Written by: Åke Gustafsson and Anders Lenman

 Download PDF file

To achieve simple, efficient interworking between messaging services, Ericsson has factored out the message routing and storage functions from messaging services. Instead, it has introduced a new architecture with a common interworking function (IWF) that features a dispatcher and a common message store. Then, taking this approach one step further, Ericsson communalized other aspects of messaging servers. The resultant design is a horizontalization of traditional, vertical messaging solutions which gives rise to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and fewer, better-quality components, and yields a simple, scalable, and robust messaging architecture that maintains all states in the shared message store file system.

To derive the full benefit of this enriched messaging solution with minimum impact on existing systems, Ericsson also provides a prepackaged messaging integration solution that converges vertical legacy solutions and IMS.

Introduction
Ericsson's messaging vision for end users: "A message is a message, regardless of the technology used." Studies and market trends show that messaging solutions must be easier to use if they are to facilitate communication and increase traffic. Today, for example, to use SMS, MMS, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), voice mail, and so on, end users must be aware of the underlying technology and their intended recipients' capabilities.

Ericsson's enriched messaging architecture addresses this matter by allowing end users to exchange messages with anybody, at any time, and from any place without having to give the associated technologies a thought. The new architecture provides mechanisms that accommodate interworking between messaging services. Some key functions in this context are addressing, routing, and message header mapping.

Traditional interworking is typically achieved by means of an interworking function component between two separate messaging services. An IWF component contains protocol handlers (PH) for each service, and logic for handling message header mappings. Each messaging service typically routes messages independently.

This approach works fine when there are only two messaging servers involved, but as the number of messaging servers grows the complexity of the associated interworking becomes unmanageable, both for the IWFs and in terms of distributed routing logic (Figure 1).

Ericsson's enriched messaging solution, by contrast, introduces a new architecture with a common IWF function that features a dispatcher and a common message store. These two key components provide a generic IWF function and common message routing logic.

The dispatcher, which is both the brain and the heart of the enriched messaging core, ensures that messages are routed properly (brain). It also safeguards messages by means of scheduled retry events that make certain they do not get stuck in the system (heartbeat).

The message store, which is a common storage function for all messages, regardless of messaging service used, is structured into mailboxes - one mailbox per user.