ConverTec Communication Server (CCS)

The ConverTec Communication Server (CCS) is ConverTec’s 3rd generation telephony server for the Nortel Business Communications Manager (BCM) and Norstar phone system and drives the applications found in the ConverTec Enterprise Office Suite.

CCS is a collection of .Net based programs and components for a high level communication to BCM’s Computer telephony Engine (CTE) versions BCM 200/400 R3.7 & R4.0, BCM450 R1 and BCM50 R1, R2 and R3 along with Norstar. All CTE functions are provided along with new higher level functions such as phone messaging, call waiting, notification messages and remote intercom functions. Multiple clients such as CRM Integrator, CALL Navigator and Console.NET can communicate to CCS concurrently. Each client can authenticate with CCS to receive CTE events related to all or an arbitrary subset of the devices. There are management components and wizards to provide easy configuration, set-up, diagnostics and monitoring of CCS.

The new CCS Manager client provides services for configuration and monitoring of local and remote CCS services across the network. A central SQL Server database is used for configuration management and directory services. All the directory information such as device status, DND, Forward and notifications are propagated to the database in real-time.

Simplicity, reduced hardware dependency, reliability and performance were all factors that went into the development of CCS.

CCS is the server that drives a suite of applications called ConverTec Enterprise Office Suite. The ability for customers to install a single server and allow them to select from a list of available client applications to operate and be shared across the enterprise was paramount in the planning and development of CCS.

The kernel component is a windows service which provides monitoring and control functions on a single BCM or Norstar. Multiple instances of the service are installed on a single computer using LAN CTE client to control and monitor a number of BCM’s and Norstar’s. The services incorporate together to provide high level intercom communication and feature functionalities.

CCS provides three methods of communication for client applications. The basic native method is TCP while a toolkit library and a web service communication are also provided. Two communication protocols are provided for TCP clients concurrently; XML and native compact.