Version 1.1.1 of OpenSER has been released. It is an update of version 1.1.0 and includes the fixes for the issues discovered in version 1.1.0, therefore all people using 1.1.0 should upgrade to this new version.
For people using sms, permissions, postgres, unixodbc, osp, it is highly recommended to move to this release, in the case no CVS updates were done after v1.1.0 (if you installed and maintain OpenSER from CVS, then you have to use branch rel_1_1_0, as it was for v1.1.0). The compatibility of the configuration file and database has been preserved (you do not need to do database reinstallation).
Some details about v1.1.1 can be found here
Detailed changelog:
http://www.openser.org/pub/openser/1.1.1/ChangeLog
Sources can be downloaded from:
http://openser.org/pub/openser/1.1.1/
The documentation for modules is posted at:
http://openser.org/docs/modules/1.1.x/
If someone wants to contribute with packages for different distros, please send the link from where can be downloaded to team@openser.org.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
OpenSER - Summary of 2007
2007 was a year full of achievements and events for OpenSER. We had a major release in summer (1.1.0), and a continuous increase in features set and robustness. What was new in 1.1.0 was summarized in release news:
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=68
Since then we went though many milestones. We had the first OpenSER summit where we were able to meet many folks from the lists, have nice chats and present interesting VoIP solutions based on OpenSER.
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=71
A very important statistic is the number of new modules and features introduced in current development version after 1.1.0:
- domainpolicy - policies to connect federations
- imc - instant messaging conferencing
- mi_fifo and mi_xmlrpc - FIFO and XMLRPC transports for the new management interface (MI)
- perl - embed perl programming in configuration file
- presence - SIMPLE Presence Server implementation
- pua, pua_mi, pua_usrloc - presence user agent client implementations for user location records and management interface
- seas - connector to SIP Application Server - WeSIP - Java SIP Servlet Application Server (http://www.wesip.eu)
- snmpstats - SNMP (Simple Network Management Interface) interface to OpenSER statistics
- sst - SIP session timer support
- xmpp - transparent SIP-XMPP gateway
Documentation and news about all these:
http://www.openser.org/docs/modules/1.2.x/
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=2&Itemid=9
A lot of other significant improvements and addons were included in existing code (management interface, fetch database support, postgres, usrloc, dialog, enum, acc modules polishing), openser web administrator was developed. There is not very long time to the next release, along with few pending new features, the next period will be allocated to core components like timers, dns and configuration file flexibility. By end of January we should approach a new testing phase.
This year the OpenSER community collaboration exploded, dokuwiki has lot of content, many tutorials were submitted, new developers and many modules sponsored by companies, mailing lists and web forum are places to get reliable information about OpenSER...
We want to thank to all of you (developers, contributors with patches, tools and documentation, testers and OpenSER users) for supporting the project. 2006 was a very good year for OpenSER and 2007 looks very challenging.
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=68
Since then we went though many milestones. We had the first OpenSER summit where we were able to meet many folks from the lists, have nice chats and present interesting VoIP solutions based on OpenSER.
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=71
A very important statistic is the number of new modules and features introduced in current development version after 1.1.0:
- domainpolicy - policies to connect federations
- imc - instant messaging conferencing
- mi_fifo and mi_xmlrpc - FIFO and XMLRPC transports for the new management interface (MI)
- perl - embed perl programming in configuration file
- presence - SIMPLE Presence Server implementation
- pua, pua_mi, pua_usrloc - presence user agent client implementations for user location records and management interface
- seas - connector to SIP Application Server - WeSIP - Java SIP Servlet Application Server (http://www.wesip.eu)
- snmpstats - SNMP (Simple Network Management Interface) interface to OpenSER statistics
- sst - SIP session timer support
- xmpp - transparent SIP-XMPP gateway
Documentation and news about all these:
http://www.openser.org/docs/modules/1.2.x/
http://www.openser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=2&Itemid=9
A lot of other significant improvements and addons were included in existing code (management interface, fetch database support, postgres, usrloc, dialog, enum, acc modules polishing), openser web administrator was developed. There is not very long time to the next release, along with few pending new features, the next period will be allocated to core components like timers, dns and configuration file flexibility. By end of January we should approach a new testing phase.
This year the OpenSER community collaboration exploded, dokuwiki has lot of content, many tutorials were submitted, new developers and many modules sponsored by companies, mailing lists and web forum are places to get reliable information about OpenSER...
We want to thank to all of you (developers, contributors with patches, tools and documentation, testers and OpenSER users) for supporting the project. 2006 was a very good year for OpenSER and 2007 looks very challenging.
