Pluggable Service Versioning for Communication Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current communication systems do not allow for convenient or user-specific upgrades of call treatment features, requiring entire server upgrades that result in operational downtime and impacting all users, rather than enabling independent development and deployment of applications.
Innovation Solution
The system allows different users to have different services and service versions, enabling administrators to download and assign new services or versions to specific users or groups without affecting others, with the ability to test and deploy new versions without downtime through hot deployment during calls, and customize services by selecting specific components and settings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a new service version is deployed system-wide, then the service functionality is improved, but all users are impacted and operational downtime occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the user base into different groups that can receive different service versions. Administrators can selectively assign new service versions to specific user groups rather than deploying system-wide, allowing incremental rollout and testing while maintaining service continuity for other users.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically assigns service versions to users based on administrator configuration. Users can be moved between service versions without system downtime, and the assignment can be changed at any time to accommodate testing, rollbacks, or full deployment scenarios.
2Reliability
If the entire server is upgraded, then the call treatment feature is improved, but all users are affected and downtime is required
Solution Approach 1:
The service is segmented into independently deployable versions that can be assigned to different user groups. This allows the call treatment feature to be upgraded for specific users without requiring system-wide server upgrades or causing downtime for other users.
Solution Approach 2:
New service versions can be prepared and assigned to test user groups before full deployment. This preliminary action allows testing and validation of the upgraded call treatment capability without impacting production operations for all users.
3Reliability
If a new service version is tested system-wide, then the service improvement is validated, but the risk and impact are maximized
Solution Approach 1:
The user population is segmented into test groups and production groups. New service versions are first deployed to small test groups to validate functionality and identify issues before broader deployment, thereby reducing the risk and impact of potential problems.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of full system-wide testing, the patent implements partial testing on selected user groups. This partial action is sufficient to validate service improvements while minimizing the risk exposure to the entire user base.
Data Source
AI summary
Downloadable pluggable services and methods of distributing the same are described. The downloadable pluggable services may correspond to communication services that can be downloaded to upgrade a communication system. The downloadable pluggable services may include a number of component parts that can be distributed among various servers in the communication system being upgraded along with instructions that enable the component parts to instruct each server in the communication system to operate in a coordinated fashion so as to provide the downloaded service.