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Interface enabling voice messaging systems to interact with

1. Archive Timeout determines the period in which the Timer module informs the NIB to archive the CDR files In some embodiments the time period is measured in minutes and depending on NIB loading is set at about 10 to 30 minutes Archive Queue Limit parameter sets the threshold on the number of calls in the archive queue When the queue depth reaches this number of calls the server initiates archiving According to one embodiment this value is set to a relatively small number such as 20 to minimize the duration of archive connections At step 1270 the oNIB determines whether or not to initiate archiving based on the archiving parameters If the archiving parameters have not been satisfied the process loops back to step 1216 On the other hand if archiving parameters have been satisfied the oNIB at step 1275 initiates archiving by setting up a TCP connection to the archive process on the NMS The NIB utilizes the archsend task in the NIB s Network Interface to accomplish this At step 1280 after the TCP connection is set up all of the CDR records in the archive queue are transferred In some embodiments archiving is implemented by a background process running on the Catcher server located on the Net work Management site requiring no operator interaction The process opens the Archive database and stores the CDR records therein 5 689 550 17 d Updating Network Database FIG 13 illustrates the steps in for updating the Netw
2. TCP CONNECTION DESTINATION NIB STRIPS HEADER DESTINATION NIB 8120 QUEUES TO VMS NIB OPENS CONNECTION DELIVERS CALL TO VMS 8095 8110 8130 VMS STORES IN DESTINATION MAIL BOX 6140 FIG 8B U S Patent 18 Sheet 9 of 13 5 689 550 2 lt h START HELLO uid DATA LINK LAYER en CONNECTION NETWORK 930 LAYER CONNECTION TRANSPORT 940 CONNECTION r gt lt m APPLICATION 950 LAYER CONNECTION BEGIN 950 APPLICATION SEND 970 DATA END 980 APPLICATION 990 APPLICATION LAYER C2 O N 5995 LINK WITH NIB FID U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 10 of 13 START HELLO DATA LINK LAYER CONNECTION NETWORK LAYER CONNECT ION TRANSPORT LAYER CONNECTION APPLICATION LAYER CONNECTION BEGIN APPLICATION SEND DATA ND APPLICATION INFORM CALL SERVER OF MESSAGE DELIVERY CLOSE APPLICATION LAYER TERMINATE LINK od FIG 10 1010 1020 1030 1040 1050 1060 1070 1080 1085 1090 1095 5 689 550 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 11 of 13 5 689 550 START NIB SENDS uo FAG 11 CALL TO TRANSLATION SERVER R VE TRANSLATION SERVER 1110 RECEIVES CALL STRIP 1115 STORE HEADER 1120 1400 VOICE VOICE VOICE FAX EMAIL VOICE 1405 VOICE TO VOICE TO VOICE TEXT
3. detection of error and others A detailed discussion of the DDCMP protocol standard is provided in James Martin Joe Leben DECnet Phase V An OSI Implementation Digital Press 1992 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The NIB s VMS interface receives the call from the VMS According to one embodiment the NIB accepts all VMS messages regardless of destination This feature allows the VMS to quickly deliver all traffic to the NIB for further processing At step 8030 the VMS Interface informs the Call Server of an incoming call from the VMS This initiates the Call Server to assign a unique filename or callid to the call The callid for example may consist of a 4 byte VMS node id followed by a 6 byte sequence number At step 8040 the oNIB accepts the call from the oVMS The incoming call depending on its length may comprise more than one frame Each frame will include a DDCMP header which identifies the number of total frames in the call frame sequence number originating mailbox destina tion mailbox distribution list and other information Once the NIB receives all the frames the call is stored as a call file in the Call Files database The Call Server also accesses the Config database to identify the CDR database Once identified the Call Server creates a CDR file in the CDR database Both the call file and cdr file are identified by the callid In some embodiments the Call Server may instruct the Logger to 1 dis
4. step 8140 in FIG 8 according to one embodiment of the present invention At step 1010 the NIB s VMS Interface starts the communica tion process by sending a hello message to the VMS At step 1020 the VMS pauses for about of a second before connecting to VMS s Data Link Layer Similar to FIG 8 the Data Link Layer connection may be formed by the following exchange of messages between the NIB and the VMS The VMS Interface sends a DDCMP_STRT message which in turns causes the VMS to respond with a DDCMP STRT message The VMS Interface then issues a DDCMP_ STACK message indicating that initialization of the data link is completed Upon receiving the DDCMP_STACK message the VMS acknowledges by sending a DDCMP_ ACK message to the VMS Interface thus completing con nection at the Data Link Layer At step 1030 the VMS Interface starts the Network Layer connection To begin this process the VMS Interface sends for example an OPEN_NETWORK_LAYER command The VMS Interface then completes the Network layer con nection by responding with the OPEN_NETWORK_ LAYER message At step 1040 the VMS Interface forms a connection with the VMS s Transport Layer by issuing a NC_CRE_REQ network connection creation request request In response the VMS sends a NC_CRE_REP network connection creation reply message indicating that the network connection has been created At step 1050 the VMS Interface opens the Application Layer In one embod
5. LAYER NETWORK LAYER DATA LINK LAYER DATA LINK PHYSICAL LAYER PHYSICAL LAYER ES gt lt rm gt E r c gt gt gt lt lt lt m m m gt U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 2 of 13 5 689 550 210 210 220 APPLICATION OUTGOING INCOMING APPLICATION FRAME APPLICATION _ FRAME 110 CONSTRUCTION DATA REDUCTION pf APPLICATION LAYER AH APPLICATION DATA UNIT DATA UNIT TION PRESENTATION AYER SESSION LAYER PRESENTATION LA SESSION LAYER TRANSPORT LAYER TRANSPORT LAYER NETWORK LAYER NETWORK LAYER gt lt lt m m 2 Ax DATA LINK DATA LINK LAYER E PHYSICAL PHYSICAL AYER m r p gt gt lt m m LAYER 180 FIG 2 IONS 350 HQ SERVER PLATFORMS 3100 351 2 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 3 of 13 5 689 550 ethernet 490 VOICE TRAC SERVER Network 390 REACT EMAIL SERVER TYPICAL ATM BASED NETWORK i REACT CENTIGRAM 4600 COMMUNICATIONS VOICE MEMO SERVER PROCESSOR NIB TO WAN GAN oh t TOPOLOGY DDCNP REACT FAX SERVER FIG 4 5 689 550 Sheet 4 of 13 Nov 18 1997 U S Patent ASVEVLVG 301 OFeS 3 91 921 39 383 1 AYOMLAN 00rG 00EG YANI L
6. TEXT PROTOCOL CONVERSION CONVERSION 1410 FAX EMATL FORM NEW PROTOCOL PROTOCOL HEADER 1415 APPEND HEADER TO VOICE MESSAGE FORM TCP IP HEADER FORM NEW HEADER APPEND HEADER TO FAX MESSAGE SEND TO FAX SERVER FORM NEW HEADER APPEND HEADER TO EMAIL MESSAGE SEND TO EMAIL SERVER lt 1425 APPEND TCP IP HEADER 1430 FAX SERVER EMAIL SERVER SEND TO TO TO d NIB DESTINATION DESTINATION 1435 d NIB TO VMS U S Patent Nov 18 1997 START VMS SENDS CALL TO NIB NIB CREATES ORIGIN CDR AND ORIGIN CALL FILE NIB SENDS CALL TO DESTINATION NIB DESTINATION NIB CREATES DESTINATION CDR DESTINATION CALL FILE NIB SENDS TO DESTINATION VMS DESTINATION VMS CONFIRMS DELIVERY DESTINATION NIB SENDS CONFIRMATION TO ORIGIN NIB DESTINATION CALL FILE IS DELETED DESTINATION CDR IS AGED AWAY ORIGIN NIB RECEIVES CONFIRMATION ORIGIN NIB DELETES ORIGIN CALL FILE ORIGIN NIB QUEUES ORIGIN CDR FILE Sheet 12 of 13 1210 1220 1225 1230 1235 1240 1245 1250 1255 1260 1265 FIG 124 5 689 550 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 12B CHANGE MASTER NETWORK DATA BASE 1310 UPDATE RECORD ADDED UPDATE QUEUE UPDATE SENT TO NIB NIB RECEIVES UPDATE NIB ACKNOWLEDGES NMS DELETE UPDATE FROM QUEUE 3 Sheet 13 of 13 5 689 550 5 689 550 1 INTERFACE ENABLING VOICE MESSAGING
7. and Network layers These layers are sometimes referred to as the communications subnetwork subnet or the carrier portion of the system The upper three layers Session Presentation and Application layers are collectively known as the host process or customer porion of the system The middle layer Transport is the first end to end layer and acts as a buffer between the two subsets Generally the Transport Layer is often grouped with the upper layer as part of the host process FIG 1 illustrates a simple local area network LAN comprising two systems As depicted system 110 is linked to system 120 by a physical medium 180 i e cable to form the LAN The systems communicate or interact with each other through a set or suite of protocols Consistent with the 10 15 35 45 55 65 4 OSI model each layer will have its own protocol Typically the protocols function on a peer to peer basis between each of the layers as indicated by the logical or virtual com munication paths 140a g The interface between the layers within the same system is a vertical relation whereas the protocol is a horizontal relationship between peer layers of the adjacent system Communication between two systems is effected in the following manner A user inputs data such as electronic mail message in the Application Layer of system 110 host for transmission to the Application Layer of system 120 destination The message proceeds dow
8. as a connectionless mode transmission In other words units of data are transmitted from the source to the destination without establishing a route or connecting to it On the other hand the virtual circuit approach establishes a preplanned route before any packets are sent This route serves to support a logical connection between the source and destination node Once the route is established all of the packets are sent using the same route In this manner the packets arrive at the destination in the correct sequence This approach is referred to as a connection mode transmission which means that a route between the source and destination is established prior to the transmission A more detailed discussion on networking principles may be found in Miller Internetworking A Guide to Network Communications 1991 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes II System Architecture a General FIG 3 depicts the general architecture of the communi cation system 300 disclosed herein As shown a plurality of remote sites 310a 310d each having voice messaging capabilities are attached to a communications network 390 by links 3114 3114 respectively Each remote site is assigned a unique network address or node id The network address associated with each voice message determines which remote site receives the message A network man agement site 350 which also is assigned a unique network address is connected to network 390 by
