The patent application applies to the field of Internet telephony, and in particular relates to the distribution of gatekeepers in a H.323 network.
Voice telephony (non-IP) is based on an architecture of switches interconnected via fixed lines. A call from a calling party to a called party is routed between the switches based on number analysis. That is, the local switch of the caller analyses the dialled number as to land and trunk code prefixes, and routes the call to the switch serving the called party.
In modern multimedia telephony, comprising distributed gatekeepers in a H.323 network, there exist no similar mechanism based on number analysis for routing of calls. The technology of multimedia telephony originates from local area network environments, where elaborate routing schemes are regarded as unnecessary, instead relying on a peer-to-peer relationship between the gatekeepers.
Thus today H.323 requires a full mesh of gatekeeper knowledge before calls can be routed between these (All gatekeepers has to know all gatekeepers for calling to all users), or the use of multicast which has the same applications. Before setting up a call to a non-local user, the originating gatekeeper has to send a Location Request message to all the other gatekeepers for finding the address of the user. This is illustrated in
This situation scales very badly in a large H.323 network, as up to a point, all gatekeepers will spend most of their capacity processing and replying Location Requests from other gatekeepers.
However, hierarchical routing as such is known from some other network systems.
The document RFC 1887 (http://sunsite.auc.dk) describes the use of prefixes for hierarchical routing in IP ver.6. Routing is performed on a network level.
WO 97/02689 describes how data in network layer packets can be added or changed to extend the address field. However, this is strictly speaking not hierarchical routing, as the source router must know the destination.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,982,869 describes a method for automatic generation of routing tables from network topology. The tables are unique for each switch in a hierarchical network. The pòint is to optimalize by automatic configuration in a hierarchical network for international traffic.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,369 relates to a method for routing and automatic configuration in ATM networks. The nodes are arranged in a hierarchical fashion. However, this patent relates to specific problems in ATM networks which can be solved by an hierarchical organisation of the nodes.
An object of the invention is to provide an arrangement in an H.323 network that allow localisation of the parties using less message exchange between the gatekeepers and thus easing the load on each gatekeeper. This results in a faster connection process.
The above object are achieved in an arrangement according to the invention, where the gatekeepers are organised hierarchical for routing/user location, as stated in the appended patent claims.
In an arrangement according to the invention the load of processing the Location Request is spread to fewer gatekeepers, which is a big advantage in a large H.323 network.
Reference is made to
In the situation depicted an User A, connected to GK1 tries to make a call to User B, who is connected to GK4. In order to route the call to User B, GK1 first has to locate User B. This may be performed either in a multicast process or in a unicast process.
A lower level gatekeeper knows its higher level gatekeeper, and assumes it knows a wider address space than itself. After its own user location algorithm is performed with no success (no address found locally or in lower level gatekeepers), it forwards the call to its higher level gatekeeper. This can be done either with a Location Request directly to this, or sending the SET-UP message directly, if it knows this gatekeeper support routing of the call signalling channel, thus saving two message exchanges.
The higher level gatekeeper now tries to locate the user with its own location algorithm. If the called user is not locally registered, it might send Location Request messages to its lower level gatekeepers (minus the one originating the message) as illustrated in
This scheme could also be used for “hybrid” networks, by letting the gatekeepers know of some peer gatekeepers used in the location algorithm.
ITU-T Recommendation H-323 (1996) “Visual Telephone Systems and Equipment for Local Area Networks which provide a non-guaranteed Quality of Service”
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