Importance

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Abstract

A mechanism for performing a disconnect policy involving authorizing a data communication session between a client and a first server is disclosed. The mechanism provides a failover scheme in which local servers record the number of active sessions that they have authorized for a particular user entity. Each user entity is assigned an authoritative server. The authoritative servers maintain global session information for each user entity in which they are assigned. When a local server cannot authorize a session for a particular user entity the local server communicates with the authoritative server to determine whether a session should be established for the user entity. If communication is lost between a local server and an authoritative server, the local server assumes that no other servers have authorized active sessions for the particular user entity. In a similar manner, the authoritative server assumes that the local server has not authorized any active sessions for the particular entity. Thus, both the local server and the authoritative server may independently authorize sessions for the user entity. When communication is re-established between the local server and the authoritative server, the servers exchange information to recreate the current state. If it is determined that too many active sessions have been established for user entity, further authorization requests from the user entity are denied until the number of active sessions is reduced below an acceptable level. This, failover scheme removes the need for redundant servers and instead distributes the burden of redundancy to the local servers where communication problems are far less likely to occur.

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First Claim