9. between said first voice messag ing processor and said first interface sending said representation of said first voice message to said first interface after connection has been estab lished processing said representation of said first voice message to determine a network address associated with said second voice messaging system converting said first protocol to said second protocol suite initiating connection between said first interface and said second interface and transmitting said converted representation of said first voice message from said first interface to said second interface 14 The method as recited in claim 12 wherein said receiving step comprises the steps of reconverting said converted representation of said first voice message from said second protocol suite to said first protocol thereby generating a reconverted repre sentation of said first voice message establishing connection with said second voice messaging processor and delivering said reconverted representation of said first voice message to said second voice messaging proces sor 15 The method as recited in claim 14 further comprising the step of determining a path by which said converted representation of said first voice message is transmitted over said communications network to said second voice messag ing system 16 The method as recited in claim 14 further comprising the steps of generating a first call detail report corresp
10. exact copy of the origin call file After processing the call the NIB delivers it to the destination mailbox in the dVMS at step 1235 At step 1240 the VMS confirms delivery of the call At step 1245 the dNIB responds by delivering a confirmation notice to the oNIB At step 1250 dNIB deletes the destination call file In some embodiments the dNIB retains the CDR record until it is aged away In other words the NIB transfers the CDR record to a delete queue When the queue exceeds its limit for example by more than 10 the server automatically deletes the oldest records in the queue to bring the queue size down to the limit In this way the queue always contains the most recent records The queue limit is determined by the delete queue limit configuration parameter In one embodiment this parameter is set to approximate the num ber of calls processed by the NIB in 24 hours This will insure that the NIB database reflects the most recent 24 hours of call activity At step 1255 the oNIB receives the delivery confirmation sent by the dNIB At step 1260 the oNIB deletes the origin call file At step 1265 the oNIB queues the origin CDR record for archiving in the network wide master archive database on the NMS This master CDR database contains one CDR record for each call completed network wide Two server configuration parameters govern when the NIB will initiate archiving Archive Timeout and Archive Queue Limit
11. exceeds the limits it is broken into a series of packets Each packet consists of a portion of the data that a system wants to transmit and a packet header that contains controls information necessary for the network to route the packet to 5 689 550 5 their intended destination In large networks the packet may be routed through a plurality of nodes before it reaches its destination At each node en route the packet is received stored briefly and passed on to the next node Eventually all the packets that comprise the message will be delivered to its intended destination There are two approaches datagram and virtual circuit which are implemented by networks to handle the stream of packets as it is routed to its destination In the datagram approach each packet which is referred to as a datagram is treated independently with no reference to packets that have previously been sent Each intermediate node chooses the datagram s next path taking into account information received from adjacent nodes such as traffic line failures and others As a result each datagram may travel different paths even though they contain the same destination address Additionally the datagrams may arrive at the destination out of sequence or some may even be lost during transit In some networks the destination node is responsible for reordering the datagrams and informing the source node to resend the lost data The datagram approach is referred to
12. found in Miller Managing Internetworks with SNMP M amp T Books Jul 19 1993 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes In some embodiments the NMS is provided with an interactive operator interface for performing management functions such as monitoring alarms from all remote NIBs reviewing alarm history from all remote NIBs selecting a specific NIB to monitor reviewing the configuration of a specific NIB reviewing call detail status from a selected NIB reviewing the Network database of a selected NIB reviewing the alarm history of a selected NIB interactively updating the Master Network database located on the NMS and automatically distributing the updates to all defined NIBs and delivering a complete copy of the Master Net work database to any NIB on the WAN In some embodiments the date and time stamp are synchronized by the NMS Communication between the NIBs and Network management station is through User Data Protocol UDP datagrams Translation Server 650 which may be a computer having a 64 bit address architecture such as ALPHA manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation is provided to translate a message from one medium to another such as from voice to text or text to voice The translation server enables the caller to convert a message created in one medium to another for example fax to voice fax to email one type of fax to anther type of fax email to fax email to voice one type of email service to a
13. provides an interactive interface between the NIB and a user to for example examine the status of the NIB or issue NIB commands The databases are written as Raima DDL files Accordingly the name of the databases will be in form name ddl The functions and contents of the various data bases will now be described in detail Config database cfg ddl 5110 contains information that defines the operating parameters of the NIB In some embodiments the information may be contained in one file The operating parameters for example include the voice messaging processors node name NIB network address current version of the NIB software the name of the various databases CDR Network and Log address of the Net work Manager number of TCP senders number of TCP receivers number and configuration details of the voice messaging ports and current values of the various operating parameters 10 15 20 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 Call Files database 5410 contains the actual voice mes sage from the voice messaging processor When the voice messaging processor executes a call it is stored in a separate call file which comprises the application layer header infor mation and compressed voice data for the call Each call file is assigned a unique filename by the origin NIB In one embodiment the filename format comprises the voice mes saging processor node id 4 octets followed by a 6 octet sequence of numbers T
14. said first voice message for transmission over said communications network to a second voice messaging system the second voice messaging system comprising a second interface and a second voice messaging processor receiving said converted representation of said first voice message at said second interface said second interface reconverting said converted representation of said first voice message for processing by said second voice messaging processor and providing a management site coupled to the communica tions network for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered k
15. software from Voice Tel Enterprises Through VOCAM the voice trak server performs administrative and accounts receivable functions such as generating reports network traffic statistics and other functions In some embodiments a modem 425 may be provided to establish links to other public or private switched networks The modem which may be a V 32 bis type or other that is well known to those skilled in the art is connected to the voice track server s COM 1 or other asynchronous port The modem may also provide an alternative way for accessing the WAN Thus data can be sent received to from NIBs not linked to the WAN c Remote Site Software Architecture FIG 5 shows the architecture of the NIB software A call server module 5100 controls the overall operations of the NIB Call server 5100 interfaces with Config 5110 CDR 5120 and Network 5130 databases which serve as infor mation servers A VMS Interface module 5500 and a Net work Interface module 5400 facilitate data transfers between the VMS and the WAN A Call Files database 5410 which stores the voice messages is linked to both voice VMS and WAN interfaces A Timer module 5300 serves to inform the Call Server when a predefined time interval has expired A Logger module 5200 accepts preformatted log messages from the Call Server and stores them in a Log database 5210 In some embodiment the Logger also displays the log messages on the Log console An Operator Interface 5600
