Patent ID: 8850035

Claim:
A system, comprising: a plurality of geographically distributed colocation facilities (colos), each colo comprising a plurality of computing devices, including a plurality of connection servers, that are closely located with each other, one or more replicated services being replicated on each colo, and the one or more replicated services of each colo configured to establish a local connection between each local user's user device and a specific one of the plurality of connection servers of the colo; maintain local connection state information identifying each local user and the specific one of the plurality of connection servers of the colo to which the local user's user device is connected; maintain remote connection state information relating to each remote connection between a remote user's user device and a specific one of the plurality of connection servers of another one of the plurality of colos, wherein the remote connection state information relating to a remote connection identifies the remote user and the remote user's colo; facilitate user device to user device sessions between any of the user devices connected to any of the plurality of colos with reference to the local and remote connection state information, whereby each one of the plurality of colos is configured to use such colo's local connection state information for communication relating to each local user and each one of the plurality of colos is configured to use such colo's remote connection state information to forward communications related to each remote user to another one of the plurality of colos of such remote user so that such remote user receives the forwarded communications; maintain presence information relating to the local users whose user device has a local connection with said each colo and the remote users whose user device has a local connection with another one of the colos, wherein the presence information comprises a plurality of connected states with respect to which colo each local or remote user is connected; and publish the presence information relating to at least one of the remote users whose user device has a local connection with another one of the colos to each local user whose user device has a local connection with said each colo, according to subscription information for the at least one remote user and each local user, and such subscription information being associated with said each colo.