Efficient utilization of IVR resources supplied to switching systems
View Patent ↗The invention relates to an interactive voice response (IVR) system supplying functions and resources to services encompassing interactive voice response or output of announcements and three methods for dealing with resource bottlenecks of the IVR system. The IVR system supplies a pool of resources to several switching systems. Virtual, individually assigned IVR systems are created from the perspective of the switching systems by allocating the control interfaces and user data interfaces of the IVR system in an exclusive, disjunctive manner to the switching systems. Resource bottlenecks can be prevented when several switching systems access the IVR system by rejecting jobs for which the required resources cannot be reserved or by aborting jobs creating too substantial delays during processing due to the wait for resources. The invention has the advantage of efficiently utilizing the resources supplied by the IVR system.
1. An IVR (interactive voice response) system for providing resources for services comprising interactive voice response or output of announcements, the IVR system comprising:
at least one IVR (Interactive Voice Response) server, said IVR server having a plurality of control interfaces, said IVR server having at least one user data interface for user data switched by switching systems;
a mechanism for recognizing resource bottlenecks; and
a mechanism for handling resource bottlenecks, wherein
a plurality of switching systems have access to said IVR server;
wherein each one of said plurality of switching systems has exclusive access to at least one of said plurality of control interfaces; and
wherein the resources of the interactive voice response (IVR) system are capable of being used by more than one of said plurality of switching systems having access.
2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein each one of said plurality of switching systems has exclusive access to at least one user data interface of the interactive voice response (IVR) system.
3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein
time division multiplexing (TDM) based user data are transferred at least via one user data interface, and wherein
the user data interface comprises at least one port which is addressable by the control interface for routing the user data stream of a connection of one of the switching systems.
4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein
packet based user data are transferred at least via said user data interface, and wherein
the user data interface comprises at least one port which is addressable by one of said plurality of control interfaces for routing the user data stream of a connection of one of said plurality of switching systems.
5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein
packet oriented control data are transferred at least via one of said plurality of control interfaces, and wherein
the MGCP (Media Gateway Control Protocol) protocol or the H.248 protocol is defined for transferring control data to said plurality of control interfaces.
6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the resources comprise at least one of the following resources: computing power, storage space, TTS licenses and ASR licenses.
7. The system according to claim 1 , wherein said server provides computer power and storage space.
8. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising one or more peripheral device elements (intelligent peripherals) external to the switching system.
9. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising a content server having formation rules and/or software for speech handling.
10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the content server comprises the functions of a licensing server.
11. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the system is configured with regard to a system response to overloading and/or overbooking.
12. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising redundant device elements.
13. A method for handling resource bottlenecks in an interactive voice response (IVR) system, comprising:
starting an application in the interactive voice response (IVR) system by a switching system, wherein the application requires resources;
halting the application in the interactive voice response IVR system if resources required to run the application in the interactive voice response IVR system are not available;
terminating the application in the interactive voice response IVR system if whilst waiting for resources the application is halted for a period of time which exceeds a limit value; and
sending an error message to the switching system in the event of terminating the application in the interactive voice response IVR system.
14. The method according to claim 13 , further comprising:
accessing to a content server having formation rules and/or software for speech handling by the interactive voice response (IVR) system.
15. The method according to claim 13 , further comprising:
in the event of terminating the application recording a lack of resources underlying the terminating.
16. The method according to claim 13 , further comprising:
requesting the execution of an application in the interactive voice response (IVR) system by a switching system.
17. The method according to claim 13 , wherein the method will be performed according to a defined parameter.
18. The method according to claim 17 , wherein the defined parameter is specific to the application or the parameter relates to the workload of the interactive voice response (IVR) system.