16. tasks for example comprise call routing including address translation from VMS pro tocol to WAN protocol managing end to end call queuing transferring calls across the WAN managing and updating the Call Detail Recording database Log database system status and error logs and reporting system status to the requesting operator or network manager tasks Such tasks are initialized and terminated by the Call Server The VMS Interface manages data transfers between the NIB and the VMS via the asynchronous ports up to 8 In some embodiments the VMS Interface may comprise two subtasks or procedures centrx c and centtx c Centrx man ages the receive side of the VMS port on the NIB Centrx accepts complete messages from the VMS and forwards them to centtx for processing which includes issuing appro priate responses back to the VMS Centtx performs data transfers and communications to the VMS including pro tocol responses at all levels of the VMS protocol Additionally centtx interacts with the Call Server and the Call Files database for reading writing voice call files In one embodiment one centrx centtx pair regulates data transfers in each VMS asynchronous port The Network Interface oversees the communication between the NIB and the WAN According to a specific embodiment the Network Interface comprises subtasks netsend c netrecv c callsend c callrecv c and archsend c Fach subtask performs a specific portion of the communi c
17. 20 In one embodiment the Data Link Layer connection may be formed by the following exchange of messages between the VMS and the VMS Interface First the VMS sends a DDCMP_STRT message which causes the VMS Interface to also send its own DDCMP_STRT message The DDCMP_STRT mes sages are used to perform synchronization on the data link When the data link is synchronized the VMS responds with a DDCMP_STACK message indicating that initialization of the data link is completed Finally the NIB acknowledges by sending a message to the VMS thus completing connection at the Data Link Layer At step 930 the VMS starts the connection at the Network Layer To begin this process the VMS sends for example an OPEN_NETWORK_LAYER command The VMS Interface then completes the Network layer connection by responding with the OPEN_NETWORK_LAYER mes sage At step 940 the VMS forms a connection at the Transport Layer by issuing a NC_CRE_REQ network connection creation request request In response the VMS Interface sends a NC REP network connection cre ation reply message indicating that the network connection has been created At step 950 the VMS opens the Application Layer In one embodiment the Application Layer may be opened by having the VMS transmit an APPL_BEGIN message This will be followed with an APPL message issued by the VMS Interface Once the Application Layer connection is established the VMS issue
18. 439901 0026 901 310SN09 G 217 WVSOILIN3O 53113 TYO 33 15 ASOMLJ3N 0E TG 00685 35 TIVO 00 5 3SVHV1VQ ASVEVLVG 913 9 AL 0 F8 3OV J431NI 901 78140 0096 5 689 550 Sheet 5 of 13 Nov 18 1997 U S Patent 9 AYOML 3 03Sv8 TOTAAL NOLIV INL 099 o 069 19119118 469 06 DAN 3AVHANIVA A3H91V2 n 0 9 H1AH3S VIGSN TL INA X 19 19433 02 O3 IA 078 NOILVLS IN3A39 VNVN 1 JN 029 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 6 of 13 5 689 550 START VMS INITIATES iis CONNECTION VMS SENDS 720 CALL TO NIB NIB STORES 730 CALL NIB INITIATES 740 TCP CONNECTION NIB TO 750 DESTINATION NIB CALL TRANSFERRED 760 TO DESTINATION NIB DESTINATION NIB 770 SENDS CALL TO DESTINATION VMS FIG 7 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 START INITIALIZE NIB USER CALLS VMS FORWARDS CALL TO NIB NIB ASSIGNS CALL ID TO CALL NIB ACCEPTS CALL NIB EXAMINES CALL HEADER NIB PERFORMS PROTOCOL TRANSLATION NIB QUEUES CALL WAN NIB OPENS TCP CONNECTION NIB RETRIEVES CALL FROM MEMORY 5 689 550 Sheet 7 of 13 8005 8010 8020 8030 8040 8050 8050 8070 8080 8090 FIG BA U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 8 of 13 5 689 550 DESTINATION NIB RECEIVES CALL NIB RELEASES
19. 85 13 5 440 624 8 1995 Schoof 379 202 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Interconnecting LANs R L Sharma JEEE Spectrum Aug 1991 pp 32 38 B ISDN and How it Works D Delisle and L Pelamour gues ZEEE Spectrum Aug 1991 pp 39 44 Inside Routers A Technology Guide for Network Build ers R Boule and J Moy Data Communications Sep 21 1989 pp 53 56 59 60 65 and 66 VoiceMemo Installation and Service Manual for Software Release 5 03B Centigram Communications Corp San Jose Calif 2700 0885 11 Rev A Dec 1 1993 Primary Examiner Thomas W Brown Attorney Agent or Firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP 57 ABSTRACT Methods and apparatus for interfacing a plurality of voice messaging systems with a communications network are disclosed Voice messages from voice message computers 450 are processed by an interface 410 and transmitted over communications network 390 to its destination The inter face allows the voice messaging computers to establish connection to the communications network without dialing into it 25 Claims 13 Drawing Sheets 350 3100 REMOTE 3 p 340c REMOTE 4 U S Patent Nov 18 1997 Sheet 1 of 13 5 689 550 110 yg 120 APPLICATION LAYER APPLICATION PRESENTATION LAYER PRESENTATION SESSION LAYER SESSION LAYER TRANSPORT TRANSPORT LAYER NETWORK
20. SYSTEMS TO INTERACT WITH COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention is related to the field of telecom munication In particular the present invention provides an interface that enables voice messaging systems to interact with communications networks Voice messaging systems VMSs are known in the art of telecommunications Such VMSs have internal mass storage capabilities to assist in the processing of calls For example VMSs allow callers to leave messages for a call recipient who is not able to receive a call The caller s message is stored in the recipient s mailbox for retrieval by the recipient at a later time A mailbox refers to the location in a central memory device assigned to a specific user or recipient Each user in the system is assigned its own mailbox which is accessible only by the assigned user In addition VMSs route incoming calls to the appropriate extensions and provide intra office and inter office messag ing services Typically a user interacts with a VMS through Touch Tone keys of a telephone keypad By depressing the appro priate keys the user can control message delivery and retrieval In some systems voice prompts may guide the user through the various VMS functions In practice VMSs are linked to private branch exchanges PBX This allows VMSs to take advantage of services such as automatic call forwarding on no answer as well as other functions provided b
21. United States Patent Garson et al A A O US005689 550A Patent Number 5 689 550 45 Date of Patent Nov 18 1997 54 INTERFACE ENABLING VOICE MESSAGING SYSTEMS TO INTERACT WITH COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS 75 Inventors Michael Garson Cleveland Ohio Bruce D Stewart Sebastian Fla 73 Assignee Voice Tel Enterprises Inc Cleveland Ohio 21 Appl No 287 822 22 Filed Aug 8 1994 51 Int 1 H04M 1 65 H04J 3 24 HO4L 12 66 52 U S 379 89 348 15 370 395 370 402 379 32 379 202 379 207 58 Field of Search 379 89 88 67 379 94 207 204 202 32 370 61 85 13 60 1 352 355 395 401 402 403 404 428 348 15 14 56 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 4 914 586 4 1990 Swinehart et al 379 96 X 5 113 430 5 1992 Richardson Jr et al 379 88 5 282244 1 1994 Fuller et al 379 230 5 289 468 2 1994 Yoshida woe 370 85 13 5 309 437 5 1994 Perlman etal 370 85 13 5 333 266 7 1994 Boaz 379 94 X 5 341 374 8 1994 Lewen et al 370 85 4 REMOTE 1 REMOTE 2 HQ SERVER PLATFORMS 5 351276 9 1994 Doll Jr etal 379 67 5 406 557 4 1995 Baudoin 370 61 5 426 637 6 1995 Derby et al 370
22. age by a destination NIB to the VMS FIG 11 is a flow chart illustrating the procedure for message translation FIGS 12a 12b are flow charts illustrating the archiving procedure according to the present invention and FIG 13 is a flow chart illustrating the procedure for updating a network database by the Network Manager TABLE OF CONTENTS I General IL System Architecture a General b Remote Site Hardware Architecture c Remote Site Software Architecture d Network Management Site System Operations a Message Transfer b Message Translation c Archiving and Deleting Call Files and CDR Records d Updating Network Database DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT I General The present invention provides an improved communica tions system for sending and receiving voice messages over a communications network Before describing the invention in greater detail it is helpful to first describe general networking principles The basic concern of networking is the ability of the systems within the network to interoperate with each other To address this concern standards have been established to provide some uniformity in the world of communications These standards establish the protocols which systems use to communicate with each other The following is a brief description of the communications standards according to the Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model The model contains seven layers each layer or protocol
23. anta Cruz Calif Information regarding SCO UNIX and SCO TCP IP Runtime system can be found in the SCO Manual Set available from SCO part number 01205 001 published by on Apr 19 1993 This set includes SCO UNIX Operating System System Administra tors Guide part number AUO1211P001 SCO UNIX Oper ating System User s Guide part number AUO1210P001 SCO TCP IP Runtime System for SCO UNIX Systems Command Reference part number AU02802P001 SCO TCP IP User s Guide part number AU02802G002 SCO TCP IP Runtime System for SCO UNIX Systems User s and Administrator s Guide part number AU02801P001 and SCO UNIX Operating System System Administrator s Reference part number AU01213P001 all incorporated by reference for all purposes In one embodiment VMS 450 is a Centigram Voice memo II manufactured by Centigram Inc of San Jose Calif although it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that VMSs manufactured by other vendors such as Octel Voice mail or NTI Northern Telecom Inc Meridian voice mail may be employed The communication protocol employed by the Centigram Voicememo II is a variant of the Digital Data Communication Message Protocol DDCMP developed by Digital Equipment Corporation The opera tions of Voicememo II are described in Centigram Opera tions Manuals provided by Centigram Inc of San Jose Calif while DDCMP is described in detail in Tanenbaum Computer Networks Prentice Hall Publishing 2nd Editi
