Normally, you don't write the Abstract until you have actually done the thesis. Go figure. But I have decided to give it a jab and put something down for the time-being. Obviously, I will be returning every now and again to shape it up, but this is what I have in mind for now:
Abstract -- The next generation network (NGN), as specified by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), seeks to guarantee that the network of the future will provide users of telecommunication systems with seamless access across disparate networks, to the applications and services they need and use in everyday life. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as defined by standards bodies such as the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute) and others, is an important part of the NGN, particularly from the perspective of providing the services architecture that executes and delivers services based on user requests. The decomposition of these services into their constituent parts provides IMS engineers with the advantage of code re-usability and a more flexible platform upon which to develop complex services. Work in this area has led to the definition (outside of the standards) of a service capability interaction manager (SCIM) and a service broker which are responsible for handling the interactions between service components and managing access and third party exposure to these components respectively. The aim of the work related in this thesis has been to investigate in detail the service architecture of the IMS and to identify and validate the shortcomings, if any, of the current architecture for the delivery of complex services through service orchestration. The work applies only to the composition of services that are hosted on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) application servers which is one of the three target environments specified by IMS. In agreement with related work, this thesis finds that the current architecture is not fully supportive of these functions without some extra interventions. A novel architecture that extends the currently proposed model is subsequently presented using the Mobicents platform which is based on the JAIN SLEE standard that, unlike related work, re-uses existing IMS standards and mechanisms and is compared and contrasted with contemporary designs such as Parlay X, GSMA One API and OMA NGSI.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Innovation Awards - IntelliDesk CRM System based on Open Source Software
Summary-- The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) in South Africa is an agency of the Department of Science and Technology that seeks to support young innovators in scarce-skills disciplines such as natural sciences, engineering and information technology. A bi-annual competition is held at all the tertiary institutions where independent panels choose three of the best proposals in each institution. Successful competitors are then sent to a two-day crash course where they are taught the basics of how to write a business proposal and are mentored by experts in business administration. In the last stage of the competition, the national stage, the innovators must compete against others for the chance to win ZAR 300,000 (USD 41,000) as the winners of the National Innovation Competition.
Two of my colleagues and I entered the competition late in 2009 with two hopeful business proposals. One proposal was for a "Mobile Trainer" that combines an application that interfaces with a mobile phone's GPS and accelerometer to track the training progress of an athlete. The information that is generated would also be posted onto a website and help create an online community that provides support and comparative statistics to help novice or recreational athletes.
The second proposal that we came up with was "IntelliDesk" which is the proposal that would end up earning us second position in the first round of the competition. IntelliDesk is a telephony-enabled, web-integrated customer relationship management software that is based on open source software that generalises to many business cases. The basic idea is to create an online master database that stores customer profiles. The main way this database is created is through a person interacting with a website that allows them to store information about themselves and also to determine which business entities are allowed to have access to their information.
A local installation of IntelliDesk is setup at the premises of our customers that allows them to download and store user profile information and match these details against the callerid (or sms) of a calling user. The information is put up on a web interface so that the agent at the business side can briefly scan through the information before answering the call. This information is important in dealing better with the user and helps the agent offer a customised service to their clients.
In South Africa, and indeed in other parts of the world, such systems already exist. However, more often than not, these are in-house systems that are installed at call centres or restaurants that serve the interests of that business only. What IntelliDesk offers is a general purpose interface to user profiles that can be utilised by several businesses so that the user does not need to create a 'presence' at each conceivable call centre or restaurant, but one set of information can be shared across many businesses and the power is in the hand of the user who dictates who can access and who cannot access their information.
The System
IntelliDesk is built from open source software. The telephony portion is handled by Asterisk, an open source PBX. The website is hosted on an Apache web server and PHP files are used as a scripting language for both Apache and Asterisk (through Asterisk AGI support).
Photos of national trials
Two of my colleagues and I entered the competition late in 2009 with two hopeful business proposals. One proposal was for a "Mobile Trainer" that combines an application that interfaces with a mobile phone's GPS and accelerometer to track the training progress of an athlete. The information that is generated would also be posted onto a website and help create an online community that provides support and comparative statistics to help novice or recreational athletes.
The second proposal that we came up with was "IntelliDesk" which is the proposal that would end up earning us second position in the first round of the competition. IntelliDesk is a telephony-enabled, web-integrated customer relationship management software that is based on open source software that generalises to many business cases. The basic idea is to create an online master database that stores customer profiles. The main way this database is created is through a person interacting with a website that allows them to store information about themselves and also to determine which business entities are allowed to have access to their information.
A local installation of IntelliDesk is setup at the premises of our customers that allows them to download and store user profile information and match these details against the callerid (or sms) of a calling user. The information is put up on a web interface so that the agent at the business side can briefly scan through the information before answering the call. This information is important in dealing better with the user and helps the agent offer a customised service to their clients.
In South Africa, and indeed in other parts of the world, such systems already exist. However, more often than not, these are in-house systems that are installed at call centres or restaurants that serve the interests of that business only. What IntelliDesk offers is a general purpose interface to user profiles that can be utilised by several businesses so that the user does not need to create a 'presence' at each conceivable call centre or restaurant, but one set of information can be shared across many businesses and the power is in the hand of the user who dictates who can access and who cannot access their information.
