Notification Protocol in MMSNotification Protocol in MMS

June 2001

Erez Reinschmidt, Rami Neudorfer

3GPP TSG-T2 SWG3#7Braunschweig, Germany27-29 June, 2001 T2M010070

The Problem

Notification of events is a major feature of MMS MMS Relay is connected to external servers

(Email, Voicemail) and needs to get notifications from them in order to pull messages, convert them to MMS format, and send notifications to UA

Currently, there are no standard methods of doing so

Polling is a costly, not timely enough, inefficient alternative and creates huge traffic loads which, for large number of MMS subscribers may be unacceptable

The Challenge

Enable notification of events occurring in external servers or VAS applications connected to MMS, such as: A new mail message has arrived from an external mail server An external application sends a request for an online game Your pre-paid credit is below some threshold

But also, enable notification of events occurring on a large variety of other systems: External email accounts

(E.g. “You have a new Hotmail message”) External voice mail systems (E.g: you have a voice mail from your son) Calendars

(E.g. “Your meeting starts in 5 minutes” or “Your meeting was cancelled”)

Information services: stock exchange, news, weather reports, changes in web pages, etc.

Fax servers More

The need for a notification protocol as part of MM3 (Interface to External servers) was recognized in 23.140 (release 4 of MMS stage 2 document)

The SNAP protocol presented in this document, addresses the need in a timely and well supported manner

We propose to 3GPP T2 to adopt this protocol and to submit it to the IETF for a rapid process of standardization

Status

Roadmap for Solution

The SNAP protocol for notification is proposed The notification protocol is based on Standard

Internet protocols Major E-mail vendors, and Comverse , have

already implemented this in their products The protocol was reviewed and approved by

several E-Mail vendors, and service providers This presentation is intended to encourage

discussion , enlist support, and trigger suggestions for changes and improvements in this protocol, and then submit it, to IETF through IETF - 3GPP Liaison

The concept (The general case – not limited to MMS)

Centralize the subscriber’s notification logic in a single notification component as part of the MMS relay

A variety of messaging and information services are possible sources of events

The notification component will Analyze each event, based on user preferences, configuration

and personalization and decide whether the user needs to be notified.

Decide where to send the notification messageE.g. to the subscriber’s UA, to an email account, etc. (In certain cases several destinations may exist simultaneously.)

Compose the outgoing messageto MMS recipient

Use a variety of other services to deliver the messagewhen needed : MMS, SMS, SMTP, Instant Messaging, PPG

The notification protocol

The protocol is the means by which the sources report events to the notification server

Requirements Using a standard Internet protocol as a basis. Easy to understand, easy to use. Efficient, scalable. Requires minimal development effort from the sources. Can be easily extended to support future requirements.

The SNAP Protocol

SNAP – Simple Notification and Alarm Protocol Upon a new event, the Source sends a

notification request using the SNAP A notification component , within the MMS

Relay/Server receives the request and decides what to do with it

The MMS relay/Server sends the notification message to one or more notification destinations

The SNAP Protocol

Uses HTTP as the transport protocol. Current implementation

The notification request is a list of standard message types, similar to the way requests are sent to search engines, etc.

Handles mostly messaging and mailbox events. For example:

POST http://www.sonera.com/Notify ? RequestType=NewMsg & ServerName=Hotmail.com & MailboxName=Petri Timonen & From=rami.neudorfer@comverse.com & To=BigPetri@hotmail.com & Subject=MMS+Standardization & Urgent=Yes & ProtocolVersion=1.0.0.0 & ApplicationName=Hotmail & ApplicationVersion=3.2

Current status

Notification server with notification protocol implementation are part of Unified Messaging offerings.

Major E-Mail Vendors have integrated this protocol in their products: Isocor (Critical Path) IMS version 5.1 and up Integrated in iPlanet messaging servers Implemented by Microsoft SendIt, Cyntegra Advanced discussions with OpenWave Comverse messaging platform

MMSEMMSEMMS MMS ServerServer

Notification Notification ComponentComponent

Voice MailVoice Mail

Email Email ServerServer

CalendarCalendar

Sources:Sources:

SNAPSNAP

SMSSMS

EmailEmail

Voice Voice Msg.Sys.Msg.Sys.

Outputs:Outputs:

MMS MMS UAUA

SMS SMS ProtocolProtocol

SMTPSMTP

VPIMVPIM

MM1MM1

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