Patent ID: 8179912

Claim:
A telecommunication system that provides timer affinity, said telecommunication system comprising: a hardware-implemented engine tier including two or more engine nodes, wherein at least one of said engine nodes processes incoming messages, said incoming messages associated with at least one session between two or more participants; a hardware-implemented state tier including one or more state nodes that maintain call state information associated with said session, said call state information including a timer set by one of said engine nodes; wherein each engine node periodically polls the state tier for expired timers, wherein each expired timer is assigned to the engine node that processed the last message for the session associated with said timer; an optional poll flag maintained in the hardware-implemented state tier, wherein the optional poll flag permits an engine node to suspend polling during a next scheduled polling period, wherein a value of the optional poll flag is set when the engine node performs a state operation to the hardware-implemented state tier; wherein the optional poll flag allows the engine nodes to poll at fewer intervals during a busy system time period such that if the optional poll flag is set to true, the engine node does not poll the hardware-implemented state tier and the optional poll flag is reset to false; and wherein processing the timer on the engine that processed the last incoming message associated with the session increases a probability that the call state information is available in the local near-cache at said engine node.