Telephony Server Application Programming Interface
Open-knowledge reference entry
Telephony Server Application Programming Interface was a computer telephony integration standard developed and promoted by Novell and AT&T. It consisted of a number of call control commands for switching calls, voice mail and call logging using NetWare servers. Unlike the competing Telephony Application Programming Interface from Microsoft and Intel, it was a server-based system that did not expect client-side equipment to handle call switching. This was important to AT&T, which sold large telephone switches that Telephony Server Application Programming Interface was intended to work with.
Description
Telephony Server Application Programming Interface consisted of two primary parts, the application programming interface itself, and a "telephony service provider" that ran on a server and talked to clients. Novell produced one such provider, "TServer" that ran, unsurprisingly, on NetWare servers. TServer, in turn, talked to a driver specific to the brand of telephony switch being used. NetWare acted primarily as the operating system for TServer to run within, although TServer did make use of NetWare Directory Services for security and provisioning. The whole system from client-side drivers to server to private branch exchange driver was known as "NetWare Telephony Services", at least when using Novell software.
Message formats were based on a standard promoted by the European Computer Manufacturers Association, which was directly supported by a number of European-built switches. When used with one of these switches, the driver between the server and the switch was "thin".
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This entry incorporates text from “Telephony Server Application Programming Interface” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.