Terminology

  • Article

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  • Access Control Entry
    An individual member of an Access Control List. The scope of the Access Control Entry (ACE) can be as granular as an individual subscribing user or as complete as the scope of all possible users.
  • Access Control List
    A list of URI, domain, company, federation, or public scope container members. The Access Control List (ACL) defines the rules for access to a local user's published presence information.
  • alert
    One-way messaging, without SIP dialog.
  • call control
    Operations such as transferring a (computer-to-computer, computer-to-phone, or phone-to-phone) media session call to another party, placing a call on hold, or cancelling the hold in such a session. It is also known as session call control. Call control is represented by the IUccSessionCallControl interface.
  • category
    Extensible abstract data types for publication and subscription of data used in real-time communications and collaborations.
  • category instance
    An instance of a category holding a piece of data used in real-time communications and collaborations. Category instance is represented by the IUccCategoryInstance interface.
  • category context
    A collection of instances of a given category name belonging to a particular publisher known as the presentity of the category instances. Category context is represented by the IUccCategoryContext interface.
  • conference session
    An association of a group of users engaged in a conference call. Conference session is a transmission-free session. Conference participants interact with each other by establishing transmission-based communication sessions (such as instant messaging, audio/video, or application sessions) with one or more multipoint control units (MCU) provided by the conference. All participants communicate with each other through the conference MCU. The network formed by participant endpoints has a star topology with an MCU situated at the center. The conference session encapsulates the operations for managing a conference and maintaining its roster.
  • container
    A strongly typed category instance that provides an Access Control List (ACL) that defines access to a user's published presence information. A container is represented by the IUccContainer interface.
  • CSTA
    Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications. An international standard established by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) that specifies an application’s interface and protocols for telephony integration in a communications network.
  • device management
    Inspection and enumeration of locally supported devices for capturing and rendering media.
  • distribution group
    Distribution groups are used with e-mail applications to send e-mail messages to the members of the group. Distribution groups play no role in security (you do not assign permissions to distribution groups), and you cannot use them to filter group policy settings. Distribution groups can be subscribed to and published in a custom Unified Communications Client API application.
  • endpoint
    Represents a user in a particular communication mode or network location. The user is identified by a SIP URI, such as "sip:john@contoso.com". An endpoint of that user can be identified by the user's SIP URI plus an endpoint ID or a Globally Routable User-Agent URI (GRUU). Endpoint IDs for a given SIP URI are unique. The endpoint is represented by the IUccEndpoint interface.
  • Focus
    A logical component of Office Communications Server responsible for managing a single active conference. The server implements a star-shaped topology to manage a conference with the Focus as the center. Each participant is represented by an endpoint connected through session channel to the central Focus. Audio, video, and text streams are directed from the endpoints to the Focus. The Focus broadcasts the incoming media streams to all the participant endpoints. Endpoints do not create channels directly to other endpoints.
  • Focus Factory
    A logical component of Office Communications Server responsible for scheduling, activating, deactivating, and deleting conferences.
  • in-band provisioning
    The process of provisioning a client with all subscribed well-known and custom categories from Office Communications Server using an established SIP communications channel. The process starts when a client registers with Office Communications Server. All subscribe categories are provisioned initially. As category data changes, the client is updated using this process. In-band provisioning makes it possible for a client to entirely avoid the need to persist application data at the local computer level.
  • media channel
    A connection through which media (voice, video, or application-defined data) are transmitted between a pair of endpoints. Media channel is represented by the IUccMediaChannel interface.
  • media connectivity
    A media connection between endpoints across firewalls. A Unified Communications Client API client enables the media connectivity by selecting a supported media connectivity server, also known as Media Relay.
  • media negotiation
    Exchange media description. Accepts, reconciles, or rejects any discrepancies between a pair of endpoints.
  • multipoint control units
    A property of a conference, also known as MCU. Conference participants communicate with each other by establishing media sessions with mode-specific MCUs.
  • Office Communications Server
    Microsoft Office Communications Server provides SIP-based services for unified real-time communications. Unified Communications Client API serves as the client platform for building and deploying real-time communications client applications to work with this server.
  • Office Communicator
    Microsoft Office Communicator is a real-time communications client. It supports contact management and presence monitoring, instant messaging, voice calling, video chatting, conferencing, and telephony integration. This client application is built on the Unified Communications Client API framework.
  • participant
    A user or communication entity in a media or transmission-based (instant messaging, audio/video, telephony, or application) session or a transmission-free (conference) session. It is also referred to as session participant. A participant is identified by a SIP URI; for example, "sip:john@contoso.com". Participant is represented by the IUccSessionParticipant interface.
  • participant endpoint
    The endpoint by which a session participant interacts with other participants. In a conference session, a participant can have different participant endpoints to support instant messaging, audio/video, application-sharing, and telephony integration. An application can also choose participant endpoints to control how a media or transmission-based session is established. For example, two users are in an IM session using their laptop computers, while they are also logged on from their desktop computers. When one party adds audio to their communications, the application might want to choose the remote participant's endpoint originating from the remote laptop computer. Otherwise, the remote participant receives the notification of the incoming audio invitation on both the desktop and laptop computers.
  • media session
    Also known as transmission-based session. It refers to an association of two or more users engaged in such activities as instant messaging (IM), voice calling, video chatting, and application-sharing. Unlike a conference (which is transmission-free) session, data is exchanged between a pair of participants in a media session either through explicitly established media channels between the two endpoints of the participants or as the body of a SIP message.

