Programmable presence virtualization

A system for a virtual presence server to support presence virtualization queries, the system comprising:

• a virtual presence server (VPS) to provide one or more answers to subscription-style structured virtual presence queries from a plurality of clients, the VPS comprising a table representing a mapping between each unique membership set of one or more presentities, a corresponding virtual presentity uniform resource identifiers (URI) and a query element (QE) responsible for subscriptions to the URI;
• a set of one or more query elements (QEs) contained in the VPS, each QE associated with a URI and containing a table of a list of one or more clients whose transformations are expressed over an aggregated presence document of the URI and a specific transformation logic pertaining to each client, and wherein existence of a destination virtual presentity URI and a corresponding QE is ensured by determining if an existing virtual presentity URI corresponds to a subscription for retrieving the one or more presence documents of each member in the membership set;
• and
• a set of one or more presence clients that issue virtual presence queries that are structured to contain a membership set containing a list of one or more presentity URIs, and a separate transformation function defined over a set of presence documents of each member in the membership set.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable recordable storage medium including computer useable program code for supporting a presence virtualization query, the computer program product including:

• computer useable program code for receiving a virtual query from a client, wherein the virtual query is specified in terms of a membership set of one or more members, wherein the membership set comprises a list of presentity uniform resource identifiers (URIs) and a separate transformation function, defined over a set of one or more presence documents of the one or more members in the membership set;
• computer useable program code for redirecting, via a virtual presence server, the query to a destination virtual presentity URI whose presence state comprises an aggregation of the one or more presence documents of the list of URIs in the membership set and a corresponding query element (QE) object that manages subscriptions for the URI;
• computer useable program code for adding, via the QE for the destination virtual presentity URI, the client as a watcher for the destination virtual presentity URI;
• and
• computer useable program code for applying, via the virtual presence server, transformation logic specified by the watcher client and notifying a corresponding client of a resulting output;
• and
• computer useable program code for ensuring that there exists a destination virtual presentity URI and a corresponding QE by determining if an existing virtual presentity URI corresponds to a subscription for retrieving the one or more presence documents of each member in the membership set.

A system for supporting a presence virtualization query comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor coupled to the memory and operative to:
• receive a virtual query from a client, wherein the virtual query is specified in terms of a membership set of one or more members, wherein the membership set comprises a list of presentity uniform resource identifiers (URIs) and a separate transformation function, defined over a set of one or more presence documents of the one or more members in the membership set;
• redirect, via a virtual presence server, the query to a destination virtual presentity URI whose presence state comprises an aggregation of the one or more presence documents of the list of URIs in the membership set and a corresponding query element (QE) object that manages subscriptions for the URI;
• add, via the QE for the destination virtual presentity URI, the client as a watcher for the destination virtual presentity URI;
• apply, via the virtual presence server, transformation logic specified by the watcher client and notifying a corresponding client of a resulting output;
• and
• ensure that there exists a destination virtual presentity URI and a corresponding QE by determining if an existing virtual presentity URI corresponds to a subscription for retrieving the one or more presence documents of each member in the membership set.