of each service enabler through one or more associated policies, wherein the associated policies are externally configurable.

28. The system of claim 27, further comprising means for maintaining dialog state, means for managing service capability interactions between the responsive service enablers, and means for invoking service enablers and application servers to provide user-specific multimedia communication features.

29. An application control point for use in a multimedia communication system, the application control point comprising:

a signaling protocol interface;

a programmable flow engine;

a rules engine;

one or more service enablers comprising a service capability interaction manager (SCIM) configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog; and

one or more policy hooks associated with each service enabler;

wherein the rules engine is operable to match expressions in input data;

wherein the programmable flow engine is operable to process signaling messages received through the signaling protocol interface, to interact with the rules engine to compare the signaling messages with control data, and to interact with one or more service enablers or application servers to provide multimedia communication features responsive to the signaling messages, the SCIM programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token, the one or more service enablers elected from a group consisting of;

a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler; and

wherein the policy hooks are externally configurable and control the operation of the service enablers.

30. The application control point of claim 29, wherein at least one of the service enablers is a service capabilities interaction manager operable to process the signaling messages and the control data to identify one or more service enablers or application servers to provide user-specific multimedia communication features.

31. The application control point of claim 30, wherein an operation to match expressions is selected from the group consisting of:

a regular expression matching operation;

an XML document matching operation; and

an XPath based matching operation where XPath is used to select one or more elements from an XML document as input to the matching operation.

32. The application control point of claim 30, wherein the control data is selected from the group consisting of:

a signaling message response value or response parameter value;

dialog state information;

application server state information provided in the form of one or more tokens;

provisioned data;

dynamic data;

presence data;

time of day;

operating environment state information;

one or more tokens returned from a policy server; and

one or more tokens returned from one of the service enablers.

33. The application control point of claim 29, further comprising a policy server, and wherein at least one of the service enablers is a bearer interaction service enabler operable to identify an application descriptor associated with the signaling messages, to identify a media stream descriptor associated with each media stream in the signaling message, and to interact with the policy server and the service capabilities manager to provide user-specific multimedia communication features according to one or more policies stored in the policy server.

34. The application control point of claim 33, wherein the application descriptor and the media descriptor(s) are passed to the policy server and the policy server returns one or more tokens that are processed by one or more of the service enablers.

35. The application control point of claim 33, wherein the application descriptor and the media stream descriptor are constructed by a script that performs a syntactic computation on the signaling messages, and the script can be changed without requiring software upgrades.

36. The application control point of claim 35, wherein the syntactic computation is a regular expression match.

37. The application control point of claim 29:

the one or more service enablers comprising a user identity service enabler; and

the user identity service enabler invoked to provide a valid public identity of a user to one or more elements of a system.

38. The application control point of claim 29:

the one or more service enablers comprising a request routing service enabler; and

the request routing service enabler invoked to provide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) layer routing of a plurality of SIP messages.

39. An access terminal for use in a multimedia communication system, the access terminal comprising:

a signaling protocol interface;

a programmable flow engine;

a rules engine;

one or more service enablers comprising a service capability interaction manager (SCIM) configured to apply a matching operation to determine a token identifying an invoked feature and to associate the token with a dialog; and

one or more policy hooks associated with each service enabler;

wherein the rules engine is operable to match expressions in input data;

wherein the programmable flow engine is operable to process signaling messages received through the signaling protocol interface, to interact with the rules engine to compare the signaling messages with control data, and to interact with one or more service enablers to provide multimedia communication features responsive to the signaling messages, the SCIM programmed with feature invocation logic based on the token, the one or more service enablers elected from a group consisting of;

a privacy service enabler, a user security service enabler, a compression service enabler, and a firewall traversal service enabler; and

wherein the policy hooks are externally configurable and control the operation of the service enablers.

40. The access terminal of claim 39, wherein at least one of the service enablers is a service capabilities interaction manager operable to process the control data and user-specific signaling messages received through the signaling protocol interface to identify one or more service enablers, and to interact with the service enablers to provide user-specific multimedia communication features responsive to the signaling messages.

41. The access terminal of claim 39, further comprising one or more media enablers, and an externally configurable policy hook associated with each media enabler to control the operation of the media enablers.

42. The access terminal of claim 39:

the one or more service enablers comprising a user identity service enabler; and

the user identity service enabler invoked to provide a valid public identity of a user to one or more elements of a system.

43. The access terminal of claim 39:

the one or more service enablers comprising a request routing service enabler; and

the request routing service enabler invoked to provide Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) layer routing of a plurality of SIP messages.