24. at it is ready to accept more calls 1 C READY FOR CALLS message b Message Translation FIG 11 illustrates the procedure for translating a message from one medium to another At step 1105 a NIB sends a voice message which requires translation to another medium or format to the Translation server at Network Management Site At step 1110 the Translation server receives the message At step 1115 the header is stripped off the message and then stored in a file The Translation Server then assesses the format requested by the caller at step 1120 The system goes to step 1200 if the caller requests the voice message to be converted to a facsimile message At step 1205 the voice message unit without the header is processed through the voice to text conversion software Upon completion the Translation server accesses a database similar to the Network database that provides the necessary protocol translation information at step 1210 At step 1215 the Translation server determines the correct protocol and creates an appropriate header At step 1220 the header is appended to the facsimile message At step 1225 the Translation server transmits the message to the appro priate FAX server at the destination network address The FAX server then forwards the message to its destination at 1230 The system goes to step 1300 if the caller requests the voice message to be converted to an email message At step 1305 the voice message unit w
25. ata Link and Transport Layers is that the Data Link domain lies between adjacent nodes whereas the Transport Layer s domain extends from the source to the destination or end to end within the communication sub net Issues concerning source to destination messages are important in the Transport Layer For example the Transport Layer segments a long message into smaller units packets prior to transmission and assures the reassembly of those packets to form the original message at the receiver s end The Session Layer establishes and terminates process to process communication sessions between hosts Translation between name and address databases as well as synchroni zation between the two hosts may be required to manage the sessions The Presentation Layer establishes the syntax or form in which data are exchanged between the two hosts As such the Presentation Layer provides a data manipulation function not a communication function Data compression and data encryption are two examples of Presentation Layer services The Application Layer provides end user services such as Application Layer file transfers electronic messages virtual terminal emulation and remote database access The end user interacts with the Application In this manner the various other layers appear to be transparent to the end user The seven layers are divided into two subsets The first is comprised of the lower three layers the Physical Data Link
26. ation over the WAN Netsend sends UDP datagrams over the WAN network to another NIB Netrecv receives UDP datagrams from another NIB and queues them to the server Callsend sends a call file over the WAN network to another NIB for example using a TCP connection This includes establishing the TCP connection reading the file off the disk and sending it Callrecv receives a call file over the WAN network from another NIB This includes accepting the TCP connection accepting the call data and storing it on disk Archsend sends CDR records to the network manager for archiving 10 30 35 45 50 55 65 10 The Logger tcclog c accepts preformatted log messages and displays them on the console along with a date and time stamp The Timer timer c notifies the call server when a predefined timer interval has expired The timer interval is defined in the record contained in the Config database In some embodiments the NIB software architecture may include an Interactive NIB Configurator nibsetup c The nibsetup is separate from the other software modules and is used during initialization of the NIB Nibsetup provides an interactive menu driven interface for a user to configure and view the Network net ddl and Config cfg ddl databases Also the nibsetup initializes the Call Detail cdr ddI and the local Log log ddl databases A more detailed description of the NIB s software architecture can be found in TCC Voice Tel Net
27. defining different functions 5 689 550 3 The Physical Layer handles bit transmission between one node e g host workstation and the next The Physical Layer functions include interfacing with the transmission media encoding the data signal defining the range of the voltage or current magnitudes defining the connector sizes shapes and pinouts and any such function that is generally associated with the physical transmission of the bit stream The Data Link Layer maintains a reliable communication link between nodes As such it assumes that the Physical Layer is noisy or prone to errors Data Link provides a reliable delivery mechanism to transmit frame or package of data bits to the next node Data Link Layer inserts addresses into the frame including source and destination and provides error control for the data Error control may be implemented for example with a Cyclic Redundancy Check CRC or other error detection technique The Network Layer establishes a path for the traveling data packet along the communication subnet from the source node to the destination node The Network Layer switches routes and controls the congestion of these information packets within the subnet The Transport Layer provides reliable delivery of host messages originating at Layer 7 the application layer in the same way that the Data Link Layer assures reliable delivery of frames between adjacent nodes The major difference between the D
28. e call from the Call Files Database and sends the TCP IP packet across the WAN According to one embodiment the frames are first sent to the router which maps out a route to the dNIB The route may require more than one intermediate stop The NIB at each intermediate node maintains a cdr record of the call and sends it to the next NIB unit it reaches the dNIB At step 8090 the Network Interface of the dNIB receives the call In one embodiment the callrecv procedure pre forms this task Callrecv accepts the call and stores it in the Call Files Database At step 8100 the TCP connection between oNIB and dNIB is released At step 8110 the Call Server strips the TCP IP header from each packet restoring the call with the DDCMP format At step 8120 the Call Server queues the VMS Interface which delivers the call to the VMS In one embodiment the VMS Interface s centtx procedure delivers the call to the VMS At step 8130 the VMS interface establishes connection with the dVMS and commences delivery At step 8140 the dVMS stores the call in the appropriate mailbox FIG 9 illustrates the sequence of steps for transferring a call from the VMS to the NIB step 8020 in FIG 8 according to one embodiment of the present invention At step 910 the VMS starts the communication process by sending a hello message to the VMS Interface After a pause of about of a second the VMS initiates connection with the NIB s Data Link Layer at step 9
29. each voice messaging system comprising a voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network for receiving a first voice message from a subscriber of said telephone network and generating a representation of said first voice message according to a second protocol and an interface for coupling said voice messaging proces sor to said communications network said interface for receiving said representation of said first voice message from said voice messaging processor and converting said representation of said first voice message to said first protocol suite for transmission over said communications network to another of the voice messaging systems and a Management site coupled to said communications network said management site comprising 10 15 30 35 45 55 22 a network manager providing management functions for said communications network a router for connecting said management site to said communications network and an identifier server for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered 24 A communication system comprising a communications network for transmitting data format ted according to a first protocol suite a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected by said communications network each voice messaging system comprising a voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network for receiving a first
30. error reports statistical analysis to NIB customers and other information service IS functions Identifier server 660 may for example be an program mable computer with an Intel Pentium processor In some embodiments the Identifier server may be equipped with Hewlett Packard Openview All undeliverable voice mes sages are routed to the Identifier server by the sending NIB The Identifier server examines the TCP IP header to assesses the reason for the transmission failure The Identifier server then transmits an error message which identifies the problem back to the appropriate send receive and any intermediate NIBs The NIB upon receiving the message informs the VMS from which the voice message was sent of the malfunction In some instances the message may not have originated from an NIB remote site If this is the case the Identifier server will notify the server at which the message originated The Identifier server also updates the appropriate CDR databases with the transmission failure and reports the malfunction to Network Management System 620 Network Management System NMS 620 may be a computer based on current INTEL 486 technology Accord ing to some embodiments the NMS is installed with Hewlett 5 689 550 11 Packard Openview The NMS provides remote network management capability using for example an application protocol such as Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP A detailed discussion of SNMP can be
