Developing applications that mix and match conventional business processes into a solution with communication processes no longer requires you to write low-level code. It's all about converging business applications and telecommunications applications in a service creation environment. By using plug-ins, you can open the doors to a plethora of additional functionality not already available in Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), making the development, management and deployment process easier and more efficient.

The Basics of Creating Converged Services
Whether you're an experienced developer or just starting out, you're probably acquainted with the IDE your company uses and its various capabilities provided through plug-ins, including the ability to create Web and other services. IDEs and service creation environments like Eclipse, Avaya Dialog Designer, Microsoft Visual Studio, Sun's NetBeans, and IBM WebSphere operate in desktop-based environments running Windows, UNIX, or Linux and sometimes multiple operating systems. They take advantage of plug-ins that allow you to compose, build and debug applications quickly and easily.

For example, one such plug-in is the Avaya Ubiquity Developer Studio (UDS), which provides additional functionality to the Eclipse IDE, such as the ability to create Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) applications for deployment on the Avaya SIP Application Server. UDS is integrated with the Ubiquity Developer Edition (UDE) runtime version of the SIP Application Server environment where you can build, deploy, test and debug your applications directly in the desktop environment.

UDS takes advantage of the plug-in framework of Eclipse to make it easier to create, integrate and utilize software tools. Using Eclipse, the widely-used IDE for developing rich-client applications, provides you with an information technology view of telecommunications software development, which allows you to use the same IDE interface, debugging tools and development process to create converged applications, as you would for web applications. UDS is a collection of plug-ins for the Eclipse platform that supports effective creation of applications that can be deployed on the SIP Application Server.

Definitions
Let's review some basic definitions as they relate specifically to creating services for converged applications in a service creation environment.

A service creation environment is a development environment, such as Eclipse, that allows you to create services with familiar development tools. You can create converged applications that combine traditional business processes with telephony by creating Web services and reusable components. Service creation environments simply allow you to create these services through your existing IDE.

Next, plug-ins add new functionality to existing development environments you are already familiar with, such as test packages, a library of test functions, and validation functions. Let's take a look at Avaya and some third-party plug-ins available to you through the Eclipse platform as an example.