Distributing membership information for multi-party application layer sessions

摘要

Membership information for participating computer systems participating in a multi-party conferencing session is distributed by intermittently exchanging link databases with one or more neighbor computer systems. A link database includes one or more link state records, each link state record identifying a participating computer systems and a list of neighbor computer systems that are logically linked to the participating computer system. When a new computer system joins or a participating computer system leaves the multi-party session this joining or leaving change is reflected in the link databases of corresponding neighbor computer systems. As the neighbor computer systems exchange link databases, the change is eventually propagated to all the participating computer systems. Accordingly, participant computer systems continually transition towards a steady state where each participant computer system is aware of other participant computer systems and logical links associated with other participant computer systems.