Patent ID: 8073777

Claim:
An integrated and secure method for conducting business over the public Internet by enabling a customer of an enterprise communications network to command and control the customer's switched communications connections within the network over the public Internet and to monitor results in near real time over the public Internet, said method comprising: (a) enabling interactive communications between said enterprise communications network and said customer over the public Internet with a protocol invoked from within a web browser executed by a workstation associated with the customer, said protocol supporting customer identification, authentication and a determination of network entitlements for the customer; (b) managing a plurality of customer sessions over the public Internet with a secure web server, said secure web server providing session encryption and management of the customer's session, said session management including the steps of identifying, validating, and determining entitlements associated with the customer within the network; (c) communicating with a plurality of system resources through a dispatch server, said dispatch server communicating with said secure web server and providing verification of system access and proxy generation for said interactive communications after said entitlements have been verified; (d) managing a plurality of enterprise system resources for the customer, said resources including a toll free network manager which manages routing of the customer's toll free voice traffic over the communications network, and a real time monitor which provides near real time monitoring of network traffic; and (e) converting a customer request to modify a routing plan to a proxy request for said toll free network manager and providing near real time monitoring of the customer's voice traffic to enable the customer to manage the communications network resources provided by the enterprise to the customer in near real time.