Digital recording in an ip based distributed switching platform

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DESCRIPTION

Digital recording on switching platform with distribution based on internet protocol (IP) technology.

Invention sector

The present invention relates to a system and a method for recording voice and other data transmitted in multimedia sessions over internet protocol (IP) and, in particular, to a method and a system in which the recording is triggered with the recording device. recording as a session participant.

Background of the invention

Telecommunications are an important aspect within the interactions between individuals, since they allow communication between individuals who are not physically present in the same place, thus potentially increasing the possibilities of cooperation between said individuals. Simultaneously, an increasing number of telecommunication sessions are monitored and / or recorded, for example to guarantee the quality of a "help desk" ("user assistance service") or other customer service centers or services.

Previously, such monitoring or recording was relatively simple in the existing art. For example, telephone calls can be transferred to the individual by means of a PBX ("private branch connected to the public network") or a CO ("Central Telephone Office"), which contains a central switching matrix. All the telephone calls that go through said switch will therefore pass through the central matrix, so that the integration of the monitoring and / or recording equipment with the central matrix allows all the aforementioned telephone calls to be supervised and / or recorded. .

Unfortunately, the monitoring and / or recording of such phone calls through the multimedia session protocols over IP is not that simple. First, the session is a multimedia session, so it combines two or more types of data. Second, the session does not go through a central switching matrix, since communications over IP do not have such a matrix. Therefore, such communication is relatively diffuse, even over a WAN ("wide area network") or LAN ("local area network").

The situation is further complicated by the topology of the IP network, which consists of switch boxes, routers (“routers”) and bridges, and which can prevent any monitoring and / or recording system from accessing such telecommunication sessions. that are channeled into different network segments. Furthermore, encrypted sessions add another element of complexity, since access to said sessions is only granted to the participants of said session, since only said participants have access to the information necessary to decrypt the session.

Characteristics of the invention

The existing art does not disclose or suggest a solution to the problem of gathering information about an interactive session over a network with IP technology. The existing art also does not disclose or suggest a solution to the problem of monitoring and / or recording multimedia sessions over IP. Furthermore, the prior art does not disclose or suggest a solution to the problem of monitoring and / or recording multimedia sessions over IP that are channeled into different network segments.

The present invention solves said prior art problems by providing a method according to claim 1 and a system according to claim 8 for recording and / or otherwise monitoring multimedia sessions over IP. The present invention discloses a recording and / or monitoring device, hereinafter referred to as a "recording device", only for the sake of clarity and in no way limiting. The recording device is a participant in the multimedia session over IP, although preferably the recording device only receives data to record and / or otherwise monitor said session. Therefore, the multimedia over IP session is preferably a multi-user session, such as a "conference call" for example, even if the data to be recorded is provided by only one of the session participants. This implementation of the present invention, as described in greater detail below, overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art, such as the inability to decrypt encrypted sessions, and to perform recording between different network segments.

Hereinafter, the term "different network segment" includes any different segment or network in which the recording takes place, such as for example a different network and / or network segment.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the recording device is present in a network having a conference control unit, such as an MCU (multiple conference unit), for example. Hereinafter the term "conference" is used to refer to any session with multiple participants, even when only two participants are present, one of which is the device of the present invention. The conference control unit receives a request to initiate the conference call (multimedia session) from the recording device of the present invention and / or from one of the participating IP communication devices, and / or from some other component of the net. Examples of sayings

ES 2 294 019 T3 communication devices include, but are not limited to, IP telephony devices, "IP" smart phones and computing devices that include an IP telephony component.

According to another optional but preferred implementation of the present invention, the recording device is the NiceLog product.^® from Nice Systems Ltd of Ra'anana, Israel.

There are known devices and methods for recording multimedia sessions over IP. US Patent No. 5,710,591, for example, discloses a method and apparatus for recording and indexing audio information exchanged during a conference call, or video, audio, and data information exchanged during a multimedia conference.

Another example can be found in Patent No. WO 99/46702, which discloses a method for performing dynamic video annotation or commenting between a series of users using a programmable computer. This patent discloses a method that comprises the steps of: selecting a network, starting or joining a session and uploading a video and a recorded annotation file to carry out the annotation of at least one graphic, text, and an audio annotation and storage of that collaborative session.

