FORM -2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
(39 of 1970)
&
THE PATENT RULES, 2003
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
(See Section 10 and Rule 13)
Title of invention: A UNIFIED MESSAGE COMMUNICATIONS FRAMEWORK
Applicant
TATA Consultancy Services A company Incorporated in India under The Companies Act 1956
Having address: Nirmal Building, 9th Floor,
Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021,
Maharashtra, India
The following specification particularly describes the invention and the manner in which it is to be performed.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method and a system for communication in a network. More particularly, the invention relates to the unified communication method and the unified communication system for a peer-to-peer communication between at least one transmitting device and at least one receiving device in the network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In today's world faster and easier communication through computational systems is of prime importance. Unified Communication refers to the integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging, video conferencing, data sharing etc with non-real time services such as integrated voicemail, email etc. Communication through Unified Communication brings in user comfort and reduces complexity. Given the lack of good and flexible system programmers available in a dynamic operating environments there is a strong need for having a unified message communication interface to simplify the communication task for developers and designers by facilitating application to deliver its core functionality in spite of changing operating environments for all program communication requirements.
Many such methods and systems have been proposed for communication based on unified communication system. Such methods are dependent on administrator's input in terms determination of infrastructure components. Also the existing technology doesn't offer an automatic modification in the application because user or the administrator may not have access to the source code or there is no standardization of the interfaces provided in the communication system which results in system being more complex. One such method (US7454462) facilitates cooperative interaction over a wide variety of networks by messaging through a common API that supports multiple transport mechanisms. Also, mid-session transfer between client devices is facilitated by schema and the transport-independent messaging structure. In this method the user interfaces of the client devices will appear consistent even if the client devices have different user interface capabilities. However, the disclosure uses an API which is specific to MSMQ and would not be flexible to incorporate implementations from other vendors.

Therefore, there is a need for providing unified communication system and method capable of coding, implementation and deployment of application. Also, a system and method is needed for reducing complexity present in communication throughout the network.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A unified communication method for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitting device and receiving device in a network is disclosed. The method comprises of selecting a transport mechanism from a transport layer for enabling the peer-to-peer communication, wherein the transport layer is provided in the unified communication interface and implementing message transmission over a session through a unified communication framework by reusing the transport mechanism and reading the message over a session to implement the changes in the configuration of the message over a session through a configuration management tool provided by a configuration file; wherein the configuration file includes an actual communication mechanism and details of the peer-to-peer communication. The method further comprises of transmitting the message over a session implemented by the unified communication framework to the receiving device in the network.
A unified communication system for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitting device and a receiving device in a network is discloses. The system comprises of a transmitting device for transmitting a message over a session to a receiving device, a unified communication interface for coupling the transmitting device and the receiving device. The unified communication interface further comprises of a transport layer to provide a transport mechanism to enable the communication between the transmitting device and the receiving device, the transport layer further maintains a common server for an existing transport mechanism, a unified messaging framework connected to the transport layer for implementing message transmission over a session transmitted by the transmitting device and for supporting the transport mechanism provided by the transport layer and a configuration file Jinked to the unified messaging framework containing details of an actual communication mechanism and is configured to provide a configuration management tool for changing the configuration of the message over a session transmitted. The system further comprises of a receiving device for receiving the

