Resources

[nathanreynolds]

Hi, Does anyone have any links for additional resources for developing IP Phone services. I have read the AVVID Dev Cisco IP phone services book and reviewed the Cisco SDK docs and still am not having much luck with developing these services. I can do basic services but would like to access databases and remote hardware. Im still a newbie to all this but was looking for some more resources. Any Ideas? Thanks.

[jbond_c24]

What database flavor are you wanting to hook into?

[nathanreynolds]

James,

Thanks for the reply. I plan on connecting to an MS SQL 2000 server. I think I have figured this part out. I am just concerned about the lack of resources available for help in developing these services. There is sparse information out there for this topic. I bought the AVVID soloutions book and there really is not much to it other than the descrition of the available xml objects. It also seems as if most of the information is from 2001 or earlier. I am having no problem creating simple little apps for these phones, but anything beyond that I cant figure out. I would hope there is a new SDK coming out soon or something that may contain support for web services or the like (mabey there already is and I dont know about it). I wish I new of the limitations on what can and cant be done with these phone services. I guess if I was a more experianced programmer I would not be having any problems.

[aaronw.ca]

The reason that the book does not go too deeply into topics such as database connectivity is because those topics are not specific to IP Phone services. Topics such as database access from a web page are potentially applicable to all web applications, not just Cisco IP Phone services.

A service for a Cisco IP Phone is essentially just a web page that the phone accesses. Instead of the web page sending HTML, it sends the XML tags you saw described in the book and SDK.

Therefore, to find the information that you are looking for, you should find a book on web page development, such as ASP, ASP.NET, or Java/JSP. When reading the book, instead of formatting the content in HTML, use the XML tags.

Hope that makes sense, and helps!

[#5]

Hi Nathan,

The book states how the phone must receive the XML and how it cat show it... and that's all because there's nothing else more on cisco's side.

Now, if you want to connect to a database or something, then you'll have to rely on your web server capabilities.

My scenario:

I have apache + php + mssql.

The phone queries the apache (web server).

The apache+php queries de sql server and get a response.

The apache+php formats the result in an cisco's XML acceptable form and returns it.

Simple!.

If you have further questions about services, let me know and I will help you!. In fact, if you live in the bahamas, just send the tickets and I will go and help you there for free! LOL.

[nathanreynolds]

Guys,

Thanks for the replies. I guess I need to understand web programming and xml a little better. I will certainly start looking into these topics. I just was confused as to the limitations/features of these phones. BTW, gastong I wish I lived in the bahamas right now! Its only 6 degrees here. Thanks again.