31. ging processor and an interface the method comprising the steps of in a first voice messaging system generating a represen tation of a first voice message in a first voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network said first voice message being received from a subscriber of said telephone network said representation of said first voice message being formatted according to a first protocol transmitting said representation of said first voice mes sage via a local area network to a first interface said first interface for converting said first protocol to a second protocol suite for transmission of a converted representation of said first voice message over said communications network from said first voice messag 5 689 550 19 ing system to a second voice messaging system the second voice messaging system comprising a second interface and a second voice messaging processor receiving said converted representation of said first voice message at said second interface said second interface reconverting said second protocol suite to said first protocol for processing by said second voice messaging processor and providing a management site coupled to the communica tions network for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered 13 The method as recited in claim 12 wherein said transmitting step comprises the steps of establishing connection
32. gous to the steps described in FIG 11 i e using information stored in the databases to define the protocol and header format However the mes sage will be processed through the appropriate text to voice software if applicable In this manner messages can be transmitted in different media formats c Archiving and Deleting Call Files and CDR Records The forwarding of a call from an oVMS to a dVMS creates a call file and a CDR record on both the originating and destination NIBs These files are retained on the NIBs until they are archived or deleted FIG 12 illustrates the 10 15 25 35 45 55 65 16 process of creating archiving and deleting the files as implemented according to one embodiment of the present invention At step 1210 the oNIB receives from the VMS a call that is to be transmitted over the WAN to the destination mailbox At step 1220 the oNIB creates CDR record and call file which are referred to as origin CDR record and origin call file respectively These files are stored in the appropriate NIB databases At step 1225 after processing the call it is routed over the WAN to its destination At step 1230 the dNIB upon receiving the call creates a CDR and call file which are referred to as destination CDR record and destination call file The destination CDR record is a working copy of the CDR data used by the dNIB during call processing The destination call file is an
33. he filename also serves as the callid used as the key in the CDR database to store details about the call The CDR database cdr ddl contains detailed information for each voice call It also contains an associated delivery record for each destination mailbox for which the call is destined The call record and mailbox records collectively may include the following information a callid which corresponds to its call file name b message status code c message type voice or greeting d origin Node ID origin mailbox number f date and time message was originated g destination node h message number i message Type j message handling instructions priority receipt requested k length of message plus any attachments frame count 1 number of attachments to the original message message count m number of recipients on the node the message is being sent to distribution count n separate database records for each destination mailbox mailbox number of each recipient p date time and status of delivery to each destination mailbox and q retry counter for use by the call server in error recovery The Network database net ddl contains one record for each voice message processor node in the network The record defines the network address associated with the node on the communications network The database also contains a record for each NIB in the network which associates the NIB
34. iment the Application Layer may be opened by having the VMS Interface transmit an BEGIN message Connection to Application Layer is estab lished when the VMS responds with an APPL_ACK mes sage At step 1060 the VMS Interface issues an APPL REQ BEGIN message to begin the application i e sending the call to the VMS At step 1070 the VMS Interface upon receiving an APPL_ACK message from the VMS transmits the call to the VMS Once the call has been sent to the VMS the VMS Interface issues APPL_ REQ END to end the application at step 1080 The VMS then acknowledges by sending an APPL_ACK message At step 1085 the VMS Interface sends I ACCEPTED to the Call Server indicating that the VMS has accepted the call In addition the VMS interface sends T_DISTRIBUTION_LIST containing list of destinations to which the call is to be sent and L_DESTINATION containing the address of the destination mailbox to the Call Server The Call Server then responds with a T_NO_ MORE_CALLS instructing the VMS Interface to termi nate communication with the VMS At step 1090 the VMS Interface issues an APPL_END message to end the Appli cation Layer connection Next the VMS issues a acknowl edgment APPL_ACK to the VMS Interface At step 1095 5 689 550 15 the VMS Interface terminates the link with the VMS by issuing MSG_BLD_END and CLOSE NETWORK LAYER messages Finally the VMS Interface resets itself and informs the Call Server th
35. ing a call detail report record from said rst interface said call detail report record containing information regarding said first voice message said catcher server storing said call detail report record containing information regarding said first voice message said catcher server storing said call detail report record in a database said database comprising a plurality of call detail report records a programmable digital computer said computer accessing said database so as to generate billing reports and an identifier server for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered 22 A communication system comprising a communications network for transmitting data format ted according to a first protocol suite a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected by said communications network each voice messaging system comprising 5 689 550 21 a voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network for receiving a first voice message from a subscriber of said telephone network and generating a representation of said first voice message according to a second protocol and an interface for coupling said voice messaging proces sor to said communications network said interface for receiving said representation of said first voice message from said voice messaging processor and converting said representation of said first voice message to said firs
36. ithout the header is pro cessed through the voice to text conversion software Upon completion the translation server accesses a database con taining protocol translation information at step 1310 At step 1315 the Translation server determines the correct protocol and creates an appropriate header At step 1320 the header is appended to the facsimile message and transmitted to the appropriate Email server at the destination network address At step 1325 the forwarded to its destination by the Email server At step 1330 the email server delivers the message to the recipient The system goes to step 1400 if the caller requests the voice message to be converted to another voice format At step 1405 the translation server accesses a database con taining protocol translation information used by the other VMSs At step 1410 by comparing the message s destina tion address with the database the Translation server deter mines the correct protocol format and creates the an appro priate voice mail header At step 1415 the voice mail header is appended to the voice message At step 1420 a TCP IP header is created similar to the steps 8050 8060 in FIG At step 1425 the Translation server encapsulates the mes sage with the TCP IP header and sends it to the appropriate dNIB at step 1430 At step 1435 the dNIB transfer the voice message to the VMS The procedure for translating for example a text to voice message may be somewhat analo
37. link 351 The network management site monitors and manages the net work In this manner subscribers of one remote site can send voice messages to one or more subscriber s located on the other remote sites b Remote Site Hardware Architecture FIG 4 illustrates a remote site in detail The remote site comprises a LAN 490 interconnected to communications network 390 by a router 495 Communications network 390 may for example be a wide area network WAN of the type that is well known in the art such as Asynchronous Trans mission Mode ATM frame relay or other network In one embodiment data are transmitted through the WAN using the Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol TCP IP suite The TCP IP suite for example may be encom passed by the entire protocol suite of ATM technology This includes ATM frame relay ISDN Broadband ISDN SMDS and other network A description of TCP IP can be found in Michell and Quarterman Practical Internetworking with 5 10 15 35 40 45 55 65 6 TCP IP and UNIX Addison Wesley Publishing Jan 19 1993 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes LAN 490 for example may be an Ethernet Alternatively token ring FDDI or other LAN may be used Router 495 for example may be a digital computer of the type that is well known to those skilled in the art such as a RISC Networking Processor In one embodiment the router net works TCP IP data and determines the netwo
