Developing Cisco IP Phone Services: A Cisco AVVID Solution [Paperback]

Darrick Deel (Author), Mark Nelson (Author), Anne Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2002 | ISBN-10: 1587050609 | ISBN-13: 978-1587050602

Create applications that deliver interactive content to Cisco IP Phones

• Learn information and techniques vital to building and integrating third-party services for Cisco IP Phones
• Understand the development process using XML and HTTP client and server applications to successfully build a service
• Discover advanced services information about objects, advanced runtime generation, and other XML development tools
• Utilize the provided CallManager Simulator to support an IP phone for development purposes Get the most out of your IP phone systems with strategies and solutions direct from the Cisco team

Services on Cisco IP Phones help you enhance productivity, gain the competitive advantage, and even help generate revenue. Services are simply applications that run on the phone rather than on a PC or a web browser. By developing services tailored to your particular needs, you can achieve unlimited goals.

Cisco AVVID IP Telephony provides an end-to-end voice-over-IP solution for enterprises. Part of that solution are Cisco IP Phones, a family of IP-based phones. Cisco IP Phones feature a large display, an XML micro browser capable of retrieving content from web servers, and the ability to deploy custom services tailored to your organization's or enterprise's needs.

Developing Cisco IP Phone Services uses detailed code samples to explain the tools and processes used to develop custom phone services. You'll learn about XML, CallManager, Cisco IP Phones, and the history behind why Cisco chose XML to deploy phone services. You'll find detailed information to help you learn how to build a service, how to build a directory, and how to integrate your service with Cisco CallManager.

This book complements and expands on the information provided in the Cisco IP Phone Services Software Developer's Kit (SDK). With the information in this book, you can maximize your productivity using the tools provided in the SDK and the custom tools provided on the companion CD-ROM. Beginner and advanced service developers alike benefit from the information in this book. Developing Cisco IP Phone Services represents the most comprehensive resource available for developing services for Cisco IP Phones.

Companion CD-ROM
The CD-ROM contains the sample services that are covered in the book, development utilities from the Cisco IP Phone Services SDK, and new tools written specifically for this book such as XML Validator. One of the most useful applications on the CD-ROM is the CallManager Simulator (CM-Sim). CM-Sim significantly lowers the requirements for service development. You only need a Windows-based PC with CM-Sim and a web server running, and one Cisco IP Phone 7940 or 7960.

This book is part of the Cisco Press Networking Technologies Series, which offers networking professionals valuable information for constructing efficient networks, understanding new technologies, and building successful careers.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Create applications that deliver interactive content to Cisco IP PhonesLearn information and techniques vital to building and integrating third-party services for Cisco IP PhonesUnderstand the development process using XML and HTTP client and server applications to successfully build a serviceDiscover advanced services information about objects, advanced runtime generation, and other XML development toolsUtilize the provided CallManager Simulator to support an IP phone for development purposesGet the most out of your IP phone systems with strategies and solutions direct from the Cisco teamServices on Cisco IP Phones help you enhance productivity, gain the competitive advantage, and even help generate revenue. Services are simply applications that run on the phone rather than on a PC or a Web browser. By developing services tailored to your particular needs, you can achieve unlimited goals.Cisco AVVID IP Telephony provides an end-to-end Voice over IP solution for enterprises. Part of that solution are Cisco IP Phones, a family of Internet Protocol-based phones. Cisco IP Phones feature a large display, an XML micro-browser capable of retrieving content from Web servers, and the ability to deploy custom services tailored to your organization's or enterprise's needs.Developing Cisco IP Phone Services uses detailed code samples to explain the tools and processes used to develop custom phone services. You'll learn about XML, CallManager, Cisco IP Phones, and the history behind why Cisco chose XML to deploy phone services. You'll find detailed information to help you learn how to build a service, how to build a directory, and how to integrate your service with Cisco CallManager.This book complements and expands on the information provided in the Cisco IP Phone Services Software Developer's Kit (SDK). With the information in this book, you can maximize your productivity using the tools provided in the SDK and the custom tools provided on the companion CD-ROM. Beginner and advanced service developers alike benefit from the information in this book. Developing Cisco IP Phone Services represents the most comprehensive resource available for developing services for Cisco IP Phones.Companion CD-ROMThe CD-ROM contains the sample services that are covered in the book, develop-ment utilities from the Cisco IP Phone Services SDK, and new tools written specifically for this book such as XML Validator. One of the most useful applications on the CD-ROM is the CallManager Simulator (CM-Sim). CM-Sim significantly lowers the requirements for service development. You only need a Windows-based PC with CM-Sim and a Web server running, and one Cisco IP Phone 7940 or 7960.

About the Author

Darrick Deel is a software engineer in the Enterprise Voice, Video Business Unit at Cisco Systems. He is the primary designer of the services and directory infrastructure for Cisco IP Phones.

Mark Nelson is a programmer in the Enterprise Voice, Video Business Unit at Cisco Systems. He is currently working on the software for the next generation of Cisco IP Phones.

Anne Smith is a technical writer in the Enterprise Voice, Video Business Unit at Cisco Systems. She wrote the original i button help for the first Cisco IP Phone models 7960 and 7940 and is the co-author of Cisco CallManager Fundamentals: A Cisco AVVID Solution.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cisco Press (February 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587050609
• ISBN-13: 978-1587050602
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #715,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very useful collection of information in one place, November 6, 2003

By 

"wilko11" (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Cisco IP Phone Services: A Cisco AVVID Solution (Paperback)

If you want to develop IP phone services, this book will really help you. Almost everything that is in here is available on the Cisco web site...somewhere! I spent days searching through Cisco documents and sample code looking for answers to the "hard" questions such as "how do I know which phone is accessing my service". I found the answer in this book in a couple of minutes.

The book is not for web beginners, however. It does spend a fair amount of time giving you some background in HTML and XML, but only at a very high level. Most of the examples are written in ASP, but no explanation of ASP is given. I don't think that this is unreasonable as the book is aimed at people who know how to write web applications and want to target those applications to IP phones.

As the book was published in 2002, it pre-dates the latest Call Manager 3.3 release, and as such does not describe some new features of Call Manager, such as the AXL API. You do not need this information to write most applications. If you do, you can get it here: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/570/

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the definitive resource for building Cisco phone services, April 24, 2002

By 

a_guy_in_boston "a_guy_in_boston" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Developing Cisco IP Phone Services: A Cisco AVVID Solution (Paperback)

This book contains detailed descriptions of phone-based XML tags, authentication, push capabilities, and many other subjects that cannot be found anywhere else (including CallManager texts). I was a reviewer on this book, but I'm also a user: I relied heavily on this book to help build the application that won Best of Show at the Cisco Convergence Expo in early 2002... If you are doing any development for, or integration with, Cisco IP phones then it's simple--you need this book!

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Helpful for an overview, but useless for advanced details, June 13, 2005

By 

Xnera (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Developing Cisco IP Phone Services: A Cisco AVVID Solution (Paperback)

This book is great to get a high level overview of how IP phone services work. However when you get to the nitty gritty of writing an application, this book is mostly useless. Yes, there are lots of examples on how to do very basic things like display a menu on your phone. However, as another reviewer pointed out, there are no detailed examples of how to do anything advanced.

One example, I want to get information about the device hitting my service. There are 2 paragraphs explaining why I might want this information, but on how to get it, this book only says "You can use the Cisco URL Proxy to gather additional information...". No where in the book does it give any more details on how this is used. One more sentence - like 'your service should read these xml pages to get the device info' - would have been infinitely helpful. I found that the Cisco SDK documentation has everything that is in this book and more.