OpenSOA SDK - Deep Dive
The Wiki of Unify contains information on clients and devices, communications systems and unified communications. - Unify GmbH & Co. KG is a Trademark Licensee of Siemens AG.
What is SOA?
Service Oriented Architecture is a principle that allows loosely coupled systems to communicate via standard web technologies. The main unit in SOA is the Service - This is an object that encapsulates an area of functionality. These services expose there functionality via a well defined interface (usually via a WSDL file). Consumers of this service use this interface definition and a standard communications protocol (usually SOAP-XML) to invoke the required functionality. SOA's goal is to allow the building of functionality rich and powerful applications, promoting interoperability, reuse with a low integration overhead.
What is OpenSOA?
The OpenScape UC Application consists of a number of distinct SOA services each encapsulating a UC feature area (such as presence, contact management, etc). These services are hosted within the Unify OpenSOA framework. OpenSOA uses Web Service technology to realize the principles of the SOA architecture.
Each service in the OpenSOA framework has its own defined interface and is accessible from any programming language via SOAP/XML. This collection of OpenSOA service interfaces forms the OpenSOA SDK. An important point to make here is that the SDK allows direct access to ALL the OpenSOA services - the SDK is not a watered down offering, we allow you to have access to same OpenSOA service as we do when building our own clients. This allows you to build powerful and feature rich integrations by combing and blending the functionality of the wide range of services offered.
What services are offered?
Below is an Overview of what services are offered with high level decriptions: (Low level descriptions and API documentation of every service and method is also available)
Clients - Brandable and extensible set of standard clients with portlet technology and a general client framework for harmonized applications
Rules, Workflow - Personal dynamic workflow with a multitude of inputs including a rules engine
Conferencing - Conference planning, control and browsing
User Notification & Prompting - Services used for different kind of notification mechanisms e.g. notification for Tell-Me-When conditions
Basic Communication - Communication related services: real time, near real time and non real time including call controls, collaboration, media presence
Identity and Access Management - Access Management & Security, Domain Management, user and contact management
Business Systems Integration - Groupware connectors for contact, calendar and mail folder integration. Integration into Groupware clients. Business Application Integration for IBM, SAP, Microsoft
Presence - The presence service provides user and media presence status and integration with the presence state of IBM Lotus Sametime or MS OCS 2007
Media Services - Voice Portal application framework, Media Mixing, Voice Messaging/Recording, Tones & Announcements
Core Framework - SOA Infrastructure, Container Runtime, Communication Framework, Installation, Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Engineering Tools
Administration & Monitoring - Diagnostics and System Analyses, System Operation & Maintenance; Common Management Portal. License Management
For each OpenSOA service a WSDL file is provided.
Due to the complexities and ‘stateful’ nature of call modeling as well as the WSDL file we also provide a com library (the BCOM API) to allow access to our Call control (BCOM) service.
Getting Started
Te OpenSOA SDK has a wide range tools, documentation and training to help you get started as an OpenSOA developer. We offer both on-site and cloud hosted development environments. In order to support you every step of the way we will soon be announcing the availability of the OpenDeveloper Program - watch this space!