However, such inventions do not overcome all the above-mentioned limitations and only provide a partial solution.

Hereinafter, the term "computational device" will refer to any type of computerized hardware system and / or any type of software operating system, or mobile phones or any type of "hand-held" device. such as a PDA ("personal data assistant"), as well as any other type of device that incorporates a data processor and / or any type of microprocessor, or any type of device that is capable of carrying out any function of a computer.

For the present invention, a software application or program could be written in substantially any appropriate programming language, which could easily be selected by those skilled in the art. The selected programming language must be compatible with the computing device on which the software application will run. Examples of appropriate programming languages ​​include, but are not limited to, C, C ++, and Java.

Brief description of the drawings

The present invention is described herein, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary system in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 2 is a flow chart of an exemplary method in accordance with the present invention for recording and / or otherwise monitoring multimedia sessions over IP;

Figure 3 is a flow chart of an optional flow of operations in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 4 is a schematic block diagram of a second exemplary system in accordance with the present invention; Y

Figure 5 shows a flow chart of another exemplary method in accordance with the present invention, which relates to the implementation of the present invention with a hunt group.

Description of the preferred embodiments

The present invention relates to a system and method for recording and / or otherwise monitoring multimedia sessions over IP. The present invention includes a recording and / or monitoring device, hereinafter referred to as a "recording device" for reasons of clarity and in no way limiting. The recording device is a participant of the multimedia session over IP, although preferably said recording device only receives data for recording and / or monitoring of the session. Therefore, the multimedia over IP session is preferably a multi-user session, such as a "conference call" for example, even if the data is provided for recording from only one of the session participants.

Optionally, only a part of the totality of said multimedia sessions is recorded, although alternatively all the mentioned multimedia sessions are recorded. Optionally, the recording device can receive a command to determine when a session should be recorded. Alternatively, the recording device may receive data from all the aforementioned sessions, but it may preferentially record only certain sessions. More preferably, a scheduler determines whether the session is to be recorded, which may optionally be located with the recording device, but alternatively may be on a different network.

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According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the recording device is present in a network provided with a conference control unit, such as an MCU (multi-conference unit), for example. Hereinafter, the term "conference" is used to refer to any session made up of multiple participants, even if there are only two participants, one of which is the device of the present invention. The conference control unit receives a request to initiate the conference call (multimedia session) from the recording device of the present invention and / or from one of the participating IP communication devices, and / or from some other component present In the net. Examples of such communication devices include, but are not limited to, IP telephony devices, "IP" smartphones, and computing devices that include an IP telephony component.

According to another optional but preferred implementation of the present invention, the recording device is the NiceLog ™ product from Nice Systems Ltd. of Ra'anana, Israel.

According to another optional, but preferred, embodiment of the present invention, the multimedia session over IP may further include at least one telephony device with non-IP-based technology, such as a telephone device that communicates via PSTN. switched public telephony). For this embodiment, the system of the present invention preferably includes a gateway to receive said communication and to allow data to pass to other components in accordance with the present invention including, but not limited to, the recording device.

According to another optional but preferred implementation of the present invention, the system and method of the present invention are enabled for hunt groups, which use a series of virtual telephone numbers instead of fixed telephone lines. which are reserved for private telephone numbers. Hunt groups are known in the art, an example of a suitable reference is found in "Newton's Telecom Dictionary", 16th Expanded & Updated Edition, by Hairy Newton (published 2000, by Telecom Books; page 414). Hereinafter, the term "hunt group" refers to any type of virtual or landline telephone extension system, in which a central control unit of some type, such as the access filter ( "Gatekeeper") of the present invention, determines the physical extension that is used.

