Siemens Business Communication Systems, Inc.

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Neufito L Fernandes

Shmuel Shaffer

David Anthony Hughes

Isaac P Choi

Radhika Padmanabhan

William P Buckley

Alfred Platt

Kenneth J Duda

Jeremy R Lawrence

A connection control interface for switches in a network is provided. The connection control interface allows the multiservice switch to provide a number of switch resource partitions to a number of independent controllers coupled to the switch. The switch resource partitions comprise a number of subsets of switch resources that define a number of independent subset networks of a physical network. The connection control interface allows the independent controllers to control the connections of the switch using the number of switch resource partitions. The independent controllers each use one of a number of control systems, the control systems comprising a network software level. The independent controllers comprise a virtual switch interface having a master component and a slave component where the master and slave components may be hosted on different processors. The slave components may be hosted on a control card that controls a number of port cards of the switch or on a port card processor. The switch and the independent controllers are resynchronized when discrepancies are detected between the connections on the switch and those expected by the each of the plurality of independent controllers.

Connection control interface for asynchronous transfer mode switches

A machine and method for allowing a simulated processor environment to interact with a simulated digital environment to simulate a processor-based system. Embodiments of the present invention contemplate that interaction between the processor environment and digital environment can be implemented by providing the processor environment with a list of 'significant events' (e.g., reads and writes) that are pertinent to the digital environment. Embodiments of the present invention also contemplate that the processor environment and digital environment can be synchronized by allowing operations to occur on either the processor environment or the digital environment, but not on both simultaneously.

Machine and method for simulating a processor-based digital system

A method and apparatus for executing a conference call session between parties provides collaboration between nodes having separate conference-bridging capabilities, so that selection from a number of alternative connectivity schemes can be based upon bridge-to-bridge negotiation. The selection of a connectivity scheme may be based upon one or more of cost and telecommunication resource availability. Selection may also be based upon stored historical data relating to prior conference calls involving at least one of said parties and/or upon historical data of patterns of node resource availability. A conference bridge includes a user interface, a message interface, a connectivity computation component, a conference bridge manager, and a multimedia exchange component. An input to the connectivity computation component includes a database having tariff table information and resource-demand cycle information. Another input to this component is a load monitor for continuously determining the availability of telecommunication resources. In the preferred embodiment, the method and apparatus allow dynamic reconfiguration of conference call connectivity when a time-dependent condition or a load-dependent condition is detected.

Collaborative conference bridges

A method and system of sequencing menu items of a menu-driven user/system interface includes a resequencing of the menu items in response to the frequency of selection and/or a shift in the primary responsibility of a user. In one embodiment, an initial sequence of the serially presented menu items is stored. The selection of each menu item is counted. The menu items are then rearranged to provide a frequency-based order that presents the most often selected items before the less likely to be selected menu items. The step of resequencing the menu items may be limited to input of a resequencing command by a user or may be limited to predetermined time periods. As another optional feature, the 'learning' that occurs by counting the selections can be downloaded from one system and uploaded to another system. In a second embodiment, the rearrangement is task-based. Depending upon the task assigned to the user or depending upon the mode of operation of the system, the menu items are arranged, again with the goal of presenting the most often selected menu items at the beginning of the progression.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Neufito L Fernandes