Feature Interactions Between Internet Services and Telecommunication Services

Abstract

The automated run-time detection of feature interactions in Web 2.0 communications applications is an important problem that has not been addressed to date. Such web-enabled communication services are constructed as reusable web widgets that can be composed by users in a web interface. Widgetizing communication features as web services can better serve users with highly customizable features, friendly user interfaces, and easier integration with other web services. However, it also introduces new feature interaction problems. As we show, these composite communication services combine web services and VoIP features in highly dynamic interfaces with application and service state that is typically distributed across multiple domains. In this paper, we present these new feature interactions and propose our solution. We present ten different feature interactions and organize them into a taxonomy. A general method for detecting FIs is given in FOL notation. We also present a coordinator plug-in mechanism for independent widgets to share feature information and state that can be implemented in today's browsers. We finally describe a run-time algorithm for FI detection that is suitable for this architecture and uses the FI notation presented in the paper.