System and method for processing media requests during a telephony sessions

• US 8,611,338 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2009
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Inventors: Lawson, Jeffrey, Wolthuis, John, Cooke, Evan
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, MINH TRANG T
• Application Number:
  US12/568,646
• Publication Number:
  US 20100142516A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,541 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1013 Network architectures, gateways, control or user entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1045 Proxies, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/0643 Hash functions, e.g. MD5, SHA, HMAC or f9 MAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2473 Telephone terminals interfacing a personal computer, e.g. using an API (Application Programming Interface) details of API H04M7/0021
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0021 Details of Application Programming Interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/003 Click to dial services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0075 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

In a preferred embodiment, the method of caching media used in a telephony application includes: receiving a media request; sending the media request to a media layer using HTTP; the a media layer performing the steps of checking in a cache for the media resource; processing the media request within a media processing server; and storing the processed media in the cache as a telephony compatible resource specified by a persistent address. The system of the preferred embodiment includes a call router and a media layer composed of a cache and media processing server.

Claims

1. A method of caching media for use in a telephony applications comprising:

at a call router, generating a media request initiated by a telephony application session;

sending the media request to a media layer using HTTP communication protocol wherein the media request includes text to be converted to speech in a HTTP message;

wherein the media layer performs the following steps;

checking in a cache for a telephony compatible media resource specified by the media request and identified by a persistent Universal Resource Identifier (URI), wherein the persistent URI has embedded media parameters that uniquely identify contents of the media resource;

if a telephony compatible media resource is identified in the cache by the persistent URI, forwarding the cached media resource to the call router;

if a telephony compatible media resource is not identified in the cache by the persistent URI, processing the media request at a media processing server to generate a telephony compatible media resource;

storing the generated media in the cache as a telephony compatible media resource specified by the persistent URI; and

forwarding the generated media to the call router;

wherein processing the media request at a media processing server includes forwarding the media request to a Text-To-Speech server;

wherein storing the generated media in the cache includes caching speech audio generated by the Text-To-Speech server according to cache directives; and

wherein forwarding the generated media to the call router includes returning the speech audio to the call router.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically allocating cache resources and media processing server resources of the media layer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the media request is sent through a media layer application programming interface (API) from the call router to the media layer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a second media request through a media layer application programming interface (API) prior to sending the media request generated by the call router;

and sending the media request to the media layer using HTTP;

wherein the media layer performs the following steps prior to the telephony session initiating the media resource;

checking in the cache for a telephony compatible media resource specified by the second media request and identified by a persistent Universal Resource Identifier (URI);

if a telephony compatible media resource is not identified in the cache by the persistent URI of the second media request, processing the second media request within a media processing server to generate a telephony compatible media resource; and

storing the generated media of the second media request in the cache as a telephony compatible media resource specified by a persistent address.

5. The method of claim 1, where the step of processing the media request includes encrypting the telephony compatible media resource, and wherein the step of storing the generated media in the cache includes storing the encrypted media resource in a third party server.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising checking for a directive indicating to not cache the media and following the directive.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing the media request includes retrieving media from an external server and converting the retrieved media to a telephony compatible media format with a transcoding proxy server of the media processing server.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein HTTPS is used for network communication between the media layer and the external server and HTTP is used for network communication within the media layer.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of processing media includes converting Text-To-Speech according to parameters of the HTTP media request directed at the persistent URI.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the media parameters include voice parameters for the Text-To-Speech conversion.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein forwarding the cached media resource and forwarding the generated media include streaming the media from an external server through the media processor, through the cache, and to the call router.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the call router writing the media resource to disk prior to using the resource.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising forwarding the speech audio to a transcoding proxy server and converting the speech audio to a telephony compatible media format prior to caching the speech audio.

14. A method of caching media for use in a telephony applications comprising:

at a call router, generating a media request initiated by a telephony application session;

sending the media request to a media layer using HTTP;

wherein the media layer performs the following steps;

checking in a cache for a telephony compatible media resource specified by the media request and identified by a persistent Universal Resource Identifier (URI), wherein the persistent URI has embedded media parameters that uniquely identify contents of the media resource;

if a telephony compatible media resource is identified in the cache by the persistent URI, forwarding the cached media resource to the call router;

if a telephony compatible media resource is not identified in the cache by the persistent URI, processing the media request at a media processing server to generate a telephony compatible media resource;

storing the generated media in the cache as a telephony compatible media resource specified by the persistent URI; and

forwarding the generated media to the call router;

wherein processing the media request at a media processing server includes retrieving the media from an external server, wherein HTTPS is used for network communication between the media layer and the external server and HTTP is used for network communication within the media layer and between the call router and the media layer;

if the media requires conversion, converting the media to a telephony compatible media format with a transcoding proxy server; and

wherein storing the generated media in the cache includes caching the telephony compatible media according to cache directives.