System and method for restarting of signaling entities in H.323-based realtime communication networks

摘要

A system and method in an H.323 network for automatically reestablishing signaling that was interrupted due to gatekeeper failure. Primary and secondary gatekeepers (104a, 106a) establish a supervisory link (1b) with one another while the media connection is set up between client terminals (112a, 114a). The primary gatekeeper (104a) also establishes the H.225/H.245 signaling between the client terminals. If the primary gatekeeper (104a) fails, the H.225/H.245 connections go down, but the media connections will continue. The secondary gatekeeper (106a) than takes over the call and sends a message to its zone's clients that the H.225/H.245 connections need to be reestablished. Further, the secondary gatekeeper (106a) sends a message to the other zone's gatekeeper (if any) of what has occurred. The clients then reestablish the H.225/H.245 channel by using the original setup message with a new Reestablish parameter. The receiving client receives the message, re-establishes the signaling connection and continues using the existing media channel for the media stream of the call.