Subject: [Sipping] Porting IN/INAP IVR applications to IMS networks

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:11:34 +0200

Hello dear sipping members,

Within TDM technology, most of the Telco operators have developped 
services for their IN networks using the INAP protocol.
This protocol defines some operations to address an IVR peripheral in 
the network (named SRP in #7 networks, MRF
in IMS, Media Server in IT). Those operations are PA, PCUI, ...

        INAP                    #7+INAP
SCP <-------------> Switch <--------------> SRP

Those operators are at present looking for solutions to easily adapt 
those applications to IMS/NGN/IT networks.
The architectures are quite similar (equivalent building blocks) .... 
but the protocols not.

        SIP                        SIP
AS <------------> Softswitch <--------------> MRF/Media Server

The IMS defines that the MRF is splitted into two parts : MRF-C and MRF-P.

   SIP               SIP or H.248
<---------> MRF-C <----------------> MRP-P

The protocol between MRF-C and MRF-P is still discussed.

Nevertheless, the existing SIP protocol is not enough to port the 
existing INAP applications.
We do not have the equivalent of the INAP IVR commands.

A solutions is to embed a media protocol within SIP message as body 
attachment.
Some solutions have been proposed as draft to this workgroup : Netann, 
MOML, MSML.
Some other alternatives exist such as VoiceXML.

But all those protocols address new applications, not the existing.
Either they do not offer enough parameters (MSML) to replace INAP commands
with an equivalent command, either they have a different architecture 
and philosophy
that suppose a huge work to adapt those existing applications (MOML).

Considering this problem, we have developped at Alcatel an XML-based 
protocol, that
makes the porting of those applications from INAP to SIP+XML very easy : 
the same
commands exist, with the same names, the same parameters, the same 
behaviour.
(AMSML : Application / Media-Server Markup Language).
The protocol is very simple, not so powerfull as MOML in its current 
release but makes
the porting very easily ; just replace INAP commands with their AMSML 
equivalent.
New commands can be easily added.
We have already used it to port some applications with success. The time 
necessary
to port an existing application is drastically reduced.

We are wondering if there would be any interest in proposing this 
protocol to this workgroup
in order to share experiences and potentially define a common standard ?

Are there other people working on this subject ?

Best regards

David RIO

-- 
David Rio
Alcatel

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