message over a session transmitted by the transmitting device in the network through the transport mechanism selected from the transport layer.
A unified communication system for peer-to-peer communication between one or more device in a network is disclosed. The system comprises of a device for transmitting and receiving a message over a session, a unified communication interface for transmitting the message over a session from the device and for receiving the message over a session by the device. The unified communication interface further comprises of a transport layer to provide an existing transport mechanism to enable the communication for transmitting the message over a session and receiving the message over a session by the device, the transport layer further maintains a common server for the existing transport mechanism, a unified messaging framework connected to the transport layer for implementing message transmission over a session transmitted by the device and further received by the receiving device and for supporting the existing transport mechanism provided by the transport layer and a configuration file linked to the unified messaging framework containing details of an actual communication mechanism and is configured to provide a configuration management tool for changing the configuration of the message over a session.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS
Figure 1 illustrates the architecture of the unified communication system win accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
Figure 2 illustrates the architectural view of the constituting modules of the unified communication system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
Figure 3 illustrates the communication model as supported by the unified messaging framework in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
Figure 4 illustrates the architecture of the unified communication system in accordance with an alternate embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Some embodiments of this invention, illustrating its features, will now be discussed:
The words "comprising", "having", "containing", and "including", and other forms thereof, are intended to be equivalent in meaning in meaning and be open ended in that an item or items following any one of these words is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of such item or items. or meant to be limited to only the listed item or items.
It must also be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms "a", "an", and "the" include plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Although any systems, methods, apparatuses, and devices similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice or testing of embodiments of the present invention, the preferred, systems and parts are now described.
The disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms.
The present invention discloses a unified communication method and a system for communication in network. Particularly, the invention discloses a method and a system for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitting device and a receiving device in the network.
The message refers to an input or an output in the system. The message further includes but is not limited to performing a scanf or a printf, reading from a file or writing to a file. The message over a session is transmitted by the transmitting device (1) through a unified communication interface (3) to the receiving device (2) in the network.
In accordance with an embodiment, the transmitting device (I) and the receiving device*(2) can function reciprocally as receiving device (2) and transmitting device (1) respectively when the message over a session from the receiving device (2) is sent as a response to the query transmitted by the transmitting device (1).
In accordance with an embodiment, the message over a session includes a plurality of message over a session.

In accordance with an aspect, referring to figure, the unified communication interface (3) may be a module is configured to couple the transmitting device (1) and the receiving device (2). The communication from one peer to another is enabled by an existing transport mechanism (5).
Referring to figure 1, the existing transport mechanism (5) which may be a protocol is selected from a transport layer (4) provided in the unified communication interface (3) in the network. The transport layer (4) may also be referred to as an abstraction layer. The existing transport mechanism (5) enables the transmitting device (1) and the receiving device (2) to communicate over the session to provide the peer-to-peer to communication in the network. The transport layer (4) maintains a common server (6) for an existing transport mechanism (5).
Referring to figure 2. the existing transport mechanism (5) includes but is not limited to Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), IBM MQ, Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), Multicast or Inter-Process Communication (IPC). The existing transport mechanism (5) is abstracted to the commands such as start session, send message, receive message, reply message and close session to an application reading the message over a session. These commands would provide common semantics to messaging applications regardless of the existing transport mechanism (5) selected. The command send message is a function used by an application to transmit a message to a peer or a service or both, receive message is a function used by the application to receive a message from the peer or the client or both and reply message is a function used by the application to transmit a message to a specific peer or client or both in response to a request made by the peer or the client or both. The type of the existing transport mechanism (5) is selected by an administrator.
The message over a session is implemented through a unified communication framework (7) provided in the unified communication interface (3) by reusing the existing transport mechanism (5) and reading the message over a session to implement the changes in the configuration of the message over a session through a configuration management tool (9) provided by a configuration file (8). The administrator can select any of the existing transport mechanism (5) by setting the configuration file (8). The configuration file (8) is read by a program linked to the unified messaging framework (7).

The configuration management tool (9) may also be referred to as performance tuning parameter. The configuration file (8) is configured to support the details of the peer-to-peer to communication in the network. The configuration file (8) further provides support for a message feature. The message feature includes but is not limited to security, compression, encryption, transaction management and support for publish-subscribe the message transmitted by the transmitting device. By way of a specific example, if a user selects compression through the configuration management tool, the unified messaging framework (7) implements the encryption towards the message over a session.
The configuration management tool (9) is also provided for different types of session by the configuration file (8). The configuration management tool (9) is provided for a plurality of gateway(6a) number of threads per gateway (6a), number of connections per thread and blocking and non-blocking implementations.
In accordance with an embodiment, the configuration file (8) is also configured to provide support for the message over a session for some fixed range of size. The range may be of a maximum value 64kb but is not limited to this value. The configuration file (8) also provides reliability in the communication by means of re-establishing a connection upon a drop (up to retry limit) and maintains sequence number logs on client and server. By way of a specific example, exactly once/ in-order quality of service relates to persistent messaging that provides exactly- once ordered delivery wherein the duplicates are identified and removed and out of order arrivals are rejected.
In accordance with an embodiment, still referring to figure 2, the configuration file (8) also provides support for a standard message queues with a same universal set of interface (10) to absolve a programmer or a developer for dealing with a complex third party technology. By way of a specific example, the universal set of interface (10) is made available for a client to talk or exchange message with a server including point to point and publish-subscribe communication. To effectively enable these features, the administrator is required to configure a communication channel appropriately to use the existing transport mechanism (5). The communication channel also includes a Hyper Text Markup Language (HTTP) in a case where the client demands a standard like web services.

