WSIP - Web service SIP endpoint for converged multimedia/multimodal communication over IP

We present an approach for converged communication services over IP, based on the concept of WSIP (Web service SIP). In our approach, each WSIP node is both a SIP endpoint that communicates in the SIP world through SIP signaling, and a Web service SOAP node that provides a native and generic service integration environment for binding SIP based communication in Web services. The unification of SIP with Web service provides a new converged communication paradigm. It allows dynamic service discovery and binding that integrate SIP as a component in the business transaction. The clear separation of service integration environment and SIP signaling in our approach maintains the simplicity and efficiency of the existing SIP protocol, while leverages the power of both methods in IP based communication services. The ubiquitous service integration nature of Web service provides a disciplined solution to maintain and update large number of SIP endpoints from different installation bases. It enables dynamic monitoring, repairing, and updating SIP UA endpoints, which is essential to the success of VoIP using SIP. The proposed approach was implemented in a prototype research system, and several advantages of WSIP over the existing approaches are observed.