JP2003507950A - System and method for supporting multi-vendor telephony hardware on a computer platform - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) Abstract: A system and method for supporting a variety of vendor telephony hardware (telephones) on a computer platform. By supporting a variety of vendors, many network interfaces from PSTN to packet-based voice can be integrated. In the present invention, a client server model (PC, telephone server) in which a client application uses an aggregate composed of a plurality of hardware resources is defined.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates generally to computer networks and telephone systems, and more particularly to
A system and method for managing resources from multiple vendors within a single computer platform. The present invention includes connectivity to PBX, PSTN and packet based voice networks. The present invention relates more than to a hardware interface to said network element, and in particular, the present invention relates to a system and method for integrated hardware accessible to many types of networks.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Historically, completely separate computer platforms have been used to connect PSTN, PBX and packet-based voice networks to each other. Each platform has specific knowledge about one type of voice network,
Connected to each other using analog telephone lines.

Over a century ago, analog telephone networks were developed to carry analog voice signals. As commerce grew, so did the need for private telephone networks, which required each telephone company to make a PBX, which is a small version of the telephone company's large central office switchboard.

A feature of the conventional key system, PBX and hybrid telephone system is that the telephone line is a shared resource. However, traditional switchboard manufacturers have created proprietary platforms that allow third parties to use PBXs.
It will be necessary to integrate new technologies (packet-based voice, etc.) via separate analog telephone ports. This resulted in incompatibility between platforms,
Can cause system delays and problems.

Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that eliminates the need for switchboard integration that creates this system inefficiency. In particular, there is a need to make all switched connections within computer networks using a variety of vendors and networks, thereby eliminating the need for integration with external switching platforms.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION To address the above-mentioned deficiencies of the prior art, the present invention provides an effective way of building computer telephony applications on an open computer architecture. The invention further provides that applications use objects to monitor and control telephony hardware resources, extract call processing hardware and execution details of fabrics, and make telephony applications vendor-dependent. Define a client-server model that can be built without.

To achieve the above key objectives, the present invention provides a system and method for supporting multi-vendor telephony hardware on standard computer platforms. This is accomplished by running software modules that run within computer platforms that use a variety of vendors and networks, in order to eliminate the need for integration with external switching platforms. Generally, the system is composed of two main components, a client module and a server module.

The server module has a server architecture with a hardware extraction layer assigned and controlled by a resource manager. The resource manager utilizes the device factory to determine the available hardware extraction resources.

Clients connect to the resource manager for the purpose of monitoring and initiating calls. The client module can include various elements, but preferably has an architecture that is simply composed of application sessions connected to the resource manager.

Incoming calls will be processed according to an executable application that is installed and registered as the component that sets up the session and takes control of the call through the protocol between the application and the server.

Accordingly, the system and method of the present invention extracts hardware and switching mechanisms from a client application. This system has:

(1) Hardware Extraction Layer, which forms a common interface that the resource manager can address to hardware without vendor knowledge. This hardware extraction layer also performs vendor specific functions based on the equipment used within the computer platform. This hardware extraction layer includes, but is not limited to: -telephone line-telephone main line-telephone extensions-multimedia resources that can record and play voice streams-fax resources-voice over IP stack.

(2) There is a device factory for each hardware extraction layer, which uses the resources to determine which hardware extraction components are available on the system and must be initialized. Used by manager.

(3) The resource manager describes and manages the relationships between the various hardware extraction components of the server. The resource manager also provides an external call control interface to the application.

(4) A telephony network module that enables the resource manager to perform call control functions on resources without knowledge of the type of telephony network to which the system is connected. It is a layer.

(5) Application sessions create interactions with the resource manager as a mechanism by which applications can perform active operations on resources within the system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS For a more complete understanding of the present invention and its advantages, reference is made to the following description with reference to the accompanying drawings. Referring first to FIG. 1, there is illustrated a computer network that creates an environment in which the present invention may operate. This network includes a client PC or client laptop PC, such as that manufactured by Dell Computer Corporation of Austin, Texas (US), connected to a computer network, along with Brampto, Ontario (Canada).
n) Nortel Networks Cor
illustrated by the Venture ^™ telephone set manufactured by P. Corporation. It is also possible to connect other phones to the PC to send voice over the computer network. The definition of voice transmission over a computer network may be in any format known in the voice transmission art. However, the present invention aims to seamlessly integrate calls from PSTN or packet-based voice.

The PC and laptop computers are connected to a computer network and the Internet to provide the graphic user interface with the ability to hold and park screening meetings, transfers, and telephone calls. Except for the situation where the phone is directly connected to the PC, voice traffic is occurring over the PSTN or internal phone system.

A telephony communication server, such as that manufactured by Dell Computer, Inc. of Austin, Texas (USA), is connected to the telephone and is further connected to a computer network. The telephone is used to send voice and the computer network is used to send control commands between the PC and the server.