In accordance with an aspect, the message over a session after being implemented by the unified communication framework (7) is transmitted to the receiving device (2) by means of the existing transport mechanism (5) selected from the transport layer (4) and this message is received by the receiving device (2) by means of the unified communication interface (3).
The present invention also discloses a unified communication system (001) for a peer-to-peer communication. Particularly, the invention discloses the unified communication system (001) for peer-to-peer communication between at least one transmitting device (1) and at least one receiving device (2) in a network.
In accordance with an aspect, again referring to figure 1, the unified communication system (001) comprises of a transmitting device (1) to transmit a message to the peer in the network. The transmitting device (1) and the receiving device (2) are coupled through a unified communication interface (3). The unified communication interface (3) comprises of a transport layer (4) to provide an existing transport mechanism (5) to enable the peer-to-peer communication between the transmitting device (1) and the receiving device (2) in the network, a unified messaging framework (7) connected to the transport layer (4) for implementing the message transmission by the transmitting device (1) and a configuration file (8) linked to the unified messaging framework (7) to change the configuration of the message over a session by means of a configuration management tool (9). The unified communication system (001) further comprises of a receiving device (2) for receiving the message transmitted by the transmitting device (1) in the network through the existing transport mechanism (5) selected from the transport layer (4).
In accordance with an embodiment, referring to figure 3, the unified communication system (001) further comprises of one or more interface for exchange of the message over a session between a server (11) and a client (12). In accordance with an embodiment, the method also enables the communication to applications that do not use the unified messaging framework (7). The unified messaging framework (7) supports a set of operation user or system administrator to communicate with application that do not use the unified messaging framework (7) by making appropriate settings to the configuration file (8). Still referring to figure 3. the server (11) or the client (12) or both may not use the unified messaging communication framework (7) directly as

the a framework can be configured to support communication with the peer that does not use the unified messaging framework (7).
In accordance with an embodiment, the configuration file (8) is formatted in an extensible markup language format.
In accordance with an embodiment, the unified communication system (001) further comprises of a session handle (13) to track the session where the messages are transmitted and received. The session handle (13) acts as hook to access a specific communication.
In accordance with an embodiment. The gateway component of the server (6a) in the unified messaging framework (7) further provides ability for connection management.
In accordance with an embodiment, the present invention discloses a system for communication in a network. More particularly, the invention discloses a unified communication system (001) for peer-to-peer communication between one or more device (14) in a network.
Referring to figure 4. the unified communication system (001) comprises of a device (14) for transmitting and receiving a message over a session. The device (14) is configured to first transmit the message over a session through a unified communication interface (3). The message over a session is further transmitted by selecting an existing transport mechanism (5) form a transport layer (4) provided by the unified communication interface (3) in the network. The message over a session is further implemented by a unified messaging framework (7) provided by the unified communication interface (3). This message over a session is received by the device (14) in the network and is referred to as an Inter process communication.
BEST MODE/EXAMPLE OR WORKING OF THE INVENTION
The invention is described in the example given below which is provided only to illustrate the invention and therefore should not be construed to limit the scope of the invention.
Consider a trader working on the trading workstation. The trading program on the PC acts as a client to the stock exchange server. There is a configuration file in the traders PC which defines a service with the name MATCHING. Under this service is configured the details of the stock

exchange server. The client program initializes the session using a start session function and initialized by specifying the service as MATCHING. When the trader makes an order using the Graphical user interface, the program constructs an order message and sends it to the stock exchange server using the send message function. It then waits for the confirmation message using the receive message function.
The forgoing paragraphs describes the details of the present invention, which relates generally to a unified message communication system and associated method which is independent of the transport protocol or operating environment used.
While the present invention has been illustrated by the description of embodiments thereof, it is not the intention of the applicant to restrict or in any way limit the scope of the appended claims to such detail. Additional advantages and modifications will readily appear to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details, representative apparatus and method, and illustrative examples shown and described. Accordingly, departures may be made from such details without departing from the spirit or scope of the applicant's general inventive concept.