38. n through the seven layers from the Application Layer to the Physical Layer of system 110 across cable 180 and up the seven layers Physical Layer to the Application Layer of system 120 FIG 2 illustrates in detail the process in which data are transported from host system 110 to destination system 120 through a physical medium 180 Data from an Application Process 210 in system 110 is passed to the application layer protocol The Application Layer appends its Application Header AH to the application data The AH contains protocol control information necessary for a peer Applica tion Process 220 to interpret the data The data unit is then passed to the Presentation Layer The Presentation Layer treats the data unit as its own data appends the Presentation Header PH and passes the data unit down to the Session Transport and Network Layers in turn With each successive transfer the data is encapsulated with the respective layer s header i e SH TH and NH The same process occurs when the encapsulated data reaches the Data Link Layer The Data Link Header gener ally comprises Framing F Address A and Control C information In addition the Frame Check Sequence FCS and or additional Framing F characters are added as the Data Link Layer trailer The assembled frame is then passed to the Physical Layer wherein the data are encoded for transmission Next the Physical Layer accesses the trans mission medium and monitors
39. nication Message Protocol DDCMP and said first protocol suite is a Trans mission Control Protocol Internet Protocol TCP IP suite 3 The communication system of claim 1 wherein said communications network comprises a wide area network 4 The communication system of claim 3 whercin said wide area network comprises an Asynchronous Transfer Mode network 10 25 35 40 45 55 65 18 5 The communication system of claim 1 further com prising a router connected to said communications network and said first interface said router being for determining a path within said communications network through which said converted representation of said first voice message is transmitted to said another of said voice messaging systems 6 The communication system of claim 5 wherein said router and said first interface are connected via a local area network 7 The communication system of claim 6 wherein said local area network comprises an Ethernet 8 The communication system of claim 1 further com prising a second voice messaging processor associated with said another of the voice messaging systems for storing a reconverted representation of said first voice message in said first protocol and a second interface for coupling said second voice mes saging processor to said communications network wherein said second interface receives said converted representation of said first voice message from said communications network
40. nother type of email service voice to fax voice to email one voice format to another voice format The translation server may be configured in various manners For example each remote site may be equipped with its own translation server or a central translation facility may be provided to serve the network Video Conference amp Multi Media server VCMM are well known in the art such as those manufactured by Compression Labs Inc The VCMM provides video con ferencing and multi media capabilities to subscribers System Operations a Message Transfer FIG 7 illustrates an overview of the process for transfer ring a call from one originating VMS o0 VMS to a desti nation VMS dVMS At step 710 oVMs presents a call presented to the NIB Each call represents one voice mes sage between the oVMS node and a single dVMS node If however a caller desires to send the same call to multiple destination nodes it is presented to the origin NIB for delivery as multiple calls At step 720 the call is transferred onto the oNIB from the oVMS by the VMS Interface At step 730 the oNIB stores the call in the Call Files database as a separate call file At step 740 after the complete file is stored on the oNIB the Call Server initiates a TCP connection to the destination dNIB At step 750 the call file is transferred over the TCP connection Once the transfer is complete the TCP connec tion is released at step 760 At step 770 the Call Se
41. of a block of data passing through these queues are governed by strans h In addition strans h defines the values for various status bytes The event h header file defines reportable events includ ing event type reporting level not logged logged locally reported to network manager and contents format of the test message accompanying the event report The centi gram h header file defines the data structures and header format for the VMS DDCMP and messaging protocols which can be found in Voice Memo Design Reference Manual Configuration Manual and Installation amp Service Manual which are provided by Voice Tel Enterprises and are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The NIB software also includes util c and log c utility files These files provide general purpose functions for the various software modules The various software modules will now be described in detail According to one embodiment the software modules are written in C using SCO UNIX C development system The name of the source file for each software module will be in the form name c The Call Server server c controls the operation of the NIB At system start up the Call Server loads configuration data from the Config database The data represent operating parameters of the NIB The Call Server creates interprocess queues for tasks that are to be performed by other software modules ie Logger Timer and Operator VMS and Network Interfaces These
42. on 1988 all incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The NIB communicates with VMS 450 through for example an asynchronous link In some embodiments the NIB provides up to 16 asynchronous links 4600 460p for communicating with the VMS 5 689 550 7 Optionally the remote site includes other devices such as a voice trak server 420 electronic mail email server 430 and fax server 440 The various devices are interconnected via LAN 490 The email server may for example be of the type that is well known to those skilled in the art such as Lotus Notes Discussion on Lotus Notes may be found in Pyle Creating Lotus Notes Application Que Publishing Jan 19 1994 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The email server connects through the network to all compatible email services such as MCI Mail The fax server which also is well known in the art connects via the network to all group 3 or group 4 compatible faxes A discussion of group 3 and group 4 faxes can be found in Griffiths ISDN Explained John Wiley amp Sons 1990 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The email and fax servers enable users to forward email and fax transmissions similar to voice messages throughout the network The voice trak server may be a computer that is well known to those skilled in art such as a computer based on current INTEL 486 technology In one embodiment the voice trak server is installed with VOCAMTM
43. onding to said first voice message storing said first call detail report in a temporary database containing a plurality of call detail reports and transferring said plurality of call detail reports to a per manent database residing at said management site after said plurality of call detail reports have reached a predetermined number or a predetermined time has elapsed 17 The method as recited in claim 12 wherein said first protocol is a variant of Digital Data Communication Mes sage Protocol DDCMP protocol and said second protocol suite is a Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol TCP IP suite 18 The method as recited in claim 12 further comprising the steps of sending a receipt acknowledgment from said second interface to said first interface indicating a successful 5 10 35 45 55 65 20 message delivery when said converted representation of said first voice message successfully reaches said second interface and sending a message failure indication from said second interface to said first interface indicating an unsuccess ful message delivery when said converted representa tion of said first voice message fails to reach said second interface 19 The method as recited in claim 18 further comprising the steps of generating a failure record when said converted represen tation of said first voice message fails to reach said second voice messaging processor and storing said failure reco
44. ork database At step 1310 the network operator interactively enters the changes to the NIB or VMS node definitions into the master network database which resides on the NMS At step 1320 an individual update record is added to the network update queue in the master network database for each defined NIB Each update record contains the changes entered by the operator at step 1310 At step 1330 the NMS forwards each individual update over the network to its corresponding NIB The updates are sent over the network using UDP datagrams At step 1340 the Network Interface netrecv in the dNIB accepts the UDP datagrams At step 1350 the dNIB acknowledges acceptance of the datagrams to the NMS At step 1360 the NMS deletes the record for that specific update from the update queue According to one embodiment the NMS continues to deliver a specific update record until it receives an acknowl edgement from the dNIB In this manner a dNIB which is not on line when the update is created will still receive the update when it is brought back on line no matter what amount of time has elapsed The above description is illustrative and not restrictive Many variations of the invention will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon review of this disclosure Merely by way of example other protocols may be employed in the communications network The scope of the invention should therefore be determined not with reference to the above descri