The System
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| Poster depicting IntelliDesk architecture for the national competition |
Photos of national trials
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| The venue for the national competition taken from the taxi (Moses Mabidha stadium, one of the World Cup stadiums) |
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| The IntelliDesk setup: Asterisk interface on laptop, two wifi phones, a wifi AP and an analogue phone connected to the Asterisk server (behind the white box) with a Digum card installed |
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| I was basically the eye-candy for our demo stall |
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| Fred and Z showing someone how the system works |
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| Fred (right) showing the Director General of Science and Technology (left) and the chairperson of the Technology Innovation Agency (middle) how the system works |
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| Our consolation prize for not winning the competition |
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Mobicents Based IM Service with outsourced Billing Using Ericsson Charging SDK
Abstract - Mobicents is a Java based platform that implements the JAIN SLEE standard that delivers a wide range of multimedia services for various application domains. It is an umbrella name for a set of enablers that includes presence, media services, sip servlets and diameter, besides a JAIN SLEE server which provides the application execution environment. The power of the platform comes from its focus on enablers that can then be utilised to develop complex services. This is enhanced by its emphasis on open standards such as those that are being standardised by bodies such as the IETF, 3GPP, ETSI TISPAN and ITU. In this example, the Mobicents SIP function will be used along with a diameter stack to implement a relatively simple billing system for billing SIP based instant messages. Mobicents will be used here as a diameter client which communicates with a diameter server in the form of the Ericsson diameter emulator.
Step 2: Using one SIP client, we send a SIP instant message (MESSAGE) to the second SIP client, indicating the caller's URI
Step 3: The SIP MESSAGE is intercepted by the root SBB as configured. The root SBB extracts the callee's SIP URI from the FromHeader in the SIP message and sends a Diameter Accounting Request (ACR) to the Diameter server, inducating the user's MISDN and the service details which will be matched against a tarriff database on the Diameter server.
Step 4: The Diameter server receives the ACA and examines the request. If all is well, the server will respond with an Accounting Answer (ACA) with a 2001 response code (DIAMETER_SUCCESS) to the root SBB. Otherwise, the server may send an error message or a negative 4241 response code (INSUFFICIENT_BALANCE).
Step 5: At the root SBB, the Diameter response is examined. If the result is positive, the root SBB attaches the SIP proxy so that the message can be sent to the callee. If a negative response is received, a SIP message is routed back to the caller indicating the nature of the error.
Mobicents, as a heterogeneous services platform, allows developers to build services based on technology enablers that can be deployed independently or in concert with each other to provide complex services. The emphasis on open source and open standards allows for ease of use and interoperability with other implementations, which makes it easy to tie into existing solutions a customer may already have. The example described here is not complex, but shows what can be done when enablers are pooled together to build intersting services.
Design
SIP Portion
JAIN SLEE is an event based architecture that allows for service development to be based on an hierarchical and priority based model that defines a root service building block (SBB) which is linked to one or more child nodes (child SBBs). When a root SBB registers for certain events, such as SIP events, the SLEE event router delivers those events, either those from external resources such as SIP softphone running on s user's computer, or those that are generated by itself, to that root SBB. The root SBB can then dispatch that event or a new event to one of its children for further processing. The hierarchical design of the SIP based portion of the service is illustrated below:
Figure 1. Service Design showing root node and children
Diameter Portion
The diameter support in Mobicents is composed of a Diameter stack, a mulitplexer and message validator. The stack is the most important aspect of the diameter infrastructure as the stack provides the mechanisms necessary for message sending and receiving, peer management and session management. The multiplexer allows multiple applications to share a single diameter instance. Lastly, the message validator validates the messages that are sent or received to ensure that they are formatted appropriately. The Mobicents Diameter environment is summarised in the figure below:
Figure 2. Mobicents Diameter environment. Source: [1]
Ericsson Diameter Emulator
The third piece of the puzzle consists of the Ericsson emulator which is a java based implemenation of the diameter protocol. The emulator is designed to behave in a similar manner to Ericsson's PPS 3.6 system which is a prepaid commercial system developed by Ericsson. Any system which interacts with the emulator properly is guaranteed to work with the commercial version. Ericsson also released an SDK which exposes an API for programmers to use in order to develop Diameter clients or servers of their own quickly.Outline of the system
With our root SBB and children it is possible to locate user's locations and use the SIP proxy to send messages to SIP endpoints. The Diameter function can be used to implement a Diameter client for sending Accounting requests and receiving accouting answers. The figure below gives an outline of the desired system:
Figure 3. Outline of the system showing main entities.
The system in action
Step 1: We register two SIP clients to the Mobicents SIP Registrar.Step 2: Using one SIP client, we send a SIP instant message (MESSAGE) to the second SIP client, indicating the caller's URI
Step 3: The SIP MESSAGE is intercepted by the root SBB as configured. The root SBB extracts the callee's SIP URI from the FromHeader in the SIP message and sends a Diameter Accounting Request (ACR) to the Diameter server, inducating the user's MISDN and the service details which will be matched against a tarriff database on the Diameter server.
Step 4: The Diameter server receives the ACA and examines the request. If all is well, the server will respond with an Accounting Answer (ACA) with a 2001 response code (DIAMETER_SUCCESS) to the root SBB. Otherwise, the server may send an error message or a negative 4241 response code (INSUFFICIENT_BALANCE).
Step 5: At the root SBB, the Diameter response is examined. If the result is positive, the root SBB attaches the SIP proxy so that the message can be sent to the callee. If a negative response is received, a SIP message is routed back to the caller indicating the nature of the error.
Conclusion
Mobicents, as a heterogeneous services platform, allows developers to build services based on technology enablers that can be deployed independently or in concert with each other to provide complex services. The emphasis on open source and open standards allows for ease of use and interoperability with other implementations, which makes it easy to tie into existing solutions a customer may already have. The example described here is not complex, but shows what can be done when enablers are pooled together to build intersting services.
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