INA: a distributed processing based approach to information networks

Presents an overview of the INA architecture and illustrates by means of an example how it facilitates rapid service deployment. This architecture builds on the current advances in distributed computing and broadband communication technologies and specifies an architecture for future intelligent information networks that are required to transport multimedia information and manage multimedia communication. The architecture specifies an object-oriented model for development of distributed applications and identifies several principles of separation that should be adhered to while packaging these applications into products. The architecture proposes integration of network and operations applications via their execution on a common distributed processing platform. The distributed processing platform hides from applications the effects and complexities introduced by distribution. The authors outline the major components of such an information network. They also briefly describe how a particular call feature, call transfer, would be implemented within a network that is based on this architecture. >