Method and apparatus for high performance low latency real time notification delivery

Abstract

A method for real time notification delivery comprises providing to an application server event notifications directed to a plurality of user agents that are at a site remote from an application server and that receive event notifications through a first network device that is capable of receiving aggregated notification messages, aggregating a plurality of event notifications directed to a plurality of user agents to create an aggregated notification message directed to a first network device, and routing an aggregated notification message to a first network device via a communications network.

1 - 23 . (canceled) 
     
     
         24 . A method for real time notification delivery comprising:
 providing event notifications that are directed to a plurality of user agents to an application server, the user agents being at a site remote from the application server and receiving event notifications via a first network device communicatively connected to the application server and the user agents;   aggregating, by the application server, a plurality of event notifications directed to the user agents to create an aggregated notification message that is to be directed to the first network device, each of the plurality of event notifications being associated with at least one user agent of the plurality of user agents, the aggregated notification message being created to include an index for the event notifications included in the aggregated notification message, the index comprising information identifying the at least one user agent to which each event notification in the aggregated notification message is directed, the aggregated notification message also comprising information identifying a location or address of the first network device and information defining a number of separate event notifications included in the aggregated notification message;   routing the aggregated notification message from the application server to the first network device via a communications network.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising parsing, by the first network device, the aggregated notification message into the plurality of event notifications for the plurality of user agents and transmitting, by the first network device, each of the parsed event notifications to the user agents to which the parsed event notifications are directed based on information included in the aggregated notification message. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising aggregating the plurality of event notifications using a first event notification of the plurality of event notifications to aggregate the remaining plurality of event notifications. 
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 26  wherein aggregating the plurality of event notifications further comprises using an identifier for a location of the first network device such that the aggregated notification message includes the identifier for the first network device. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising receiving user agent notification subscriptions comprising an identifier for a location of the first network device. 
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising receiving user agent notification subscriptions and generating the plurality of event notifications based on the received notification subscriptions. 
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 29  wherein the aggregated notification message comprises an identifier for a location of the first network device. 
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 24  wherein the user agents comprise at least one of: terminals, endpoints, mobile communication devices, laptop computers, computers, personal digital assistants, netbooks, tablet computer devices, desktop computers, and desktop phones;
 wherein the event notifications comprise event notifications for at least one of call events, user presence, feature status, and alarm conditions. 
 
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 24  wherein aggregating the plurality of event notifications comprises packaging all of the plurality of event notifications into a body of the aggregated notification message. 
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 24  wherein the index is configured to facilitate aggregation of the event notifications. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 24  wherein routing the aggregated notification message comprises a message aggregator sending the aggregated notification message to a transport function and the transport function transmitting the aggregated notification message to the first network device via the communication network. 
     
     
         35 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising creating a template for each of the plurality of event notifications, the template comprising notification dialog data contained in each of the event notifications and a list of each type of notification dialog data contained in the event notifications. 
     
     
         36 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising:
 receiving the notification aggregated message at the first network device; and 
 the first network device processing the aggregated notification message based on information included in the aggregated notification message received by the first network device so that each of the event notifications is sent from the first network device to the user agent to which the event notification is directed by:
 extracting all notifications in the notification aggregated message by rebuilding Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages from a body of the notification aggregated message based on a dialog list produced during the aggregating of the event notifications or by directly extracting SIP messages from the notification aggregated message, and 
 
 sending each of the SIP messages to a message queue for sending each SIP message extracted from the notification aggregated message to the user to which that SIP message is addressed. 
 
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 24  further comprising the first network device sending option messages at a predefined interval to the application server and updating a capability attribute associated with the first network device upon receipt of an option message comprising aggregated notification message capability information. 
     
     
         38 . The method of  claim 37  further comprising determining whether the first network device associated with the user agents is capable of receiving aggregated notification messages. 
     
     
         39 . The method of  claim 24  wherein aggregating the plurality of event notifications comprises the application server sending a first plurality of event notifications to a message aggregator, each of the first plurality of event notifications being associated with at least one user agent of the plurality of user agents, and the message aggregator receiving the first plurality of event notifications and aggregating the first plurality of event notifications based on the first network device to form the aggregated notification message. 
     
     
         40 . The method of  claim 39  wherein aggregating the plurality of event notifications further comprises using an identifier for a location of the first network device such that the aggregated notification message includes the identifier for the first network device. 
     
     
         41 . An apparatus for real time notification delivery comprising:
 an application server having non-transitory memory; and   the application server being configured to receive event notifications directed to a plurality of user agents, the user agents being at a site remote from the application server, the user agents being communicatively connected to a first network device to receive event notifications via the first network device;   the application server configured to aggregate a plurality of event notifications directed to the plurality of user agents to create an aggregated notification message to be directed to the first network device, each of the event notifications being associated with a user agent of the plurality of user agents, the aggregated notification message being created to include an index for the event notifications included in the aggregated notification message, the index comprising information identifying the user agent to which each event notification in the aggregated notification message is directed, the aggregated notification message also comprising information identifying a location or address of the first network device and information defining a number of separate event notifications included in the aggregated notification message;   the application server configured to route the aggregated notification message to the first network device via a communications network.   
     
     
         42 . The apparatus of  claim 41  wherein the application server aggregates the plurality of event notifications by packaging all of the plurality of event notifications into a body of the aggregated notification message, the event notifications comprising event notifications for at least one of call events, user presence, feature status, and alarm conditions; and
 wherein the body of the aggregated notification message comprises a compressed text format that includes Session Initiation Protocol (“SIP”) information. 
 
     
     
         43 . The apparatus of  claim 42 , wherein:
 the first network device is configured to parse the aggregated notification message received from the application server into the plurality of event notifications for the plurality of user agents and transmit the parsed event notifications to the user agents to which the parsed event notifications are directed based on information included in the aggregated notification message; and   wherein the user agents are comprised of at least one of: terminals, endpoints, mobile communication devices, laptop computers, computers, personal digital assistants, netbooks, tablet computer devices, desktop computers, and desktop phones.