Methods, apparatus and systems to increase media resource function availability

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016366189-A1
Application number	US-201514812999-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 29, 2015
Priority date	Jun 9, 2015
Publication date	Dec 15, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Communications methods, apparatus and systems for detecting a status condition indicative of a failure of a media processing entity and providing media redirection to increase media resource function availability. One embodiment of the present invention is a method that includes directing, by a first Session Border Controller (SBC), a first media call flow of a first call through a first media content processing entity to a second SBC, detecting, at one of said first or second SBCs, a status condition indicative of a failure condition for the first media content processing entity, and redirecting, by the SBC that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, the first media call flow for the first call so that the first media call flow passes through a second media content processing entity instead of through the first media content processing entity without terminating the first call.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A communications method comprising:
directing, by a first Session Border Controller, a first media call flow through a first media content processing entity to a second Session Border Controller, said first media content processing entity performing a media content processing function on the first media call flow, said first media call flow being part of a first call; detecting, at one of said first or second Session Border Controllers, a status condition indicative of a failure condition for the first media content processing entity; redirecting, by the Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, the first media call flow for the first call so that the first media call flow passes through a second media content processing entity instead of through the first media content processing entity without terminating the first call.

2 . The communications method of claim 1 wherein redirecting of the first media call flow for the first call is performed without signaling towards originating or destination devices for redirecting the first media call flow, said originating device being the device that originated the first call and said destination device being the device at which the first call was received and terminated.

3 . The communications method of claim 1 wherein said first and second media content processing entities are either Multimedia Resource Function apparatus or media recording servers.

4 . The communications method of claim 1 wherein said detecting, at one of said first or second Session Border Controllers, a status condition indicative of a failure condition for the first media content processing entity includes:
monitoring at least one of the first media call flow or a plurality of media call flows passing through the first media processing entity to the Session Border Controller performing the detection for a status condition, said status condition being a media inactivity period;
detecting the media inactivity period;
determining if the media inactivity period is greater than a predetermined threshold, a period of media inactivity greater than said predetermined threshold being indicative of a failure condition of the first media processing entity.

5 . The communications method of claim 4 ,
wherein said first media processing content entity performing a media content processing function on the first media call flow is a first Multimedia Resource Function apparatus that performs a transcoding function on said first media call flow, said first media call flow including a Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP) packet stream including a plurality of RTP packets, said media inactivity period being a period of time during which a consecutive number of the plurality of RTP packets passing through the first media content processing entity are not received by the Session Border Controller performing the detection and said predetermined threshold being determined based on the transcoding function being performed.

6 . The communications method of claim 5 , wherein the transcoding function being performed results in RTP packets being encoded by at least one of the following encoding schemes: a fixed rate audio codec encoding scheme, a variable rate audio codec encoding scheme, or a video codec encoding scheme supporting Audio/video Profile Feedback (AVPF).

7 . The communications method of claim 1 further comprising:
making a determination, by the Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, to redirect or not to redirect said first media call flow based at least in part on the detected status condition, said determination being made prior to said redirecting of the first media call flow for the first call.

8 . The communications method of claim 7 wherein said status condition is a media inactivity period for the first media processing entity and said making a determination to redirect or not to redirect said first media call flow comprises:
comparing, by the Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, the detected media inactivity period for the first media processing entity to a predetermined threshold and
when said media inactivity period is greater than said predetermined threshold said Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition determines to redirect said media call flow and
when said media inactivity interval is not greater than said predetermined threshold said Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition determines not to redirect said media call flow.

9 . The communications method of claiml wherein Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) signaling is used between said first Session Border Controller, said first media content processing entity, said second Session Border Controller and said second media content processing entity, said method further comprising:
assigning by said first Session Border Controller a first dialog identifier to the first media call flow; sending from said first Session Border Controller to said second Session Border Controller via said first media content media processing entity said first dialog identifier and an address for said first Session Border Controller; receiving at second Session Border Controller said first dialog identifier and said address for said first Session Border Controller; assigning by said first media content processing device a second dialog identifier to said first media call flow; storing, at said second Session Border Controller, said first dialog identifier, said address for said first Session Border Controller and said second dialog identifier corresponding to said first media call flow; sending from said second Session Border Controller to said first Session Border Controller via said first media content processing entity said second dialog identifier and an address for said second Session Border Controller; receiving, at said first Session Border Controller, said second dialog identifier and said address for said second Session Border Controller; storing, at said first Session Border Controller, said first dialog identifier, said address for said second Session Border Controller and said second dialog identifier corresponding to said first media call flow; and using, by said Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, the dialog identifier and Session Border Controller address received from the Session Border Controller that did not detect the status condition indicative of a failure condition, to redirect the first call flow media.

10 . The communications method of claim 9 wherein the first dialog identifier and the address of the first Session Border Controller are sent to the second Session Border Controller via either a proprietary Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) header or as proprietary extensions to existing SIP headers.

11 . The communications method of claim 1 wherein Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) signaling is used between said first Session Border Controller, said first media content processing entity, said second Session Border Controller and said second media content processing entity and wherein said redirecting includes:
sending, by said Session Border Controller that detects the status condition indicative of a failure condition, a SIP RE-INVITE signal to the Session Border Controller that did not detect the status condition indicative of a failure condition, said SIP RE-INVITE signal not including a Session Description Protocol message;
receiving a response

Assignees

• Sonus Networks Inc

Inventors

• Hart Justin
• Sharma Ashish
• Bollapalli Nagesh Kumar

Classifications

• H04L43/0823

  Errors, e.g. transmission errors · CPC title

• H04L65/1006 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L65/608

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L65/1104 Primary

  Session initiation protocol [SIP] · CPC title

• H04L43/0811 Primary

  by checking connectivity · CPC title