Description
TSAPI consisted of two primary parts, the TSAPI application programming interface itself, and a "telephony service provider" that ran on a server and talked to TSAPI clients. Novell produced one such provider, "TServer" that ran, unsurprisingly, on NetWare servers. TServer, in turn, talked to a driver specific to the brand of telephony switch being used. NetWare acted primarily as the operating system for TServer to run within, although TServer did make use of NetWare Directory Services for security and provisioning. The whole system from client-side drivers to server to PBX driver was known as "NetWare Telephony Services" (NTS), at least when using Novell software from top to bottom.
The TSAPI message formats were based on a standard promoted by the European Computer Manufacturers Association, which was directly supported by a number of European-built switches. When used with one of these switches, the driver between the TSAPI server and the switch was "thin". "Thicker" drivers were needed for switches that did not directly support these standards. The client-side TSAPI API was available for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2, Mac OS and UnixWare.
TSAPI is a control protocol only, it does not send actual voice data across the network for use with software-based phones. It includes commands for dialing, hanging up and so forth. TSAPI is a stateful protocol that required a channel, referred to as a stream, to be set up for all communications.
Read more about this topic: Telephony Server Application Programming Interface
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