OpenSER vs SER performances
Following lot of questions and comments related to the results published by Iptelorg guys related to openser vs ser performances on their site, I will give some clarifications.
First, the tests were done only by Iptelorg guys. They didn't ask anybody of openser development team if could help them to make accurate tests and make sure that openser and ser have same internal parameters. For people familiar with these SIP servers, it is well known that the applications uses internal hash tables, different number of processes, memory sizes, and so on -- this parameters can influence a lot if they have different values.
Because they continued saying tests are fair and reflect reality, we had to investigate and debug ser which ended in something pretty much expected -- they did performance improvement, but the processing was totally wrong - we reported the bug, and more or less it was admitted that it was the source of the performance improvement in ser stable version (although some from Iptelorg tried to say the results of the bug were not critical -- but was a bug). Follow the thread on mailing list for more details:
http://openser.org/pipermail/users/2006-November/007841.html
Removing that bug, ser gets back more or less to same performances.
OpenSER will do performance measurements in the testing period for version 1.2.0. But it will be only for openser, as we won't try to claim we know ser that well to be sure that any eventual comparison is fair.
In open source it is expected to have friendly relationship with similar projects, not unsustainable accuses and unfair approaches and comments about the others.
First, the tests were done only by Iptelorg guys. They didn't ask anybody of openser development team if could help them to make accurate tests and make sure that openser and ser have same internal parameters. For people familiar with these SIP servers, it is well known that the applications uses internal hash tables, different number of processes, memory sizes, and so on -- this parameters can influence a lot if they have different values.
Because they continued saying tests are fair and reflect reality, we had to investigate and debug ser which ended in something pretty much expected -- they did performance improvement, but the processing was totally wrong - we reported the bug, and more or less it was admitted that it was the source of the performance improvement in ser stable version (although some from Iptelorg tried to say the results of the bug were not critical -- but was a bug). Follow the thread on mailing list for more details:
http://openser.org/pipermail/users/2006-November/007841.html
Removing that bug, ser gets back more or less to same performances.
OpenSER will do performance measurements in the testing period for version 1.2.0. But it will be only for openser, as we won't try to claim we know ser that well to be sure that any eventual comparison is fair.
In open source it is expected to have friendly relationship with similar projects, not unsustainable accuses and unfair approaches and comments about the others.
OpenSER Summit 2006 - Closing notes
Last posts on this blog are short reviews of the presentations held at OpenSER Summit 2006. It was an opening session on the afternoon of 7th November, continued by a full day on the 8th. Totally were 17 speeches, sustained by breaks for face-to-face talks with developers, executives and community members.
We look forward to next OpenSER event, the place was not decided yet, is very likely to happen in Europe or North America. When settled, news will be published on this blog, OpenSER mailing lists and website.
You can get all slides and view pictures with attendants of OpenSER Summit 2006 from:
http://www.openser.org/events/2006-OpenSER-Summit/slides/
http://www.openser.org/events/2006-OpenSER-Summit/photos/
We look forward to next OpenSER event, the place was not decided yet, is very likely to happen in Europe or North America. When settled, news will be published on this blog, OpenSER mailing lists and website.
You can get all slides and view pictures with attendants of OpenSER Summit 2006 from:
http://www.openser.org/events/2006-OpenSER-Summit/slides/
http://www.openser.org/events/2006-OpenSER-Summit/photos/
OpenSER Summit 2006 - Asterisk
We had the chance of a good talk held by Olle E. Johansson, Edvina, the father of SIP channel in Asterisk. He provided a good overview of how OpenSER and Asterisk can be used together to provide feature rich VoIP service. Furthermore, he talked about Asterisk 1.4 and future plans for SIP.
Aside this a good remark was lack of good collaboration between major players in Open Source telephony. We all have to work on this, to collaborate to build an Open Telephony Platform. There will be no application that will achieve that alone. We should gather our knowledge and forces to make it possible.
I end with same topic as he did. Lot of people try to promote security as a big hole in VoIP versus PSTN. Next image from the slides is very much relevant (:-) in this respect: pstn-security.jpg.
Download slides of Asterisk Presentation
Aside this a good remark was lack of good collaboration between major players in Open Source telephony. We all have to work on this, to collaborate to build an Open Telephony Platform. There will be no application that will achieve that alone. We should gather our knowledge and forces to make it possible.
I end with same topic as he did. Lot of people try to promote security as a big hole in VoIP versus PSTN. Next image from the slides is very much relevant (:-) in this respect: pstn-security.jpg.
Download slides of Asterisk Presentation
Sunday, January 14, 2007
OpenSER Summit 2006 - The Challenge of Service Diversity
Bogdan-Andrei Iancu, co-founder of OpenSER Project, CEO Voice System, talked about the implications of VoIP diversity. Features base and deployment characteristics have big impact in maintenance and management of the VoIP platform.
