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Appendix A
Glossary
- ADI Service CT Access service that provides all AG device-level functionality. The ADI service is supported by Natural MicroSystems' AG boards. Functions are provided for establishing and maintaining network connections, determining call status, playing and recording voice messages, and generating and detecting DTMF and other tones.
- AG Natural MicroSystems' Alliance Generation product line of telephony and voice processing hardware and software, including highly integrated hardware modules.
- AG configuration file Text file that provides configuration information for all AG boards in your system, including runtime software such as DSP files and TCPs to download to the AG board(s). agmon uses the AG configuration file to initialize the AG board driver and configure your boards. See also agmon, DSP file, TCP.
- AG driver Hardware device driver the device driver on the host computer that provides the interface to the AG board(s).
- API Application Programming Interface; a library of function calls that allow an application developer to access functionality in a uniform and consistent way.
- asynchronous Refers to circuitry and operations without a common timing or clock signal.
- asynchronous programming
Enables concurrent processing between hardware boards and the host CPU. The application initiates telephony functions on the AG board and continues its own processing instead of waiting for the event from the AG board to arrive. AG Access and CT Access support this model.
- bus A physical system which permits the interchange of data. A telephony bus has three basic elements: lines for the data, bit synchronization (clocks), and frame synchronization (frame strobe). Most telephony buses also have a network reference - an 8 kHz timekeeper. See also MVIP, H.100.
- In the CT Access Switching service (MVIP-95), bus is a field in the terminus structure that specifies the interface point of the switch block. Devices can reside directly on the MVIP bus. Devices can also reside on a board's local bus and may require a switch block to access the MVIP bus.
- clock A timing reference signal, e.g., on a telephony bus.
- connection (MVIP) Connects an input terminus to an output terminus. The input and output terminuses can have the same or different busses and streams.
- connection A connection point in the Point-to-Point Switching service which can have only one talker, but multiple listeners, attached. See also talker, listener.
- connection handle Handle returned when a switch connection is successfully opened in the Point-to-Point Switching service.
- CT Access Natural MicroSystems' development environment for telephony applications.
- CTA context Organizes services and accompanying resources around a single processing context. Usually represents an application instance controlling a single telephone call. Some contexts are not associated with a call; an application performing voice conversions does not require a telephone line.
- ctahd The handle returned by ctaCreateContext.
- ctaqueuehd A handle managed by CT Access to access events from one or a group of CTA context handles.
- Digital Signal Processor
See DSP.
- DLL Dynamic Link Library; a library of software object modules that can be loaded and accessed on demand.
- DONE event An event which signifies the completion of an asynchronous function.
- DSi0..7, DSo0..7 MVIP-90 nomenclature for the individual unidirectional bit streams on the MVIP bus. By convention, they are paired up (DSiX, DSoX) to form eight full duplex MVIP streams. DSi0-7 are designated for input to resource boards and DSo0-7 are designated for output from resource boards.
- DSP Digital Signal Processor; a microprocessor that is designed to perform the calculations required for voice processing.
- event queue The single queue created by calling ctaCreateQueue where the application receives all of its events. CT Access provides functions to wait for and retrieve events from the queue. NMS software is event-driven. The events coming from an AG board are placed in an event queue.
- events Data structures that contain notification of certain conditions or state changes sent from the hardware or service to the application program. All events are represented as C data structures. The structure informs the application what event occurred and provides additional information specific to the event. An indication that playing a message is done is a typical event. See also DONE event.
- FMIC A Flexible MVIP Interface Circuit, which provides a digital timeslot switch and an MVIP bus interface.
- duplex Simultaneous two-way voice and two-way signal data transmission. See also simplex.
- H.100 bus A PCM digital bus standard for integrating various board vendors. Allows boards to share data, and signaling and switching information. It is an interoperable superset of the H-MVIP and MVIP-90 telephony buses.
- HMIC H.100/MVIP Integrated Circuit. The HMIC is a single chip that offers full support for the H.100 bus within the MVIP architecture, providing access to all 4096 timeslots on the H.100 bus.
