Covergence Web Services

Solution Summary

Until now, integrating communications and business processes has been a challenge. Most enterprises treat voice services differently than IT services and operate their corporate telephone systems and IT systems independently. And most incumbent business phone systems offer only complex computer telephony integration (CTI) interfaces such as JTAPI (Java Telephony API) that make it difficult, time-consuming and costly to integrate voice communications into external software applications or business processes.

Covergence Web Services (CWS) software allows enterprises to easily incorporate real-time communications into their IT infrastructure and business applications. Deployed on an enterprise Web application server, CWS communicates with Covergence session management solutions using Web services interfaces. CWS provides a simple-to-use, high-level API that allows developers to control media and signaling sessions, without delving into the details of telephony protocols or the specifics of individual PBX vendor implementations. A single development effort yields support for multiple PBX platforms.

Solution Overview

Covergence Web Services (CWS) allows enterprises to deliver real-time communications capabilities as part of a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) permitting voice and other interactive communications services to be easily integrated with IT applications. Unlike conventional CTI interfaces, CWS provides a Web services API featuring an abstraction layer that shields software developers from a PBX’s underlying complexities and nuances, enabling IT staff members unfamiliar with telephony to efficiently add real-time communications to software applications. Acting as a protocol adapter, CWS translates generic call control commands into JTAPI or other proprietary CTI protocols supported by leading PBX vendors. CWS enables enterprises to deliver Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) by weaving voice, video, presence, instant-messaging and other real-time communications services directly into business applications.

Businesses use CWS to add real-time communications to Web sites, internally-developed applications or off-the-shelf software such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programs.