The discussion covered four use cases and solutions in VoIP: carrier, hosted services, residential services and billing systems. Each case has its set of special issues that has to be taken care of: scalability, load balancing, dynamic routing, peering, system resources... The conclusions summarized several points that should be considered when designed a complex VoIP system.
Download slides of The Challenge of SIP Diversity
The discussion covered four use cases and solutions in VoIP: carrier, hosted services, residential services and billing systems. Each case has its set of special issues that has to be taken care of: scalability, load balancing, dynamic routing, peering, system resources... The conclusions summarized several points that should be considered when designed a complex VoIP system.
Download slides of The Challenge of SIP Diversity
Saturday, January 13, 2007
OpenSER Summit 2006 - INRIA - SIP.edu Deployment Notes
SIP.edu Working Group aims to interconnect academic institutes all over the world via VoIP/SIP. We had as special guest Phillipe Sultan from INRIA, the National Reasearch Institute of France. He gave a comprehensive overview of their goals and achievements so far.
Most of the components used in SIP.edu deployments are open source. The first step was to make available existing user directory via VoIP. The email address is used as principal VoIP ID. In addition, local PBX extensions are made available on VoIP. So far, major universities and research institutes of US and Europe joined in SIP.edu project: MIT, Yale, Harvard, Columbia University, INRIA, more here ...
Download slides of INRIA- SIP.edu Deployment Notes
Most of the components used in SIP.edu deployments are open source. The first step was to make available existing user directory via VoIP. The email address is used as principal VoIP ID. In addition, local PBX extensions are made available on VoIP. So far, major universities and research institutes of US and Europe joined in SIP.edu project: MIT, Yale, Harvard, Columbia University, INRIA, more here ...
Download slides of INRIA- SIP.edu Deployment Notes
OpenSER Summit 2006 - Development of convergent J2EE applications for OpenSER
A more technical approach of writing VoIP Java applications for OpenSER and WeSIP was given by Elias Baixas of Voztelecom. He went through SIP servlet concept and how its API eases the development of VoIP application without any need of technical details about SIP/VoIP internals.
With about two slides of Java code you can embed in your web application a VoIP click to dial feature. Also, as showed in the slides, WeSIP provides seamless interoperation of SIP and HTTP Servlets. web developers will find lot of similarities that will make VoIP SIP Servlets something easy to do if you have HTTP Servlet knowledge.
Download slides of Development of convergent J2EE applications for OpenSER
With about two slides of Java code you can embed in your web application a VoIP click to dial feature. Also, as showed in the slides, WeSIP provides seamless interoperation of SIP and HTTP Servlets. web developers will find lot of similarities that will make VoIP SIP Servlets something easy to do if you have HTTP Servlet knowledge.
Download slides of Development of convergent J2EE applications for OpenSER
OpenSER Summit 2006 - Managing a Highly Available VoIP System
Andreas Granig of UPC Austria introduced causes for VoIP services downtime and options to solve for them. It is clear that a reliable service cannot resist without high availability. With perfect hardware you will get software failures, with perfect software you will get a hardware crash at a point in time.
Two concept should guide your service as much as possible: simplicity and modularity. Try to keep your deployments as simple as possible for the set of services you want to offer. The maintenance overhead is lowered. Second, try to make the platform as modular as possible -- is very unlikely that all components will fail at the same time -- you will have features downtime, but not service downtime.
Download slides of Managing a Highly Available VoIP System.
Two concept should guide your service as much as possible: simplicity and modularity. Try to keep your deployments as simple as possible for the set of services you want to offer. The maintenance overhead is lowered. Second, try to make the platform as modular as possible -- is very unlikely that all components will fail at the same time -- you will have features downtime, but not service downtime.
Download slides of Managing a Highly Available VoIP System.
Friday, December 22, 2006
OpenSER Summit 2006 - OpenSER IMS
IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) couldn't miss such event. Seen as evil for the freedom of IP world, the way Telcos can restrict mobility, or, actually, to charge for it.
Joachim Fabini of Technical University of Vienna, shared his experiences while implementing a OpenSER-based IMS in CAMPARI project (interesting concept: IMS in a bottle). Along with the architecture and components, very valuable were his conclusions and thought about IMS and future directions of VoIP, where the mobile communication will meet IP world and directions to be approached to ensure success.
A very interesting result of this experiment was that they used OpenSER barely as it is, with no hacking, IMS components being OpenSER instances with different config file. The work was a proof of concept, optimization could be brought by code writing.
