Ribbon Communications Operating Company, Inc.

Sonus Networks, Inc.

Subhransu S Nayak

Tolga Asveren

Shaun Jaikarran Bharrat

Rajangam Subramanian

Amol Sudhir Gogate

Mark St Pierre

Prince Arimpur Cheerotha Philip

Hemanth Kumar Yathiraju Chenji

George J Matey

Howard Elliot Finer

Shiping Li

Mark Duffy

Aby Kuriakose

Kevin Pilotte

Gopannan Ramachandran

André Ouellet

Sanchit Chaudhary

Subhashis Chand

Vijaya Nirmala Chakravarthy

Tolga Asvaren

Methods, devices, and systems for providing dynamic protection against amplification attacks are described herein. One communications method includes receiving, at a session border controller (SBC), a first request message from a peer device that does not have an assigned trust level, determining, based on a type of communication that is received from the peer device, whether the peer device should be classified as an untrusted level, semi-trusted level, or trusted level peer device, and assigning the classification to the peer device for use in subsequent communications with the peer device.

Methods, devices, and systems for providing dynamic protection against amplification attacks

The present invention relates to methods, systems, and apparatus for learning-based automated call flow testing. An exemplary method of testing a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call processing entity includes the steps of generating a first test case based on a first reference call flow record for a first SIP call or a trace record for the first SIP call; executing the first test case which includes sending one or more SIP messages to the first SIP call processing entity; generating a first test case call flow record for a first SIP test call corresponding to the first test case; and determining whether or not the first SIP call processing entity failed the first test case based on a comparison of the first test case call flow record and the first reference call flow record.

Learning-based automated call flow testing

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for detecting, minimizing and/or preventing message processing faults and in particular message processing fault avalanches at a single processing device and among a cluster of message processing devices. An exemplary method embodiment includes: enabling message blocking at a Session Border Controller (SBC) for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages including a first key value in response to a first threshold number of SIP messages including the first key value having caused a SIP message processing failure; receiving, at the SBC, a SIP message including at least one key value; determining if message blocking is enabled for one or more key values included in the SIP message; and dropping by the SBC the SIP message in response to determining that message blocking is enabled for one or more key values included in the SIP message, but otherwise processing the SIP message by the SBC.

Communications methods and apparatus for minimizing and/or preventing message processing faults

The present invention relates to communications methods and apparatus for distributing Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) messages among SIP processing entities including during periods of failure recovery. An exemplary method embodiment includes the steps of: establishing a first connection oriented protocol connection between a first Session Initiation Protocol Load Balancer (SLB) of a plurality of SLBs and a client device; receiving via the first connection oriented protocol connection at the first SLB a first SIP REGISTER request message from the first client device; determining, by the first SLB, based on information received from the client device, a first Session Border Controller (SBC) from a plurality of SBCs to send the first SIP REGISTER request message, said information uniquely identifying the first SBC from other SBCs in the plurality of SBCs; and sending, by the first SLB, the first SIP REGISTER request message to the first SBC.

Methods and apparatus for efficient failure recovery and scaling of a communications system

The present invention relates to communications methods and apparatus for detecting and/or mitigating split brain occurrences in high availability systems. A split brain condition being a condition wherein both a standby processing node and another processing node of a cluster of processing nodes included in a high availability system are both operating at the same time in an active mode of operation. An exemplary method embodiment of operating a high availability system including a plurality of processing nodes includes the steps of determining at a standby processing node that a failure condition exists, said standby processing node being one of the cluster of processing nodes; switching the standby processing node from a standby mode of operation to an active mode of operation in response to determining that a failure condition exists; and determining whether the high availability system is experiencing a split brain condition.

Methods and apparatus for detecting, eliminating and/or mitigating split brain occurrences in high availability systems

The present invention relates to methods, systems and apparatus for providing efficient packet flow fillrate adjustments and providing protection against distributed denial of service attacks. One exemplary embodiment in accordance with the invention is a method of operating a communication system including the steps of receiving, at a session border controller, a first SIP invite request message; making a decision, at the session border controller, as to whether the first SIP invite request originated from an Integrated Access Device or an IP-PBX device; generating, at the SBC, a packet flow fillrate based on said decision as to whether the SIP invite request originated at an Integrated Access Device or an Internet Protocol-Private Branch Exchange (IP-PBX) device.

Communications methods, systems and apparatus for packet policing

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for efficient handling of registration messages by network equipment. An exemplary embodiment includes the steps of: operating network equipment in a first mode of operation; detecting that a first condition exists, switching the network equipment from said first mode of operation to a second mode of operation, said second mode of operation including: receiving a first initial SIP registration request message destined for a registrar; determining an address of record (AOR) value included in the first initial SIP registration request message; determining whether a matching registration record exists for the determined AOR value included in the first initial SIP registration request message; and when the network equipment determines that a matching registration record exists for the determined AOR value included in the initial SIP registration request message, treating said first initial SIP registration request message as a refresh SIP registration message.

Methods, systems and apparatus for efficient handling of registrations of end devices

The present invention relates to communications methods, apparatus and systems for correlating registrations with subsequent requests for service, e.g., calling or other services or active calls. In one embodiment requests and corresponding registrations are determined through a method of operating a session border controller (SBC) which includes the assignment of a registration instance identifier by the SBC to each registration request, sending a first message including the registration instance identifier to each user device in response to each registration request, and determining if subsequent requests correspond to the registration instance based on the registration instance identifier being included in subsequent requests. In another embodiment, after a SBC switchover, the new SBC forks a mid-dialog request received for a first call to all active registered devices having the same address of record and determines based on the responses which device has an active dialog corresponding to the first call.

Communications methods, apparatus and systems for correlating registrations, service requests and calls

Methods and apparatus for supporting authentication for session border controller generated autonomous requests are described. In some embodiments, the session border controller stores a response to a challenge being communicated through the session border controller from an entity with authentication credentials, e.g., a user equipment device, to an authenticating entity. The stored response is available to be used by the SBC at a future time in generating an autonomous request that may be able to pass an authentication check by the authenticating entity. In some embodiments, a session border controller, which has received a challenge to a SBC generated autonomous request from an authenticating entity, generates and sends a request triggering signal to an entity with authentication credentials and subsequently uses the received challenge from the entity with authenticating entity to challenge and acquire a response, e.g., a authorization header, that can will satisfy the authenticating entity.

Authentication support for autonomous requests

Methods and apparatus for sharing bandwidth over a link in a packet-oriented telecommunications system or network that supports multiple types of traffic including, e.g., real time packet flows, opportunistic rate packet flows, control and signaling traffic, are described. In one exemplary embodiment the method includes the steps of receiving a bandwidth allocation request requesting allocation of a required amount of bandwidth for a new real time packet flow, allocating the requested bandwidth from bandwidth reserved for newly-allocated real time packet flows, updating the measure of the total amount of bandwidth allocated to real time packet flows to reflect the allocation of the bandwidth to the new real time packet flow, and generating new bandwidth allocations for existing opportunistic rate packet flows based on a measure of the total amount of bandwidth allocated to real time packet flows. Some embodiments of the invention include methods to enforce the dynamic bandwidth allocations.

Growing community of inventors

Acton, MA, United States of America

Subhransu S Nayak