45. play the transaction on the console log and 2 store the event in the Log database At step 8050 the Call Server examines the call s DDCMP header as defined in centigram h to obtain detailed infor mation pertaining to the call The information for example includes destination mailbox originating mailbox and oth ers as defined by Voice Memo Design Reference Manual already incorporated by reference The Call Server records the information in the CDR record At step 8060 the Call Server reformats each frame for transmission across the WAN This procedure includes accessing the Network Database to obtain information for translating the destination VMS dVMS node name to the appropriate IP address Also routing information such as TCP port assignment is provided The information enables the Call Server to create a TCP IP header containing the appropriate destination sequencing routing and other TCP IP information Thereafter the DDCMP frame is encapsu lated with the TCP IP header After the frames have been reformatted they are stored in the Call Files Database At step 8070 the Call Server queues the call to the Network Interface which sends it across the WAN to its destination According to one embodiment the callsend procedure of the Network Interface performs this function At 8080 Network Interface establishes a TCP connection with the destination NIB dNIB At step 8090 Network 5 689 550 13 Interface retrieves th
46. ption but instead should be determined with reference to the appended claims along with their full scope of equivalents What is claimed is 1 A communication system comprising a communications network for transmitting data format ted according to a first protocol suite a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected by said communications network each voice messaging system comprising a first voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network for receiving a first voice message from a subscriber of said telephone network and generating a representation of said first voice message according to a second protocol and a first interface for coupling said first voice messaging processor to said communications network said first interface for receiving said representation of said first voice message from said first voice messaging proces sor and converting said representation of said first voice message to a converted representation of said first voice message according to said first protocol suite for trans mission over said communications network to another of said voice messaging systems and a management site coupled to said communications network said management site comprising an identifier server for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered 2 The communication system of claim 1 wherein said second protocol is a Digital Data Commu
47. rd in a failure record database 20 The method as recited in claim 12 further comprising the steps of translating said representation of said first voice message to a message formatted in a different medium and transmitting said message to another one of the voice messaging systems 21 A communication system comprising a communications network for transmitting data format ted according to a first protocol suite a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected by said communications network each voice messaging system comprising a voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network for receiving a first voice message from a subscriber of said telephone network and generating arepresentation of said first voice message according to a second protocol and an interface for coupling said voice messaging proces sor to said communications network said interface for receiving said representation of said first voice message from said voice messaging processor and converting said representation of said first voice message to said first protocol suite for transmission over said communications network to another of the voice messaging systems and a management site coupled to said communications network said management site comprising a router for connecting said management site to said communications network a network manager providing management functions for said communications network a catcher server for receiv
48. reconverts it to said recon verted representation of said first voice message and transmits it to said second voice messaging processor 9 The communication system of claim 1 wherein each voice messaging processor comprises a programmable digi tal computer 10 The communication system of claim 1 wherein said management site further comprises a router for connecting said management site to said communications network a network manager providing management functions for said communications network a catcher server for receiving a first call detail report record from said first interface said first call detail report record containing information corresponding to said first voice message said catcher server storing said first call detail report record in a database said database comprising a plurality of call detail report records and a programmable digital computer said computer access ing said database so as to generate billing reports 11 The communication system of claim 10 wherein said management site further comprises a translation server for translating said representation of said first voice message to a different medium and a video conference server for providing video conferenc ing to said communications network 12 A method for providing voice messaging services using a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected via a communications network each voice messaging sys tem comprising a voice messa
49. rk traffic flow Generally the path selection is made from several paths based on 1 information obtained from specific protocols 2 algorithms that attempt to identify the shortest or best path and 3 other criteria such as metrics or protocol specific destination addresses A discussion on routers can be found in Miller Internetworking A Guide to Network Communications M amp T Books Feb 19 1991 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes The LAN includes a communications server 410 which interfaces a VMS 450 with the WAN Communication Server 410 is referred to elsewhere herein as the Network Interface Box or NIB The NIB includes a digital computer of the type readily known to those skilled in the art In some embodiments the computer is based on current INTEL 486 technology although it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that a wide variety of digital computers such as IBM AIX and RES6000 INTEL Pentium and DEC ALPHA can be utilized without departing from the spirit of the invention herein According to one embodiment the INTEL 486 computer may be installed with Santa Cruz Operation SCO UNIX Operating System SCO TCP IP Runtime System includes SNMP agent and or C lan guage using RDBMS and Object Oriented Protocols which are managed by RAIMA and SCO FoxPRO Data Base Management Systems to facilitate communication between the VMS and the WAN Santa Cruz Operations is a corpo ration located in S
50. rver on the dNIB passes the call to the dVMS via the VMS Interface tasks As call delivery progresses the status of the call is reported to the oNIB using separate UDP transactions to indicate delivery events as they occur These events include call accepted by dVMS and results of call distribution to destination mailboxes using a VMS distribution list transaction FIGS 8a 8b illustrates message transfer in greater detail At step 8005 the NIB is initialized according to the TCC 10 15 35 45 55 60 65 12 Voice Tel Network Interface Box NIB User Manual Mar 8 1994 Software Version 4 1 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes At step 8010 a user accesses the VMS by calling his assigned mailbox Once accessed the user instructs the VMS to deliver a voice call to a destination mailbox The oVMS ascertains whether the destination mailbox resides in the local or a remote VMS node If the destination mailbox is local the call is forwarded to the mailbox without need for further processing On the other hand if the mailbox resides in a remote site the oVMS forwards the call to the NIB for processing at step 8020 In some embodiments the call is transmitted to the oNIB using the DDCMP protocol The DDCMP protocol provides a header which contains various information such as synchronization signal size of data the originating mailbox originating VMS node ID destination mailbox destination VMS node ID
51. s REQ BEGIN mes sage to begin the application i e sending the call at step 960 The VMS Interface upon receiving the REQ BEGIN message sends a T CALL REQUEST to the NIB s Call Server The Call Server generates a CDR record for the call and sends a T CALL STATUS message to the VMS Interface The callid which identifies the name of the file in which the call is to be stored is included in the T CALL STATUS message At step 970 the VMS sends the call to the VMS Interface which stores it in the Call File database When the VMS finishes transmitting the call it ends the application by 10 15 25 35 45 55 65 14 sending an APPL REQ END message at step 980 When the VMS Interface receives the APPL_REQ END message it sends the T DISTRIBUTION LIST containing the list of destination mailboxes ORIGIN containing the mailbox from which the call originated and T OUTGOING CALL indicating an outgoing call parameters to the Call Server Thereafter the VMS Interface issues an acknowledgment to the VMS At step 990 the VMS ends the application and sends an END message to VMS Interface which causes the VMS Interface to responds with an APPL_ACK message Finally the VMS terminates the link with the NIB by issuing MSG_BLK_END and CLOSE_NETWORK_LAYER messages at step 995 FIG 19 illustrates the sequence of steps for transferring a call from the NIB to the VMS