Download slides of OpenSER IMS.
Joachim Fabini of Technical University of Vienna, shared his experiences while implementing a OpenSER-based IMS in CAMPARI project (interesting concept: IMS in a bottle). Along with the architecture and components, very valuable were his conclusions and thought about IMS and future directions of VoIP, where the mobile communication will meet IP world and directions to be approached to ensure success.
A very interesting result of this experiment was that they used OpenSER barely as it is, with no hacking, IMS components being OpenSER instances with different config file. The work was a proof of concept, optimization could be brought by code writing.
Download slides of OpenSER IMS.
OpenSER Summit 2006 - Practical Peering with OpenSER
When comes to peering, the hot word about is 'security'. How trust able the other party is, how can you ensure safety and security for your subscribers. Many VoIP services are isolated islands, walled gardens. This is not something most of VoIP fans look for, they want freedom and ability to talk with people around the world, no matter of VoIP provider.
One solutions is federation, alliance between VoIP providers sharing the trust relationships. Klaus Darilion from enum.at introduced such solution in OpenSER, based on domain policies and secure communication via TLS.
The management of trustable federations and domains become more flexible and dynamic. The slides are going to low level of technical aspects to exemplify such configuration with OpenSER.
Download slides of Practical Peering With OpenSER
One solutions is federation, alliance between VoIP providers sharing the trust relationships. Klaus Darilion from enum.at introduced such solution in OpenSER, based on domain policies and secure communication via TLS.
The management of trustable federations and domains become more flexible and dynamic. The slides are going to low level of technical aspects to exemplify such configuration with OpenSER.
Download slides of Practical Peering With OpenSER
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
OpenSER Summit 2006: VoIPUser.org
VoIPUser.org, an open VoIP community, nominated in "The 50 Most Influential People in VoIP". It is known for its web forum, free VoIP service based on SIP, plus their reviews of VoIP devices, books and services.
It is pretty much impossible to reproduce Dean Elwood's speech, you just have to get the opportunity to listen to him. He is a lawyer day by day and his hobby is the VoIPUser, but I felt the opposite. He co-founded voipuser.org with the aim of building a place for "experimenting new stuff". And they did test and experience lot of stuff out there, they built one of the biggest web forums in this area, with a good knowledge base. Many came to the forum as newby and are able to help to others questions in short time.
Still the main goal is to experience new stuff. Privately, he launched an open invitation to for OSP testing. They have available an OSP server, if someone else is interested can drop a message on the forum or send and email to us at <team (at) openser (dot) org>. Several plans are to be shaped to touch new stuff and open ways in VoIP and to involve many people and open source projects in such collaborations.
Download slides of VoIPUser.org.
It is pretty much impossible to reproduce Dean Elwood's speech, you just have to get the opportunity to listen to him. He is a lawyer day by day and his hobby is the VoIPUser, but I felt the opposite. He co-founded voipuser.org with the aim of building a place for "experimenting new stuff". And they did test and experience lot of stuff out there, they built one of the biggest web forums in this area, with a good knowledge base. Many came to the forum as newby and are able to help to others questions in short time.
Still the main goal is to experience new stuff. Privately, he launched an open invitation to for OSP testing. They have available an OSP server, if someone else is interested can drop a message on the forum or send and email to us at <team (at) openser (dot) org>. Several plans are to be shaped to touch new stuff and open ways in VoIP and to involve many people and open source projects in such collaborations.
Download slides of VoIPUser.org.
Monday, November 27, 2006
OpenSER Summit 2006: Truphone - Reversing The Paradigm
No other new service in the last year rose so much rumors in the market as Truphone (http://www.truphone.com) did since its beta launch at VoN Autumn America, Boston, 2006. It was not just a new VoIP service like many others in these years, they brought something people spoke about in the past, but was mainly behind the scenes: VoIP over mobile network. And it is not voice channel replacement, but convergence between fixed and mobile networks, between SIP and other IM/VoIP protocols out there -- this is more than what VoIP did to fixed lines in the past, and could open a new era for mobile communication.
Googling will reveal lot of comments about Truphone target and its features, which makes no sense to repeat here. You can just make an account and test it by yourself.
I will underline only one idea presented there: what is behind the service. Basically the Truphone VoIP platform is pure open source. Database server, web server, sip server, media server, operating systems. Isn't it a bit mad to do it so? Well, seems not, the platform was built starting with March 2006 and in about 6 month was able to run in beta mode, while a lot of efforts were conducted to develop client side applications, web interfaces and many bits and pieces for transconding, handoff and interoperability.
