Live demonstrations of end-to-end mobile service creation using the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) were greeted with ringing applause at JavaOne.

The demonstrations were part of a technical session held by Kristoffer Gronowski, introduced as “the server side guy”, and Ola Dahlqvist, “the client side guy”, both working at Ericsson.

The session topic was the development of end-to-end mobile communication services using Java ME (Micro Edition) and Java EE (Enterprise Edition). One demo showed how to develop a simple messaging application using low level SIP communication APIs (JSR-180 on the client side and JSR-289 on the server side). Another demo showed how to quickly develop an application for publishing videos recorded with a mobile phone on YouTube, using the IMS Service API (JSR-281).

In the second demo, Dahlqvist used his mobile phone to record a short clip of the room’s enthusiastic crowd, waving their hands, and then sent the video to a SailFin communication application server that automatically published it on YouTube. He then brought up the YouTube page on a projector screen, and pressed play. The result: ringing applause from the audience.

Gronowski showed how the application could be modified to receive images instead of video clips, by merely adding some code on the server side. The demo application would then publish received files on Flickr instead of on YouTube.

“With JSR-281, not much code is needed to create your own file sharing system, like we have shown here,” Dahlqvist said. “I think that this is a good example of this easy of use of this API.”

Dahlqvist said that IMS provides a channel from one device to another device, where multimedia sessions can be set up.

“It provides an infrastructure that handles problems created by NATs (Network Address Translators) and ensures quality of service, which is very important for the user experience when it comes to applications like voice or mobile TV,” he said.

The audience also learned that there is a successor to JSR-281, namely JSR-325, IMS communication enablers. This JSR will make communication service creation even easier for developers. Gronowski also demonstrated how the application could be coded in Ericsson’s Eclipse plug-in Service Development Studio (SDS).

Sean White and Sasha Katsman, developers at Quickoffice, both enjoyed the session.
“I work mostly on the client side, but I wanted to get more information about the end-to-end solution and broaden my knowledge,” Katsman said after the session. “The session was very cool, with a very good demo.”

White, who is a Java EE developer, was interested in the end-to-end scope. He was also curious about SIP.

SIP is an internet standard derived from HTTP. Unlike HTTP, the protocol is asynchronous, and every SIP-client can also work as a SIP-server (and vice versa). The protocol standardizes how sessions are established and renegotiated, as well as how messages are transferred. SIP was initially used for Voice over IP, but it can now also be used for messaging, chat and presence, file transfer, and for multimedia functions like steering video channels for IPTV video on demand services.

By Olle Blomberg

About SIP and IMS
About SailFin
The YouTube video
The Flickr photos