Optionally the present invention can also be implemented with a number of protocols well known in the art for multimedia sessions over IP, including but not limited to H.323, RTP (real time protocol), RTCP (real time control protocol), H.225 and H.245; in addition to CODECs for encoding / decoding of multimedia data for said sessions including, but not limited to, G.711, G.723, G.722, G.728, H.261 and H.263. Additionally, references can be found at http://www.normos.org/ietf/rfc/rfc1889.txt as of August 17, 2001, including all links and other Web / data pages on the Web site. Additional information can also be found in US Patent No. 6,122,665, issued September 19, 2000.

The principles and operation of the method according to the present invention can be better understood by referring to the drawings and the accompanying description. It should be noted that the present invention is described with reference to IP telephony only for the sake of clarity and in no way limiting.

Referring now to the figures, figure 1 shows an example of the system (10) for recording and / or monitoring a communication session over IP, which can optionally be a multimedia session. The session can optionally be initiated on an IP phone (12) on a LAN (local area network) (14); an IP phone (16) in a WAN (wide area network) (18); and a telephone device (20) connected via a PSTN (public switched telephone network) (22). Suitable examples of IP phones include, but are not limited to, VIP 30 or SP + 12 (Cisco Inc., San Jose, California, USA). Preferably, the session management is slightly different for each of the different boot devices, as described in more detail below.

As shown, the LAN (14) includes a recording device (24). In accordance with another optional but preferred implementation of the present invention, the recording device (24) is the NiceLog ™ product from Nice Systems Ltd. of Ra'anana, Israel. This product includes a monitor to monitor activity over voice telephony on an IP network. Although activity is monitored via voice telephony protocols, other types of data can also be optionally monitored, such as video and audio data transmissions. The monitoring component of the NiceLog ™ product includes a recording function to record such voice data transmissions and other types of transmissions. For example, the recording function can be activated manually to start recording. Additional details can be found in the NiceLog ™ product user manual.

Preferably, the recording device (24) is in communication with a recording agent (26) that controls the recording process, although optionally the recording device (24) and the recording agent (26) may be present. in a single device, although the option of separate devices is preferred. Alternatively, the recording device 24 may optionally carry out all of these recording functions. The recording agent (26) is executed as a software module by a computing device (28). According to the present invention, during the initiation of the IP multimedia session, the recording agent (26) determines that the session has been initiated and directs the recording device (24) to record the session. Optionally, only certain types of sessions are recorded. In order to support recording, the multimedia session is constructed as a conference call, and the recording device (24) then becomes a participant in the conference call.

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Figure 1 shows an example implementation to support such functions. As shown, the LAN (14) is optional and preferably also connected to a conference controller (30), such as an MCU, for example. The conference controller (30) establishes the conference call. Preferably, the LAN (14) is connected with an access filter (“gatekeeper”) (32) according to the H.323 protocol, which translates telephone numbers into IP addresses, and thus allows the initiating device to locate the another communication device (if it exists in the LAN (14)). A non-limiting example of an access filter (32) is the product MCS 7820 (Cisco Inc., San José, California, USA). Optionally, the access filter (32) can be assisted in the IP address resolution process by a DHCP server (not shown), which is connected to the LAN (14). The DHCP server assigns IP addresses to the IP phone (12) and other IP phones and devices; the assigned addresses are then passed to the access filter (32) to carry out the IP address resolution process.

In the first example of initiator device given earlier in the present document, the IP phone (12) of the LAN (14) initiates the session, as explained with respect to the flow diagram of figure 2, showing a method by way of of example according to the present invention for recording and / or monitoring of multimedia sessions over IP. For example, the IP phone (12) can make contact with the access filter (32) to start the session with an IP phone (34) on a computing device (28) in step 1. Then, the two participants They are connected through the LAN (14).

In step 2, the access filter (32) establishes the control path, for example according to the H.323 protocol, in order to initiate the IP session. In step 3, if the recording device (24) is not present and / or operational, preferably the normal IP communication session is enabled with the IP phone (34). Alternatively, if the recording device (24) is present, then the recording agent (26) preferably identifies the incoming request to initiate the session.

In step 4, a recording agent control module (36), shown in Figure 1, preferably controls the recording of the conference call. Optionally and more preferably, the recording agent control module (36) sends to the access filter (32) a request to initiate the conference call. This request preferably includes a request to include the recording device (24) in the conference call.