Would a vendor (even the big ones) be capable to deliver a solution for a brand new business model in such time frame? James Body, Director Networks Truphone, spoke enthusiastically about the flexibility and power of open source: how one can combine and get best out of it for a solid business.
Download slides of Truphone - Reversing The Paradigm
Googling will reveal lot of comments about Truphone target and its features, which makes no sense to repeat here. You can just make an account and test it by yourself.
I will underline only one idea presented there: what is behind the service. Basically the Truphone VoIP platform is pure open source. Database server, web server, sip server, media server, operating systems. Isn't it a bit mad to do it so? Well, seems not, the platform was built starting with March 2006 and in about 6 month was able to run in beta mode, while a lot of efforts were conducted to develop client side applications, web interfaces and many bits and pieces for transconding, handoff and interoperability.
Would a vendor (even the big ones) be capable to deliver a solution for a brand new business model in such time frame? James Body, Director Networks Truphone, spoke enthusiastically about the flexibility and power of open source: how one can combine and get best out of it for a solid business.
Download slides of Truphone - Reversing The Paradigm
Sunday, November 19, 2006
OpenSER Summit 2006: High-availability environments with geographic redundancy
VoIP at large, how and why? For a company having almost 40 years experience in telecommunication technology, the maturity of products and solutions when dealing with big operators are essentials. Scalability, flexibility and more important, availability, are main requirements.
Benjamin Wolf of Basis Audionet introduced their solution for a HA VoIP platform, worked for Telcos requirements. It is not only OpenSER, it is hardware and software which combined give the reliability one needs for such cases.
Besides the debate of title's topic, the presentation emphasized middleware and components of distributed VoIP systems.
Download slides of VoIP High-Availability Environments With Geographic Redundancy
Benjamin Wolf of Basis Audionet introduced their solution for a HA VoIP platform, worked for Telcos requirements. It is not only OpenSER, it is hardware and software which combined give the reliability one needs for such cases.
Besides the debate of title's topic, the presentation emphasized middleware and components of distributed VoIP systems.
Download slides of VoIP High-Availability Environments With Geographic Redundancy
OpenSER Summit 2006 - WeSIP & SIP Application Servers
Most innovative solution so far developed by third party to work together with OpenSER was presented for the first time to the public by Voztelecom: WeSIP. CIO Ginez Gomes gave a comprehensive overview of SIP application technologies and why SIP servlet and J2EE allow providers to develop easily new services to attract and secure customers.
It is rather new technology with no many investigating in this direction until now, but since VoIP did lot of first line replacement, something else should ensure further the success of VoIP services. As it happened with HTTP, at the beginning was pure HTML display, mainly oriented to static information sharing. Today even simple sites have dynamic content, with web applications behind, running Java/JSP/Servlet, CGI/Perl/PHP/ASP, Flash, Ajax and others. This came after several years of www, so same comes now to SIP/VoIP.
I am basically pure C programmer, but I salute such initiative and we will try to help as much as possible to get it integrated properly in OpenSER. Making the connector part of OpenSER as module is the first step in creating a proper environment for such extensions.
Main outcome of such solutions is the merge of SIP routing flexibility in OpenSER with enormous programming facilities of Java. Enterprise API as EJB, JDBC, JNDI, SOAP can be used to build quickly on brilliant ideas.
It was required deep knowledge of protocols and low level network communication skills to work on this area, by opening the horizon to application level programmers, the VoIP will burst its business space. Time will prove which technology for VoIP applications is the best, but is no doubt that applications will lead VoIP's future.
Download slides of SIP Application Servers And WeSIP
It is rather new technology with no many investigating in this direction until now, but since VoIP did lot of first line replacement, something else should ensure further the success of VoIP services. As it happened with HTTP, at the beginning was pure HTML display, mainly oriented to static information sharing. Today even simple sites have dynamic content, with web applications behind, running Java/JSP/Servlet, CGI/Perl/PHP/ASP, Flash, Ajax and others. This came after several years of www, so same comes now to SIP/VoIP.
I am basically pure C programmer, but I salute such initiative and we will try to help as much as possible to get it integrated properly in OpenSER. Making the connector part of OpenSER as module is the first step in creating a proper environment for such extensions.
Main outcome of such solutions is the merge of SIP routing flexibility in OpenSER with enormous programming facilities of Java. Enterprise API as EJB, JDBC, JNDI, SOAP can be used to build quickly on brilliant ideas.
It was required deep knowledge of protocols and low level network communication skills to work on this area, by opening the horizon to application level programmers, the VoIP will burst its business space. Time will prove which technology for VoIP applications is the best, but is no doubt that applications will lead VoIP's future.
Download slides of SIP Application Servers And WeSIP
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