Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Humayun Mukhtar Khan

Rajesh Gunnalan

Timothy Mark Moore

Regis J Crinon

Gursharan Singh Sidhu

Anish Desai

Mansoor Jafry

Vishal Soni

Shiwei Wang

Dalibor Kukoleca

Abhinav Bose

Ranveer Chandra

Thomas W Kuehnel

John David Bruner

Mahendra D Sekaran

John Mark Miller

Jeffrey B Kay

Rajneesh Mahajan

Jiannan Zheng

Senthil Kumar Velayutham

Ruchir Astavans

Jingyu Qiu

Rao Salapaka

Ling Niu

Guo-Wei Sheih

Subhashri Iyer

Jin Li

Rod G Fleck

Sankaran Narayanan

Namendra Kumar

Krishnan Ananthanarayanan

Abhilash Chandrasekharan Nair

Sang Kun Choe

Srivatsa K Srinivasan

Guo-Wei Shieh

Kerry Woolsey

Eric S Hamilton

Chandrasekhar Pasupuleti

Ganapathy V Raman

Gaurav Pancholi

Kensaku Sueda

Alphonse Kurian

Arpan Kumar Asthana

Ray Froelich

Manish Jain

Tony Bell

Ken Wolfe

Paul Karam

Amit Kumar Saraff

Eugen Pajor

Srivatsa K Srinivisan

Sai Prasanna Mahathi Mahabhashyam

Renato Machado De Sousa

Hiu Hok Chan

Rohan Matthew Augustus

Run Fang

Senthil K Velayutham

The present disclosure relates to systems, methods, and computer-readable media for pre-provisioning server nodes of a server rack and causing the pre-provisioned server node to be deployed on an edge zone of a cloud computing system. In particular, systems described herein involve identifying server nodes based on a customer hardware deployment request and performing a series of pre-provision acts to the server nodes in accordance with the received hardware deployment request. For example, systems described herein pre-provision the hardware by configuring hardware and software on the server nodes, establishing communication with one or more control planes on a datacenter, and bringing the server nodes to a return to web (RTW) state. By pre-provisioning the hardware, the server hardware may be delivered and transitioned to a live state in an efficient manner and without jeopardizing security on the cloud.

Pre-provisioning server hardware for deployment on an edge network

Instead of utilizing a centralized server or hardware(routers/gateways) to enforce connectivity policy restrictions, the policy connectivity restrictions for media session traffic are enforced by an endpoint that is involved in the media communication. Based on the policy requirements, the client enforces the policy restrictions by restricting the candidates that may be selected for the establishment of the media path. For example, the enforcement may result in the client selecting a path from available candidates that avoids congested Wide Area Network (WAN) links, avoiding a low bandwidth link, or possibly even failing the communication completely. The clients may also provide periodic updates to the policy server to allow tracking of the utilization of managed WAN links.

Distributed connectivity policy enforcement with ICE

A media session between an initiating endpoint and a responding endpoint is effected, there being a plurality of available paths through a communication network via which the media session could be established. Type metrics associated with the available paths convey the directness of the available paths and are for making a selection of an available path for the media session. Network information indicative of the quality of the available paths and collected from a plurality of network nodes comprises contributions from network nodes other than the initiating and receiving endpoints which have current and/or have had past visibility of at least parts of the available paths. Said selection is influenced so as to cause the endpoints to select for the media session a higher quality but less direct available path in favor of a more direct but lower quality available path.

Media session between network endpoints

Instead of utilizing a centralized server or hardware (routers/gateways) to enforce connectivity policy restrictions, the policy connectivity restrictions for media session traffic are enforced by an endpoint that is involved in the media communication. Based on the policy requirements, the client enforces the policy restrictions by restricting the candidates that may be selected for the establishment of the media path. For example, the enforcement may result in the client selecting a path from available candidates that avoids congested Wide Area Network (WAN) links, avoiding a low bandwidth link, or possibly even failing the communication completely. The clients may also provide periodic updates to the policy server to allow tracking of the utilization of managed WAN links.