FIG. 2 illustrates the major software components needed in the present invention. The application session and event session describe the major components of the client within the client-server architecture. The application session uses a distributed component architecture that connects servers using remote procedure calls over a TCP / IP connection. This application session sends an asynchronous request to the server component to control the behavior of the telephone call. The event server, which opens the TCP / IP port to the server and listens to the TCP / IP broadcast, asynchronously notifies the client of the state change in the connection exchange. The resource manager is a server component that reads a list of registered device factories and instantiates those devices. This resource manager is the main module through which client event sessions are connected to be notified of state changes in the resource for connection exchanges. The telephony network is a server component configured to hold knowledge about the type of PSTN to which the server is connected. This telecommunications network also includes call placement, which is required for each type of PSTN network,
It is also responsible for performing all the steps necessary to complete transfers, meetings, and calls.
For example, the server can be connected to a Centrex switched connection, but this requires that a flash hook be executed for call forwarding. The device factory is a server-side component that creates a specific hardware extraction component for each individual vendor supported by the server. This device factory initializes the board and the supported resources (ie fax, record and playback).
, And all information for building the hardware extraction layer, which is the server-side component that holds all the dedicated software that controls each vendor's board. Each board manufacturer uses a proprietary protocol for initializing their hardware. The hardware extraction layer has a common interface used by the application session to control the hardware. This hardware extraction layer takes commands from the application session and translates them into vendor specific protocol calls to complete its task.

The application session connects to the resource manager for the purpose of manipulating and controlling calls. However, the event session connects to the resource manager simply for the purpose of receiving events related to state changes within the switched connection platform.

The resource manager and telephony network cooperate to provide a telephony application client with a software extraction layer. Together, the device factory and the hardware extraction layer provide a common interface for resource managers, which separates them from the complexity of different types of telephony hardware. .

FIG. 3 illustrates the standard computer platform upon which the present invention is based. This figure shows a PRI board supplied by various vendors and installed in a single computer (such as that manufactured by Dialogic, Inc., Parsippany, NJ, USA) and an expansion board ((USA ) Pasippany, NJ (P
Arsippany, Inc.) and fax board (Pasippany, NJ, USA).
rsippany), such as those manufactured by the Dialogic Company). Voice Bus ((US) Pasippany, NJ (
Parsippany) (such as that manufactured by the Dialogic Company) is used to connect multiple boards together and to carry voice traffic between telephony boards.

A voice bus is a computer independent bus that controls a card that allows voice and signal information to be transmitted between different voice processing components.
Configuring voice buses in this way as features such as fax integration, voice recognition, text-to-speech conversion (often performed by add-in boards connected through the voice bus) become more common. Are increasingly needed. Although it is possible to implement the voice bus option according to these needs, in the preferred embodiment they are the PCM expansion bus (
PEB), multi-vendor integration protocol (MVIP) and SC bus.

Next, as an example, an incoming call operated on the above hardware will be described. Each application undergoes the same basic setup, call processing, and shutdown steps. First, the executable application is installed and registered as a component. The application first sets up the session by requesting an instance of the resource manager from the system. The system also registers the relevance within the event by creating the event sync, which is used by the resource manager for callbacks. At this point, the application is ready to receive a call. Second, the application takes control of the call through a command / response protocol between the client application and the server.
The API function calls server work to the server, and the server asynchronously responds with the result.

The present invention is predicated on a dedicated computer software platform. This platform is connected to each other via another voice bus, (
US) Dial, Parsippany, NJ
It consists of a "standard" computer telephony switchboard such as the one manufactured by Ogic. Standard computer platforms such as those manufactured by Dell Computer, Inc. of Austin, Texas (US) can be used.

One typical standard for computer telephony switching connections between multiple boards within one platform is called MVIP. The MVIP bus can be implemented using various configurations known in the art, but is preferably Parsippany, NJ (US).
Manufactured by Analog Devices, Inc.), consisting of eight 2 megabyte serial highways and clock signals sent from one card to another via a ribbon cable. Each of these highways is correspondingly divided into 32 channels on the MVIP bus for a full-duplex voice channel of total throughput 256.

With such a configuration, the telephone communication hardware and the MVIP bus are externally exchanged by providing a hardware platform capable of digitally switching and connecting calls with a non-blocking switch matrix in the telephone communication hardware bus. Lost connection.

As described above, the characteristic configurations and technical advantages of the present invention have been broadly outlined so that the detailed description of the present invention can be better understood. Further features and advantages of the invention, which are the subject of the claims of the invention, are also described below. It should be noted that those skilled in the art can easily understand that the concept and the specific embodiments disclosed herein can be easily used as a basis for modifying or constructing another structure for achieving the same object of the present invention. You will understand. Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a computer network and telephone system forming an environment in which the present invention can operate.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating how client and server components interact to achieve the key objectives.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a component platform with dedicated telephony hardware installed.

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Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A computer-based device for managing multi-vendor telecommunications resources within a computer platform, comprising telecommunications interconnected to a telecommunications network for local and telecommunications client access. A server, a software extraction layer resident in said server for connection with a telephone communication client, a computer platform comprising at least one voice bus and a plurality of telephone communication boards, and for extracting said computer platform Software extraction layer. 2. A computer-based method for managing multi-vendor telephony resources, the method being extant on a computer platform for determining the type of hardware extraction layer present on the computer platform, comprising the steps of: Initializing a device factory for each type of hardware that has: creating a request from an application session, controlling a computer platform based on the request from the application session, to a telephony client, the computer platform; Set up a client event session with the telephony manager to set up notifications that reflect state changes, from the telephony client through the hardware extraction layer. The computer platform is controlled in response to a request from the telephone communication manager.