Client Avaya is a global leader in communication systems, applications, and services for enterprises.
Product Avaya has multiple voice response products that support speech-enabled telephony applications. These products are built on open-standards using VXML (Voice XML) ifor application development and now MRCP (Media Resource Control Protocol) for network based speech synthesis and recognition.
Project The Avaya Intuity Response product interfaced with multiple external vendors or Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) for use in voice response applications. Each time a new vendor was supported by the product, extensive internal development had to be done to support the vendor interface. Magpie was brought in to transition the product to a single external interface using the MRCP open-standard to control audio/video resources in the network. MRCP is supported by multiple ASR/TTS vendors. The original problem and the Magpie MRCP transition are depicted below:
Magpie wrote the requirements, test plans and implemented the MRCP interface, built on RTSP and RTP, within the Avaya Intuity Response product. Then Magpie modified internal platform components to configure, recognize and use the MRCP implementation for all ASR and TTS needs. As always, extensive automated unit testing was delivered to verify all operations and allow for rapid development changes. At the functional level, Magpie verified legacy and VXML voice response applications, their correct operation and their performance using MRCP with the three major ASR/TTS vendors at that time. Avaya was developing a new, larger-scale voice response platform (Avaya Voice Portal) to be based on VXML and using MRCP. Due to the quick turnaround and success of the previous project, Magpie was again used to provide the MRCP implementation for the new product. Magpie reused the previous implementation and modified it to support the administration, application and platform interfaces of the new product.
Outcome The Magpie MRCP development for Avaya Intuity Response was a large architectural change in the product yet done within a very short interval, allowing rapid transition to the market and supporting a key alliance announcement with an ASR/TTS vendor. The MRCP development for the Avaya Voice Portal is a good example of Magpie code structure and reusability. The code was migrated to a different OS and environment in a matter of weeks and before many of the other platform components had been completed; yet no MRCP problems were reported and found when the platform was finally complete.
More Info For other voice response related Magpie projects visit the VXML case study.
