Abstract:
A technique for managing conference state. Endpoints of the conference are application processes () running on computer systems that are connected by a WAN (). Each of the application processes () maintains endpoint state for the conference. A session manager process () in each of the computer systems maintains session manager state for each of the conferences that has an endpoint on the computer system. The session manager conference state includes a copy of the endpoint state for each of the conferences and the session manager () uses a locking mechanism to that the copies of the session manager conference state in all of the session managers () are identical. When an endpoint changes its endpoint state, it informs the session manager (), the session manager () incorporates the change into its session manager conference state, and when the locking mechanism permits, exports the change to the session managers () for all the other endpoints. When the session manager () receives a change, it incorporates the change into its session manager conference state.