Distributed media control tor multimedia communications services

Previous work in distributed feature composition architecture has shown that a modular, compositional architecture of feature logic can lead to successful management of feature interaction. It can also promote rapid deployment of new services and third party innovation in a communication network. ECLIPSE is an implementation of DFC that focuses on voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia over IP. In ECLIPSE, the signaling messages traverse units of feature logic (feature boxes), but by necessity the media data have to take a separate and more direct path. This paper describes a scheme in which the feature boxes can cooperatively control the flow of media in an optimal path, while still maintaining the benefits of the DFC architecture. This scheme supports any desired media connectivity, and is independent of VoIP protocols (e.g. SIP and H.323), or the underlying media switch fabric implementation. This result is also applicable to other component architectures for communications. Comparison is made with other schemes proposed in the literature.