Patent ID: 8184800

Claim:
A method for managing voice response services, comprising: grouping, into M+X clusters, a plurality of voice response units, M being a number of voice response clusters in operation at any time to provide full operational capacity and X being a number of redundant voice response clusters; grouping, into N+Y cells, a plurality of web application servers that host voice response application software and that have a plurality of communications ports, N being a number of web application server cells in operation at any time to provide full operational capacity and Y being a number of redundant web application server cells; managing, using a network dispatcher, sessions provided by at least one web application server by maintaining session affinity for the sessions; providing M+X voice response clusters and N+Y web application server cells during first periods of operation; providing M voice response clusters and N web application server cells during second periods of operation while removing X voice response clusters and Y web application server cells from operation and provisioning the X voice response clusters and Y web application server cells with software updates; and cycling the M+X web application voice response clusters and N+Y web application server cells from operation until all of the M+X voice response clusters and all of the N+Y web application server cells are removed from operation and provisioned with software updates.