  • presence
    Presence is a service that can support the following functions:

    • Publish presence information.
    • Query the presence of a specified user. This corresponds to a one-time retrieval of the publisher's current presence information.
    • Subscribe to the presence of a user. This involves receiving the specified presence information and the ensuing updates of the presence information.

    In Unified Communications Client API, presence is supported by a general-purpose framework for publication, subscription, and query of category instances.

  • presence information
    Indicates the availability of a user for real-time communication activities. It also indicates the level of the user's activity for the device publishing the presence information. The presence information can be as simple as whether the user is online or offline or as complex as a user's meeting schedule.

    The user's presence information is an aggregate published by all the communication devices that he or she is using.

  • presentity
    The entity (a user, application, or service) who publishes the presence information to allow subscribers to receive its presence information. A presentity is identified by a SIP URI ("sip:john@contoso.com"). Presentity is represented by the IUccPresentity interface.
  • publication
    Making information or data available for other users. The information or data can be presence information, contact information, and any application-specific custom data. In Unified Communications Client API, publishable information or data is represented by category instances.
  • query
    One-time receipts of published information or data. Query takes place in a polling subscription.
  • remote call control
    A feature of telephony integration. A Unified Communications Client API application can manage and control telephone calls, including making outbound telephone call, accepting, forwarding, or rejecting (if supported by the local PBX) inbound telephone calls, and transferring an ongoing telephone call to another party. Remote call control represents an audio session using telephone sets. The telephone set is represented by a proxy endpoint and the assigned owner of the telephone is the controlling SIP endpoint.
  • Security Association
    A client/server pair that have verified that valid credentials have been exchanged and authenticated. A trusted relationship is established between the client and server at the conclusion of the credential exchange/validation process.
  • self-subscription
    A type of subscription where the specified presentity owner of the subscribed publication is the local user creating the subscription. This type of subscription is used to get local user configuration, server configuration, and contact list from the Office Communications Server that registered the local endpoint.
  • session
    A session implies an association of two or more participants. In Unified Communications Client API, it is a SIP protocol based communication session involving two or more endpoints. A session supporting instant messaging is of the instant messaging session type. A session supporting audio/video media is of the audio/video session type. A session supporting custom data exchange or application-sharing is known as the application session. A session involving multiple participants and a conference Focus is the conference session. In a conference session, participants communicate with each other through a media-specific multipoint control unit (MCU) of the conference. A non-conference session is also referred to as a media session. Session is represented by the IUccSession interface.
  • session call control
    See Call control
  • SIP proxy
    See SIP server
  • SIP registrar
    See SIP server

  • SIP server
    Coordinates with Unified Communications Client API clients so that one client can discover another client and establish media sessions or conference sessions. Through registration, the SIP server also helps clients maintain communications security, manage presence information, and persist users' contact lists.

    A SIP server can also act as a SIP proxy that routes or redirects SIP messages across SIP clients. It can also maintain a database of network locations of SIP clients and ensure that all SIP clients update their location information.

    A SIP server handling user registration is also known as SIP registrar. Microsoft Office Communications Server serves both as a SIP registrar and a SIP proxy.

  • subscription
    A request on Office Communications Server for new and updated categories published by a user. A subscription is activated on a request made by a client and remains active until a user signs off of Office Communications Server or a request to de-activate a subscription is made. Receiving information or data and their updates published by other users or self. Subscribers and publishers must agree with each other on what information or data and the ensuing update that a subscriber can receive. Subscription takes place in a roaming subscription session. A subscriber does not receive data or updates when the subscription session ceases to exist.
  • subscriber
    A user who has subscribed to the presence of a registered user.

  • Unified Communications (UC)
    A Microsoft real-time SIP-based communications technology based on Office Communications Server to enable real-time communications using:

    • Office Communicator
    • Office Communicator Web Access
    • Office Live Meeting 2007
    • Office Communicator Automation API
    • Unified Communications AJAX API
    • Unified Communications JavaScript Libraries
    • Unified Communications Client API
    • Unified Communications Managed API

See Also

Reference

Microsoft.Office.Interop.UccApi

Concepts

About Unified Communications Client API
Using Unified Communications Client API

Other Resources

Unified Communications Client API Reference