52. t protocol suite for transmission over said communications network to another of the voice messaging systems and a management site coupled to said communications network said management site comprising a router for connecting said management site to said communications network a network manager providing management functions for said communications network a catcher server for receiving a call detail report record from said first interface said call detail report record containing information regarding said first voice message said catcher server storing said call detail report record containing information regarding said first voice message said catcher server storing said call detail report record in a database said database comprising a plurality of call detail report records a programmable digital computer said computer accessing said database so as to generate billing reports an identifier server for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said undeliverable voice message could not be delivered a translation server for translating said first voice message to a different medium and a video conference server for providing video confer encing to said communications network 23 A communication system comprising a communications network for transmitting data format ted according to a first protocol suite a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected by said communications network
53. the serial bit transmission At the destination node the reverse of this process occurs The Physical Layer hands its bits to the Data Link Layer which decodes and then strips off the Data Link Layer header and trailer The Data Link Layer data unit is then passed to the Network Transport Session and higher layers in turn This process is completed when the original data is presented to the Application Process 220 In practice numerous LANs are linked together to form for example an internet Each LAN or subnetwork is linked to a backbone network capable of high bandwidth The backbone network is sometimes referred to as wide area network WAN Generally the individual LANs are inter connected to the WAN by a switching router switching hub or the like Such interconnecting device is commonly referred to in the art as a router The router operates at the communication subnet and logically separates the subnet works Routing tables which inform the router of the WAN topology provide the information needed to route the data to its destination In large networks the data may travel through many intermediate nodes before reaching its desti nation Various methods for transmitting data over commu nications networks such as packet switching are known In packet switching data are transmitted in blocks called packets The upper bound limit on the length of the packets for example may be about 1000 octets bytes If a message
54. voice message from a subscriber of said telephone network and generating a representation of said first voice message and an interface for coupling said voice messaging proces sor to said communications network said interface for receiving said representation of said first voice message from said voice messaging processor and converting said representation of said first voice message for transmission over said communications network to another of the voice messaging systems and a management site coupled to the communications network said management site including an identifier server for receiving an undeliverable voice message and determining a reason said Undeliverable voice message could not be delivered 25 A method for providing voice messaging services using a plurality of voice messaging systems interconnected via a communications network each voice messaging sys tem comprising a voice messaging processor and an interface the method comprising the steps of generating a representation of a first voice message in a first voice messaging processor coupled to a telephone network said first voice message being received from a subscriber of said telephone network transmitting said representation of said first voice mes sage via a network to a first interface associated with said first voice messaging processor said first interface for converting said representation of said first voice message to a converted representation of
55. which includes translating the first protocol to a second protocol As a result the message can be transmitted across a communications network to its destination The interface improves the quality and quantity of messages which are sent over a wide area network A further under standing of the nature and advantages of the inventions 10 15 25 35 45 55 65 2 herein may be realized by reference to the remaining por tions of the specification and the attached drawings BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 illustrates the OSI Reference Model FIG 2 illustrates data transfer in the OSI Reference Model FIG 3 illustrates the topology of the communications network according to the present invention FIG 4 illustrates hardware architecture of the Network Interface Box NIB according to the present invention FIG 5 illustrates the software architecture of the NIB of FIG 4 FIG 6 illustrates the hardware architecture of the network management site FIG 7 is a flow chart illustrating the procedure for effecting a message exchange from an originating VMS to the destination VMS FIGS 8a 85 are flow charts illustrating the procedure for effecting a message exchange from an originating VMS to the destination VMS in greater detail FIG 9 is a flow chart illustrating the procedure for forwarding a message by an originating VMS to the NIB FIG 10 is a flow chart illustrating the procedure for forwarding a mess
56. with its network address For the NIB s containing the network manager the database also contains the queue of network database updates that are being distributed by network manager Once all NIB updates have been completed this queue will be empty The Log database log ddl contains one record for each loggable event that has occurred on the NIB In some embodiments a loggable event is defined by the header file A loggable event may for example be the delivery of one call or VMS message The record contains an event code the date and time the event occurred and a text message describing the event For consistency with the database maintained by the network manager each record also includes the node id of the NIB The software architecture also includes definition files which are used by the various software modules Such definition files are referred to as header files According to one embodiment the NIB includes server h ascii h strans h events h and centigram h header files Server h defines general purpose constants and macros used by all the NIB s software modules and ascii h defines ASCII constants which are well known in the art The strans h header file defines transactions that are used between software tasks on the NIB Generally each trans action is associated with its own parameters Communica 5 689 550 9 tion between software tasks are effected through UNIX interprocess queues The format and contents
57. work Interface Box NIB Software Specification Mar 8 1994 Software Version 4 1 incorporated herein by reference for all purposes d Network Management Site s FIG 6 illustrates the network management site in detail The administrator site includes a LAN 690 linked to the WAN 390 by a router 695 The LAN for example com prises a network management station 620 a mainframe 610 a catcher network server 630 an identifier server 660 a translation server 650 and video conference and multi media server 640 The LAN in some embodiments may be an Bthernet although other networks may be employed Communication between the LAN and WAN 399 is effected through a router 695 The router for example may be an ACC Nile p n 8600390 Catcher Network server 630 may be a digital computer based on current INTEL 486 technology In some embodiments the computer functions on a Santa Cruz Operation s UNIX operating system and or C language using RDBMS and Object Oriented Protocols The Catcher Network server receives the call detail report CDR records which are sent from the NIB remote sites The Catcher Network server then stores the CDR records in the Network Archive database Mainframe 610 may be Proliant 4000 manufactured by Compacq Computer Corp In one embodiment the main frame is equipped with VOCAM software from Voice Tel enterprises The mainframe accesses the CDR records in the Archive database for generating billing reports
58. y the PBX Of particular interest to the present invention is the ability of VMSs to automatically call designated stations and deliver messages stored in the elec tronic mailboxes PBXs are on premises telephone exchange systems capable of both voice and data connections Typically a PBX provides a point of interconnection for telephone extensions or systems within the office and a trunk connec tion to the nearest central office telephone exchange Calls or transmissions within the office are made through the PBX calls outside the office are directed by the PBX to the public telephone network By interconnecting VMSs at remote locations through the public telephone network messaging services between mail boxes maintained at each location are provided In this configuration access to a remote VMS is achieved via a modem i e dialing connecting and transferring the mes sage to the remote VMS This is cumbersome time consuming and not cost effective It is desirable therefore to provide a more efficient method and device for delivering messages to another VMS SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Improved devices and methods of voice messaging are provided by virtue of the present invention According to one embodiment a voice messaging processor which pro vides voice messages is linked to an interface The interface receives messages from the voice messaging processor according to a first protocol The interface processes the message

Interface enabling voice messaging systems to interact with

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