Method, device, and system for providing a survivability gateway service

摘要

A method and apparatus dynamically pair a user's communication devices with a personal survivability gateway. The gateway can support the establishment of communication services in case of a network failure between a site where the user's communication devices are located and the site that provides the user's communication services. Preferably, the survivability gateway is configured so that if a network failure occurs, the user does not experience service degradation, or at least significant service degradation. For instance, the user's inbound and outbound communications during such an outage may be routed through his personal survivability gateway and a survivability proxy to limit, if not eliminate such service degradation.

主权项

1. A communication system comprising:
a first communication device; a communication server hosting a communication service; a first network communicatively connectable to the communication server; a second network communicatively connectable to the communication server; the first communication device communicatively connectable to the communication server to utilize the server via a first transmission path that passes through the second network; and a survivability proxy device communicatively connectable to the communication server, communicatively connectable to the second network and communicatively connectable to the first communication device; and the first communication device registering with at least one of the survivability proxy device and the communication server such that the first communication device utilizes the communication service hosted by the communication server by exchanging communications with the communication server via a first transmission path, a first transmission path traversing the second network; the survivability proxy device determining that the second network experienced a failure such that the first communication device is unable to utilize the second network for utilization of the communication service hosted by the communication server; the survivability proxy device sending a survivability notification to at least one of the first communication device and a survivability gateway device assigned to the first communication device; one of the survivability proxy device and survivability gateway device sending a survivability registration message to the communication server via a second transmission path that traverses the first network; in response to receipt of the survivability registration message, the communication server replacing an initial route set for the first communication device that defines an initial route path comprising the first transmission path along which the communication server sends communications to the first communication device with a survivability route set identified by the received survivability registration message, the survivability route set defining a survivability route path comprising the second transmission path.