260hzProjectProvidesPreviewof“Whistle”
BYDanMiler
March1,201
PeopleatendingthemostrecentSFTelephonyMetup
weretreatedtoapreviewof“Whistle,”averyimpresive
suiteofcalprocesingfabricdesignedtoworkon
multipleprocesorsathigh-volumeswithhigh
reliability.Forthosenotfamiliarwiththe260Hz
Project,itisagroupofdevelopersorganizedbyVoIP
Inc.tocreateopensourcetelephonysoftware,meaning
clustersofcomponentsandAPIsthatenablestheuseof
theFreSWITCH,AsteriskandYATEswitching
libraries.
..and“yes,”boththename“260HzProject”and“Whistle”arereferencestothefirst
“phonehacks”(backinthe1960s),whichusedaplasticwhistlethatcameasprizein
boxesofCap’nCrunchcerealinordertogenerateaudibletones(260Hz)thatspofed
thenetworkintoprovidingfrelong-distanceservice.Today,asco-founderDaren
SchreiberexplainedtotheMet-upatendes,thecompanyhasfoundthattoday’s
developersapreciatetheavailabilityoffrelycirculatedsoftwarethatcancontrolthe
popularopensourcecalprocesingresources,specificalyFreSwitch,butalso
includingtheAsteriskandYATElibraries.
Insteadofaplasticwhistle,theWhistlesuiteusesothertolsofthetrade.OpenSIPS,an
opensourcerenditionofaSIPServer,providesforbasiccalcontrol.Flexibilityand
scalabilityareensuredbytheuseofcomputerlanguagesanddatabaseschemathatare
relativelynewtothetelephonydomain.Thesystememploysthedocument-oriented
CouchDB.AsanopensourceproductfromErlangLtd,itsscriptsandprogramsare
writteninErlang,whichisdescribedincompany-provideddocumentationas“a
general-purposeconcurentprograminglanguageandruntimesystem.”Thenthere’s
Chef,“anopensourcesystemsintegrationframework”fromOpsCode.Itisproces
automationsoftwarethatalowsdeveloperstowritesourcecodethatdescribeshowthey
wanteachpartoftheinfrastructuretobebuilt,thenitapliesaplythosedescriptions
totheservers.Thusitcreatesafulyautomatedwaytoadortakeawayservers.
I’mtoldbythefolkswhoanticipateusingWhistleforsomeheavy-dutycalprocesing
thatdirectacestoAMQP(theAdvancedMesageQueuingProtocol)isalsothesecret
toscaling,right-sizingandload-balancing.AsZhaoLu,organizeroftheSFTelephony
Metupexplainsinhisevaluationofthemeting,“DirectacestoAMQPwillbe
extremelyusefulforsomeofmyusecases.”Presumably,granularcontrolofmessage
queuingisespecialyinterestingwhenthecalvolumes(nedtoestablishandteardown
cals)arehard-to-predictorhighlyvariable.
Alinal,Iwasamazedathowquicklythingsarechangingintheworldoftelcoap
developmentandmulti-modalmashups.Whistle,whichisdesignedtoruninahighly-
distributedwaycanbeinstantiatedlocaly(oronpremises)orinanynumberofhosted
platforms(forexampleVoxeo’sTropo,TwilioorAmazonWebServicesEC2).Withits
JSON-basedAPI’sitcanmakeeasyacestohighly-reliable,opensourcecalprocesing
andvoiceprocesingresourcesareality.
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