Signaling from a mobile device is transparently tunneled through a cellular voice network to a Voice over Internet Protocol ('VoIP') core network so that multi-party calls, including conference calls and call waiting, can be managed entirely within the VoIP core network. The tunneled signals enable call control to be implemented in the VoIP core network and also establish a way to communicate requests, instructions, and call state. The signaling is transparent to the cellular network because that network does not receive and interpret the signaling. Instead, the cellular network's existing and unmodified control plane is repurposed by the mobile device by placing new, brief outgoing calls through the cellular network to the VoIP core network where the called party number (i.e., the caller-ID) encodes specific information. The VoIP core network immediately releases the new cellular call once the caller-ID is received and the encoded information is interpreted.

Tunneling VoIP call control on cellular networks

A continual learning process is applied to a class of risk estimate-based algorithms and associated risk thresholds used for deciding when to initiate a handoff between different types of network connections that are available to a mobile device having telephony functionality. The process is implemented as a virtuous loop providing ongoing tuning and adjustment to improve call handoff algorithms and risk thresholds so that handoffs can be performed with the goals of minimizing dropped calls and unacceptable degradation in call quality as well as avoiding premature handoffs. Device characteristics, environmental context, connection measurements, and outcomes of call handoff decisions are crowd-sourced from a population of mobile devices into a cloud-based handoff decision enabling service. The service evaluates potentially usable handoff decision algorithms and risk thresholds against archived crowd-sourced data to determine how they would have performed in real world situations and delivers improved algorithms and risk thresholds to the mobile devices.

Call handoff initiation in hybrid networks

Real-time media optimization may be provided. First, a remote session may be established with a remote computing device. Then, during the remote session, non-real-time media data may be exchanged with the remote computing device over a server path. Moreover, real-time media data may be exchanged with the remote computing device over a media path during the remote session.

Real-time media optimization over remoted sessions

A media session between an initiating endpoint and a responding endpoint is established via a communication network. A set of candidate pairs is generated, each comprising a respective network address available to the initiating endpoint and a respective network address available to the responding endpoint by exchanging network addresses between the initiating endpoint and the responding endpoint. The media session is established using a candidate pair of the set determined to be valid. Connectivity checks are performed for at least one candidate pair of the set to determine whether or not the candidate pair is valid. The at least one candidate pair is selected in dependence on selection data pertaining to at least one of the network addresses and indicative of the quality of a path through the network that would be traversed were that network address to be used for the media session.

Voice call continuity is provided for calls that are carried over a hybrid network infrastructure in which access connections are distributed over loosely coupled network portions including a backend network such as a core VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service network, one or more cellular mobile networks, and a public switched telephone network ('PSTN'). The calls are routed through the core VoIP network regardless of their points of origination or termination in other network portions so that signaling and call context are anchored in the core VoIP network. The conditions under which user equipment operate are continuously monitored so that when a connection is determined to have been unacceptably degraded or is likely to be interrupted, and/or a more optimal connection is available, a handover of the call to another connection is initiated so that call continuity is maintained using the lowest cost connection that provides acceptable call quality.

Voice call continuity in hybrid networks

Procedures for identifying clients in an audio event are described. In an example, a media server may order clients providing audio based on the input level. An identifier may be associated with the client for identifying the client providing input within the event. The ordered clients may be included in a list which may be inserted into a packet header carrying the audio content.

Active speaker identification

Methods and systems for routing video in conferencing are disclosed. A device receives one or more data streams from a media source, where each data stream associated with a data stream identifier. A media source identifier is assigned to each data stream from the media source. The data stream identifiers are mapped to the media source identifiers. At least one of the data streams may be modified by replacing an associated data stream identifier with the media source identifier. The modified data streams are provided to a destination device. A request is received from a destination device for data streams associated with a media source identifier. One or more data stream identifiers are associated with the requested media source identifier. The one or more data streams may be associated with Application sharing/Desktop Sharing, a video quality, a video resolution, a video frame rate, or an audio quality.

Routing for video in conferencing

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Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Humayun Mukhtar Khan