Developing communication services with Java EE is quite a challenge, especially if you’re building the service based on synchronous HTTP. But with the SIP servlet container SailFin and powerful SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) APIs, communication service development is becoming a lot more manageable.

Kristoffer Gronowski, SIP and Java EE senior specialist at Ericsson, says: “SIP and SIP servlets are behind many popular services we enjoy today, such as Voice-over-IP, instant messaging, presence and web/multimedia conferencing, and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).”

At Java One, Gronowski will be holding two technical sessions, one about the SailFin SIP servlet container project (TS-5866) and one about end-to-end development of SIP communication services (TS-5802). The first will be held together with Binod Pg from Sun Microsystems.

Kristoffer Gronowski

In 2004, Gronowski became involved in developing the Ericsson Application Server (EAS), which is the predecessor of SailFin. Ericsson contributed EAS to Sun’s open source community project SailFin (an extension of the GlassFish application server) last year at JavaOne.

“Open-source community development is especially suited for the server-side of communication services, since there are so many unique end-point system integration scenarios that the server interfaces with. There is less diversity on the client side, however,” he says. “On the client side standards makes perfect sense but there is a lot to gain by working around open source communities, especially with improving interoperability.”

SailFin session attendants will learn about the SailFin project roadmap and the future JSR 289 SIP-enabled communication application server. They will also get a glimpse of how to use the NetBeans IDE with different plug-ins to create SIP/Java EE applications.

The other session will give an overview of end-to-end SIP communication service development. Together with Ericsson colleague Ola Dahlqvist, Gronowski will show how to use the NetBeans and Eclipse IDE to develop both the client and server-side of SIP applications. They will show two use cases. One will be based on the already available JSR 180 (SIP API for J2ME), and the other will be based on the upcoming JSR 281 (IMS Services API), which is set for release in May 2008. IMS is a standard for delivering converged multimedia services, which bridges telecommunication and internet technology.

“In the JSR 180 use case, we develop a chat server that allow users to quickly create different forums and send text and voice messages to all participants in a forum,” Gronowski says. “In the IMS use case, we demonstrate how to develop an application that let end users with camera phones record a video live and send it to a SailFin-server, which in turn puts it on YouTube.”

Gronowski says the session should be an eye-opener for developers who are struggling with synchronous HTTP, while there they can instead use the powerful SIP APIs that already exist today.

“JSR 180 is a powerful API that is already available, and developers should be encouraged to use it. However, it is a fairly low-level API which requires in-depth SIP knowledge, and I hope our session can give developers some guidance. JSR 281 will simplify the development of communication services even further. In addition, IMS resolves security and network topology problems associated with Network Address Translation (NAT) and firewalls.”

Developers interested in learning about end-to-end SIP communication service development can attend session TS-5802 – “Mobile End-to-End Communication Services with the Java Platform, Micro Edition and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition” – which is held on Friday May 9.

To learn more about the SailFin project, developers should attend session TS-5866 – “Project SailFin: Architecture, Applications, and Roadmap” – which is held on Wednesday May 7.

By Olle Blomberg