Patent Document ID: 20160286165
Application ID: 15079373
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for allocating a video conferencing task within a computer network, wherein the video conferencing task relates to a video conference, wherein the computer network comprises a plurality of endpoints intended to participate in the video conference and a plurality of candidate processing devices, wherein at least one candidate processing device is one of the endpoints of the computer network, the method comprising: for each of the candidate processing devices: determining a topological score for the candidate processing device, the topological score being a function of at least one end-to-end delay between a pair of participating endpoints through the candidate processing device, for each candidate processing device within at least a subset of the candidate processing devices: determining an availability score for the candidate processing device, the availability score being a function of an available processing capacity of the candidate processing device, detecting that a processing device of the computer network to which a video conferencing task relating to a video conference was allocated is not able to continue performing the video conferencing task, selecting a preferred processing device among the candidate processing devices other than the processing device which is not able to continue performing the video conferencing task as a function of the topological scores and of the availability scores, and re-allocating the video conferencing task to the preferred processing device.