We Claim:
1. A unified communication method for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitting device and receiving device in a network, the method comprising the steps of: selecting a transport mechanism from a transport layer for enabling the peer-to-peer communication, wherein the transport layer is provided in a unified communication interface;
implementing the message transmission over a session through a unified communication framework by reusing the transport mechanism and reading the message over a session to implement the changes in the configuration of the message over a session through a configuration management tool provided by a configuration file; wherein the configuration file includes an actual communication mechanism and details of the peer-to-peer communication; and
transmitting the message over a session implemented by the unified communication framework to the receiving device in the network through the unified communication interface.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1. wherein the message over a session includes plurality of message over a session over a session.
3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the transport mechanism is selected from a group of transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), user datagram protocol (UDP). IBM MQ; advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP). stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) and multicast or inter-process communication (IPC) or a combination thereof.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1. wherein the transport layer is abstracted to commands including start session, send message, receive message, reply message and close session to an application reading the message over a session.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein controlling of the configuration file and selection of the transport mechanism is performed by an administrator performing the application.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the actual communication mechanism includes details of the message over a session and publishing and subscribing the message over a session.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration management tool includes support for a feature of the message transmitted by the transmitting device wherein the feature includes security, compression, encryption, transaction management and support for publish-subscribe messaging or a combination thereof.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration file supports an implementation of a size independent message over a session by the unified communication framework including a file transfer.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1. wherein the peer-to-peer communication is also performed without using the unified messaging framework by making predetermined settings to the configuration file.
10. A unified communication system for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitting device and a receiving device in a network, the system comprising:
a transmitting device for transmitting a message over a session to a receiving device;
a unified communication interface for coupling the transmitting device and the receiving
device; the unified communication interface further comprising;
a transport layer to provide a transport mechanism to enable the communication between the transmitting device and the receiving device, the transport layer further maintains a common server for an existing transport mechanism;

a unified messaging framework connected to the transport layer for implementing the message transmission over a session transmitted by the transmitting device and for supporting the transport mechanism provided by the transport layer; and a configuration file linked to the unified messaging framework containing details of an actual communication mechanism and is configured to provide a configuration management tool for changing the configuration of the message over a session transmitted; and a receiving device for receiving the message over a session transmitted by the transmitting device in the network through the transport mechanism selected from the transport layer.
11. A unified communication system for peer-to-peer communication between one or more device in a network, the system comprising:
a device for transmitting and receiving a message over a session;
a unified communication interface for transmitting the message over a session from the device and for receiving the message over a session by the device, the unified communication interface further comprising:
a transport layer to provide an existing transport mechanism to enable the communication for transmitting the message over a session and receiving the message over a session by the device, the transport layer further maintains a common server for the existing transport mechanism;
a unified messaging framework connected to the transport layer for implementing the message transmission over a session transmitted by the device and further received by the receiving device and for supporting the existing transport mechanism provided by the transport layer; and
a configuration file linked to the unified messaging framework containing details of an actual communication mechanism and is configured to provide a

configuration management too) for changing the configuration of the message over a session.
12. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and 11. wherein the existing transport mechanism is selected from a group of Transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), User datagram protocol(UDP), IBM, MQ, advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP). stream control transmission protocol (SCTP). multicast or inter-process communication (IPC).
13. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and 11. wherein the actual communication mechanism includes details of the message over a session and publishing and subscribing the message over a session.
14. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and II, wherein the configuration file further comprises of one or more interface for exchange of the message between a server and a third party.
15. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and 11, wherein the configuration file is formatted in an extensible markup language format.
16. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and 11, wherein the system further comprises of a session handler to track the session where the messages are transmitted and received.
17. The unified communication system as claimed in claim 10 and 11, wherein the unified messaging framework further provides ability for connection management by writing connection manager code.