Understanding the Capabilities of Host Media Processing

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Understanding the Capabilities of Host Media
Processing

• Brian Elliott, Director of Engineering, NMS

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Host Media ProcessingWhat Were Talking About
Using a general-purpose computing platform
to create a telephony application
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Host-Based Media Server Primary Features

• IVR operations
• Play prompt, record and play messages, detect
  DTMF tones, ASR TTS interface
• Audio processing operations
• Automatic gain control, voice activity detector,
  acoustic DTMF detector
• Enhanced media services
• Transcoding (audio and video), conferencing
• VoIP call connections
• RTP packetization, SIP signaling, encryption, RFC
  2833

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Inside a Host-Based Media Server Protocol Stacks
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HMP StackExample Configuration for IVR
Application Interface
API / IVR
Record
Play
Auto Gain Control
Gain Control
Tone Detector
Tone Generator
Media Processing
Voice Activity Det.
Voice Activity Det.
Voice Decoder
Voice Encoder
Packet Scheduler
Jitter Buffer
Packet Processing
RTP Stream Switching
RTP
RTP
Egress
Ingress
UDP
UDP
Operating System
IP (QoS)
IP (Firewall)
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Host Media ProcessingMarket Trend

• Eliminate special hardware associated costs
• Lower acquisition costs, sometimes
• Lower provisioning and maintenance costs
• More failure recovery options

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HMP Application Economics

• Vocoder G.711 G.729
• 1U Dual Xeon 3,600 3,600
• Application sessions 200 60
• Per session HW cost 18 60
• Reduction in total cost of ownership
• No special hardware inventory, tracking,
  failures, replacements, repairs, tech support

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HMP Density Roadmap
Tanglewood(16-Way)
Based on Intel CPU Roadmap
Montecito (4-Way)
Dual 2.4 GHz
Dual 64-Bit
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Distributed Media Processing
AppServers
App Servers
HMP
HMP
HMP
HMP
HMP
MediaServer

• Single large DSP media server

• Small media servers built-in to each application

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HMP Reliability Economics
1 DSP platform with 480 ports
4 HMP platforms with 480 ports
1 Failure 480 ports
1 Failure 120 ports
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Host Media Processing Benefits

• Lower total cost of ownership
• No specialized hardware components
• Reduced inventory costs
• Use off-the-shelf PC server hardware
• Seamless fit into IT environments
• Efficient use of available hardware
• Easy replacement and upgrade

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Is HMP Inevitable?

• General-purpose processors keep getting faster,
  but
• DSPs are getting faster too
• New processing requirements that favor DSP
  economics
• Security encryption
• Wideband audio (conferencing)
• Video transcoding, transrating, resizing, and
  conferencing

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DSP versus HMPEach has its Place

• DSP-based media processing
• DSPs for high performance media processing (audio
  and video)
• Ideal for high density environments
• Lower power consumption per port
• Complex vocoders, PSTN integration
• Host media processing
• Software-only media processing on general purpose
  PC hardware
• IP-based systems only

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PacketMedia HMP 2.0

• Platform for developing cost-effective, rich
  media processing applications on off-the-shelf,
  IT-approved hardware
• Supports Windows, Linux on standard PC platforms
• Familiar Natural Access development environment

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NMS Media Processing Platforms
Products
VoIP/PSTN
CG 6060C, CG 6565C
120/240/480
VoIP/PSTN
60/120/240
CG 6060, CG 6565
VoIP
PacketMedia HMP
8-200
1 10 100 1000
Ports/ Sessions
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Natural Access Development Environment
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Rich Media Processing with Maximum Flexibility
Media Application
Natural Access Development Environment
AdvancedTCA Port density (1000) High
availability
Host-based media processing PacketMedia HMP Port
density (200)
Computer Telephony (H.100, H.110) AG Series, CG
Series, TX Series Port density (480)
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PacketMedia HMP in Applications

• Announcement server
• IVR
• Voice messaging
• Small conferencing
• IP-PBX
• Self-service
• Contact center
• IP media servers

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PacketMedia HMP Architecture

• Media processing on the host
• Natural Access development environment
• NaturalConference for conferencing
• Fusion VoIP service
• Media application and media processing engine run
  in OS user space, and not in kernel space
• Stable, easy-to-debug applications

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PacketMedia HMP 2.0 Features
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Fusion VoIP Service

• Provides media endpoints and channels
• G.711, G.726, G.729 vocoder support
• RFC 2833-based DTMF detection
• RTP forking and switching
• IPv4 and IPv6

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Media Processing

• 200 simultaneous G.711 media sessions
• Depends on application characteristics and host
  configuration
• Application performance benchmarks available
• DTMF
• Acoustic
• RFC 2833 packet-based DTMF
• Automatic adaptive jitter buffer

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File Formats and Encoding

• Play/record in a variety of file formats
• WAV, NMS VOX, and NMS VCE raw file formats
• Encodings
• Linear, A-law, m-law PCM
• NMS, OKI, G.726 ADPCM
• G.729A/B

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Vocoder Support

• G.711 vocoder
• 10, 20, 30 ms frames
• Toll-grade quality at 64 kbps
• G.729 vocoder
• 10, 20, 30 ms
• 8 kbps bandwidth consumption
• Excellent tradeoff between voice quality and
  bandwidth
• G.726 vocoder
• 10, 20, 30 ms frames
• High quality voice at 32 kbps
• Flexible deployment of vocoders based on customer
  business requirements
• Complex vocoders drive down port density per
  server

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Native RTP Play/Record

• Record RTP streams in native G.711, G.729, and
  G.726 formats
• Playback natively to a compatible endpoint
• Use transcoder to playback to a different
  endpoint
• Save on expensive transcoding operations
• Better use of CPU resources
• Increased port density
• Higher voice quality

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Conferencing

• High-value conferencing features
• Full-duplex conferencing, conference recording,
  automatic gain control, and DTMF clamping
• Uses the NaturalConference API
• Layered on Natural Access
• Compatibility with conferencing on DSP-based
  boards
• Eliminates the need for specialized voice
  conferencing hardware
• Conferencing applications may be developed in a
  platform independent manner

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Host Configurations

• Hardware
• Pentium-class and compatible processors
• With or without hyperthreading
• Single, dual and quad processor configurations
• Network interfaces
• IPv4 and IPv6
• Supports up to Gigabit Ethernet
• Multiple Ethernet connections
• Protocols
• IP, UDP, RTP (with switching and forking)
• SNMP RTP MIB
• SIP interoperability, using SIP for Natural Access

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Operating Systems

• Windows
• Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 Server
• Linux
• Red Hat Linux ES 3.0 Update 4

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Speech Vendor SupportMRCP

• Universal Speech Access
• Optional service of Natural Access
• Common interface to multiple speech vendors
• API for MRCP client to control remote speech
  recognition MRCP server

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Obtaining PacketMedia HMP 2.0

• Download from NMS web site
• Natural Access 2005-1
• PacketMedia HMP 2.0
• License
• Downloaded version licensed for 4 ports for 30
  days, for evaluation purposes
• Contact NMS for deployment licenses

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You may also be interested in

• Session
• Call Control with SIP
• Tech Talk
• Tomorrow, 300pm, Huntington I
• Demo
• Host Media Processing
• Featuring PacketMedia HMP 2.0
• All day today and tomorrow, Kenmore
• Doctors are In
• NMS experts available to answer your questions
• Today from 500 to 545pm, Huntington I (for Open
  Access)

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Questions?Contact Infobrian_elliott_at_nmss.com