The Media Server Control Markup Language (MSCML) is a protocol used in conjunction with the

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telep ...

(SIP) to enable the delivery of advanced multimedia conferencing services over

IP network The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

s. The MSCML specification has been published by the IETF under RFC 4722, now obsoleted by the newer RFC 5022. MSCML was pioneered by the media server company Snowshore, now part of the Dialogic Corporation. MSCML built on ideas from the Netann protocol, and in turn inspired the MSML. An IETF working group called MediaCTRLMediaCTRL charter, Burger, Dawkins
(media control) have now embarked on a standardization of

media server A media server is a computer appliance or an application software that stores digital media (video, audio or images) and makes it available over a network. Media servers range from servers that provide video on demand to smaller personal compu ...

scripting languages, drawing on these earlier efforts. Voice scripting protocols like

VoiceXML VoiceXML (VXML) is a digital document standard for specifying interactive media and voice dialogs between humans and computers. It is used for developing audio and voice response applications, such as banking systems and automated customer service ...

and

CCXML Call Control eXtensible Markup Language (CCXML) is an XML standard designed to provide asynchronous event-based telephony support to VoiceXML. Its current status is a W3C recommendation, adopted May 10, 2011. Whereas VoiceXML is designed to provi ...

are also inspiring sources, and in some cases need to be integrated with what media servers will need to operate in the real world. MSCML enables enhanced conference control functions such as muting individual callers or legs in a multi-party

conference call A conference call is a telephone call in which someone talks to several people at the same time. The conference call may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the call or set up so that the called party merely listens into ...

. Other control functionality enabled by MSCML includes the ability to increase or decrease the volume on a leg or on the call and the capability to create sub-conferences. MSCML also addresses other feature requirements for large-scale conferencing applications, such as sizing and resizing of a conference. SIP and MSCML are used to develop and deploy services within the IP applications and services architecture. This

network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements ( links, nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, including command and contr ...

consists of application servers and media servers which work together in a client-server relationship, with application servers (clients) providing the service logic for each specific application and the media server (server) acting as a shared media processing resource for the applications. The media server operates as an independent entity, managing and allocating its processing resources to match the requirements of each application. Its primary role is to handle requests from the application server for performing media processing on packetized media streams.

References

{{reflist Markup languages