MediaBuilder: A next-generation multimedia service creation and deployment platform
Frank V. Baumann · Bell Labs Technical Journal · 2002
The main driving force for customer acceptance of next-generation networks will be the availability of new and yet unknown multimedia services. The MediaBuilder platform fulfills this need by offering rapid service creation and deployment through an extensible set of service components. Initially, the platform was designed with the assumption of an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) signaling-based telecommunications future. During its development, however, the Internet protocol (IP)-based Internet became much more influential, creating a need to evolve the MediaBuilder platform into a universal next-generation service creation and deployment platform supporting all underlying network technologies and services. This paper describes the evolution of the MediaBuilder platform. It outlines the initial ATM signaling-based approach and presents the rationale for the final approach along with its architecture and design. Finally, it evaluates the Mediabuilder platform based on practical experience with a prototype used within a number of pilot settings.