- listener(s) The timeslot(s) that is receiving input from a connection in the Point-to-Point switching service. See also talker.
- MC1 board MC1 (MVIP Multi Chassis); similar to single-chassis MVIP but operates over SCSI-3 cable of up to 15 meters. An MC1 system can contain up to 15 nodes; each node has an MC1 interface. The MC1 board in each chassis switches data between the MVIP-90 bus and the MC1 bus.; provides ability to share data between multiple PC chassis over an MC1 bus cable. Connections between boards in different PCs are made by making switch connections to the MC1 bus.
- MC1 bus SCSI-3 cable of up to 15 meters used to connect MC1 boards in separate PC chassis so that an application can switch data between resources located in different host chassis.
- MVIP Multi-Vendor Integration Protocol; PCM digital bus standard for integrating various board vendors. Facilitates software-controlled digital switching within the PC chassis. MVIP interconnects switching and telephony processing boards on a PC. An interoperable subset of the H.100 bus standard.
- MVIP bus A high-speed, multiplexed digital telephony "highway" which allows boards to share data, signaling information, and switching information.
- MVIP Bus Adapter Adapter which connects the MVIP-90 bus to an H.100 board.
- MVIP Switch Model An abstract representation of the most general switching capabilities that can be located on one network interface device. However, a particular network interface device need not implement all of the switching capabilities of the switch model.
- nail up To make a permanent, dedicated assignment, as in nailing up a connection. Typically, a nailed up connection cannot be dynamically modified during an application's runtime, but can be changed by re-initializing the hardware and/or the application.
- NMS Natural MicroSystems Corporation.
- pattern An 8 bit sample that is sent out of an output terminus or into an input terminus of a switch block.
- Point-to-Point Switching service
CT Access service providing an API for making switch connections between boards without specifying intervening timeslots.
- port An external connection between the MVIP bus and anything else, such as telephone trunks, human operators, voice processors, or fax terminals.
- PPX configuration file File that specifies the switch configuration for a system used by the Point-to-Point Switching service.
- PPX server ppxserv; the Point-to-Point Switching service server process. It maintains an internal connection database to monitor timeslot availability and timeslot assignments on the system's telephony bus. It is used by each instance of the Point-to-Point Switching service (each instance is PPX client).
- service managers Embodied by dynamic link libraries (DLLs) in Windows NT and by shared libraries in UNIX which are linked to the application. Service managers implement services, execute within the CT Access environment, and adhere to CT Access standards.
- services In CT Access, a group of logically related telephony functions. A service may be implemented on multiple hardware boards. No matter what hardware is providing the functionality, all services with the same functionality have a standard API. This allows device independent programming.
- simplex A circuit which carries information in only one direction.
- stream A grouping of timeslots that usually corresponds to a particular bit-stream of time-domain multiplexed (TDM) serial data on an individual track or wire of a bus.
- switch In telephony, a device that can connect one of several inputs to one of several outputs. Switches can range in size from an integrated circuit to an entire build-ing.
- switch fabric Specifies the topology of a system of boards connected by telephony busses. Used by the Point-to-Point Switching service.
- switching In computer telephony, making connections between telephony boards within a PC chassis both during and between phone calls. Enables an application to share resources and data across different telephony boards.
- Switching service A CT Access service that provides a set of functions for controlling Multi-Vendor Integration Protocol (MVIP) switch blocks on MVIP compliant switching devices. This service is based on the MVIP-95 device driver standard. It may be used to access MVIP-95 and MVIP-90 device drivers.
- synchronous function A function that does not return until its operation is complete.
- T1 A standard for telephone transmission that multiplexes 24 digital voice channels on a single 1.544 Mbps carrier.
- talker The timeslot that drives the output on a connection in the Point-to-Point Switching service. See also listener.
- terminus In the CT Access Switching service, a single access point to a switch block input or switch block output. A terminus contains a bus, a stream, and a timeslot.
- timeslot Specifies a particular 64 kbit/s subdivision of a TDM bus stream. Timeslots number from zero (0) to n where n is stream dependent.
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