IP Phone Applications: Realizing Full Convergence Nasser Manesh Millenigence, Inc.

IP Phone Applications: Realizing Full Convergence Nasser Manesh CTO Millenigence, Inc.

What We Will Cover Defining IP Phone Applications Background Outlook Architecture Issues and Challenges

Defining IP Phone Applications

IP Phone Primer IP Phones use IP for signaling and streaming of voice No “phone” jack – direct LAN/WLAN connection Major vendors are shipping more IP Phones than traditional phones in 2005 Cisco alone has shipped more than 5,000,000 IP Phones (May 2005)

IP Phone Applications IP Phone: More than just a phone! Dual personality: Voice and Data Always on, always on the network Applications: o Beyond voic , UM, etc. o Use IP Phones as network terminals, integrated into business workflow Keyboard/keypad and screen extend the reach of data and applications to the user

Example: Health Care

Example: Time Sheet

Example: Hospitality

Background

Traditional Applications Voic , ACD, Predictive dialing, etc. Hanging off of PBX in old, TDM setup Connectivity through CTI Data comes only in the form of: o IVR interaction o touch tone or DTMF interaction o Backend processing (e.g., contact center) Data integration is very limited and rudimentary

Traditional Architecture - CTI

CTI Shortcomings Highly proprietary and closed Highly PBX dependent The end device is not present on the network No or limited API – mostly signal driven Costly to implement

From TDM to VoIP VoIP promised convergence Convergence happening at the network level voice and data are still two unrelated entities – no endpoint convergence Applications still use CTI, and suffer the same shortcomings

Outlook

Where We Are Heading Voice becoming commodity First generation applications such as VM and UM do not help differentiating anymore A new breed of applications is needed, with more focus on integration with business workflow

Data Applications Emerging Convergence should go beyond just the network – towards the endpoints Data and voice converge at the application level and business workflow End user should see both voice and data are business tools Like voice, data should be available anywhere, anytime, on any device

Paradigm Shift in Applications Data endpoints are voice aware, voice endpoints are becoming data aware. Communication services should be available to applications through web services Device limitations will no longer dictate how users interact. Both voice and data must be at user’s fingertips.

Architecture

New Application Architecture

Endpoints Communication device is no longer just a desktop phone: o IP Phones o Hand held devices o Cell Phones o Soft clients / soft phones Voice reaches all these devices, so data should also reach them ubiquitously

Ubiquitous Data Access

Voice Servers, Data Servers The IP PBX is now the communication hub for voice SIP has emerged as a standard Big players are rapidly moving to SIP- based call processing The equivalent of the IP PBX should be established for data

XML: Protocol for Data Interchange Fully text based and portable Independent of underlying system, database, OS, etc. Can be used to exchange information, messages, and events Helps different systems/architectures communicate when used in conjunction with SOAP and XML-RPC

XML for Endpoints Phone vendors are converging on using XML over HTTP as the data transport HTML, WML and XHTML are general forms of XML over HTTP WML adopted by hand held and mobile device vendors For more control vendors are defining XML interfaces to their endpoints

XML Data Interchange IP PBX Application XML API/Query XML Page XML Response URL Access XML Event XML Push

XML Applications Created based on each vendor’s schema Generate pages using the UI objects for the particular target endpoint Use vendor-specific tags to control the endpoint Must be re-written for each endpoint!

Issues and Challenges

State of the Market Different vendors, different XML schemas: o Cisco o Avaya o Alcatel o Siemens o Polycom WML does not provide endpoint control tags Result: XML is the underlying standard, but in practice there’s no standard!

What Is Needed Endpoint agnostic programming – one standard set of XML tags/APIs that works on all endpoints On-the-fly Cross XML Translation for existing applications Development, Deployment, Integration platforms

Conclusion Next generation CTI is emerging Full convergence happens at application level Just like voice, data should be delivered to IP Phones, hand held devices, and mobile devices ubiquitously Market needs to move from proprietary XML to a standard schema