SARK UCS/MVP Architecure

Block Diagram

SARK UCS/MVP _ has three distinct physical layers; the _Manager, the Generator, and the HSLE(High Speed Logic Engine). All three communicate with each other by either writing or reading tuples from the SARK UCS/MVP _ database. The _Manager takes user-input and creates entries in the database. The Generator reads the database and uses it to synthesise the various .conf asterisk files and other non-asterisk entities such as the phone defnitions in the tftp and http file structures. At Asterisk execution time, the HSLE is called by code within extensions.conf as a high speed helper and logic task. It uses the database as its environment map and applies the rules it finds there to manage overall system behaviour and call routing.

Manager

The manager is fully integrated into the SME Server manager component and runs on the same secure server. It is fairly unremarkable and has very similar objects (extensions, trunks, IVRs, Queues etc.) to many other asterisk workbenches. It also has some unique features of its own, for example the dynamic proxy manager, the PCI configurator, the automatic provisioning and template managers for devices and carriers, which you won't find in any other workbench.

Generator

The generator is completely integrated into the SME Server templating system. It has the ability to remember up to 6 full regressions. The generator logic fragments are all held in the e-smith/templates directory. The entire suite of target files is completely regenerated at each "commit" point and Asterisk is soft restarted,

HSLE

The HSLE is very small (64K) and very fast. It is written in pure C code and may be called many times per second in a busy environment. It allows the system to display complex behaviours not usually present in other Asterisk implementations. For example, SARK is probably the only asterisk implementation which has full lookahead call forward loop and spiral management (we know of no other). Such behaviours have been present in professional phone systems like Avaya's Definity for many years but are uually absent in the popular asterisk workbenches. The HSLE also significantly increases overall Asterisk system performance by removing complex logic from the, rather slow, Asterisk interpreter and executing it at near-machine-code speeds.

If you are familiar with Asterisk, you will be used to complex and lengthy logic structures within Asterisk's dialplan (extensions.conf). SARK UCS/MVP _ extensions.conf contains almost no logic. Instead it simply serves as a number-recognition engine (which Asterisk does very well). It also imposes structure on overall call flow by the use of Asterisk contexts and manages elements of the MVP ( _Mutiple Virtual PBX) mechanics.