In step 5, the access filter (32) sends a request to the conference controller (30) to start the multimedia session over IP, including the recording device (24) as a participant in it. In step 6, the conference controller (30) initiates the conference call between the IP phone (12) and the IP phone (34). In step 7, the recording device (24) is preferentially added to the conference call.

A similar operation is carried out in the case that the session must be established with the IP phone (16) on the WAN (18). As shown in Figure 1, the WAN (18) is optionally connected to the LAN (14) via a router (38) (the LAN (14) may optionally include a hub (40)). The IP phone (12) can start the session again by contacting the access filter (32); the remaining steps are carried out in a manner substantially the same as previously described. Alternatively, the IP phone (16) can initiate the session. In order for the IP phone (16) to initiate the session and the recording, the IP phone (16) preferably includes the recording agent (26) and the recording agent control module (36) as part of a single device. It should be noted that only one of the IP phones (12) and (16) requires the recording agent (26) and the recording agent control module (36), which is executed directly by the IP phone itself (in the case of a “smart phone”), or alternatively it can be executed by a computing device that also operates the IP phone, so that the session can be recorded.

Preferably, the operation is adjusted a little in the event that a telephony device (20) connected via a PSTN (22) is contacted by the IP telephone (12) to initiate the multimedia call and / or in the event that the telephony device (20) initiates said call. In both cases, communication to and from the telephony device (20) passes through the gateway (42), for example in order to translate normal PSTN communication (22) into IP-based communication, such as communication based on the H.323 protocol, for example. Then, the gateway (42) preferably contacts the access filter (32) so that the telephony device (20) is recognized as a participant in the session. The remaining functions are similar to those shown in Figure 2. Gateway 42 can be optionally implemented as a Cisco Internet Router 3620, for example (Cisco Inc., San Jose, California, USA).

Figure 3 shows a flow chart of an optional flow of operations in accordance with the present invention. As shown, the IP phone (12) initiates the session, through the access filter (32), with the IP phone (34). The session is implemented as a conference call. The conference controller (30) enables the recording device (24) to participate in the conference call, in addition to preferentially enabling the conference call itself. It should be noted that typically only information that passes through the arrows "A" and "B", from each of the IP phones (12) and (34) respectively, is recorded. Furthermore, optionally and preferably, the recording device (24) only receives communication through the arrow "C".

For this implementation, the recording device 24 preferably has at least one, and more preferably a series of, reserved telephone numbers corresponding to current telephone lines. Optionally, video and / or audio data can be captured according to the RTP protocol (real time protocol).

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Figure 4 shows another system 44, by way of example in accordance with the present invention, for selective recording of sessions. Components similar to Figure 1 retain the same numbering. Now, the recording device (24) is preferably contained within a selective recorder (46), which also includes a scheduler (48). Optionally, the scheduler (48) can be manual or automatic. In the latter case, optionally the scheduler (48) can analyze the information about the multimedia session over IP, such as the identity of the initiating and / or receiving device, in order to determine if the session should be recorded. For manual implementation, the user at the receiving and / or initiating IP telephony device can optionally determine whether the session should be recorded.

Figure 5 shows a flow chart of another exemplary method in accordance with the present invention, referring to the implementation of the present invention provided with a "hunt group". As previously described herein, hunt groups use a series of virtual telephone numbers instead of landlines that are reserved for particular telephone numbers. The present invention supports the recording and / or monitoring of multimedia sessions over IP with said hunt groups, as shown in figure 5.

This preferred method is similar to that of Figure 2 for steps 1 to 4. In step 5, however, the access filter identifies the hunt group that has been called.

In step 6, the access filter searches for a free telephone line within a certain hunt group. In step 7, the conference call is established through the conference controller, and the recording device joins the conference call in step 8, as previously described.

In accordance with optional but preferred implementations of the present invention, any of the preceding embodiments can be optionally implemented with a "smart" phone device instead of the computational device for operation of the recording agent and / or the recording control module. recording agent (36).

Although the present invention has been described with reference to a limited number of embodiments, it will be apparent that numerous variations, modifications, and other applications of the present invention can be made.