ActiveXperts SMS Messaging Server - Product Overview
SMS Messaging Server is an SMS messaging framework that enables companies to send, receive and process SMS- and e-mail messages.
The framework is designed support virtually any scenario where low-and high volume SMS messaging is required. Use SMS Messaging Server in the following scenarios:
- Mobile users are able to query databases for stock quantities, new orders or customer information
- Mobile users can receive critical information while they are away from the office
- Mobile users can receive notifications when important e-mails (from specific users or with specific subjects) have arrived
- Companies can route urgent calls to the service personnel
- Companies can send daily (stock) prices to their personnel or customers
- Remote workers can update their time sheets
- IT personnel can remotely restart services or reboot servers
- Multimedia companies - like radio stations and television stations - can setup their own voting system, enabling customers to bring out votes and request voting reports
- Entertainment companies - like bars and dancing's - can send out information about special events to their customers
- Emergency Response Centers can offer a service to locals to report crime by a short message
This is just selection of scenarios. There are a lot of other scenarios where SMS Messaging Server can be used.
SMS Messaging Server runs as a background service on any
Windows server (Vista/2003/2000/NT) platform. It also runs on Windows XP.
The front-end applications (i.e. the graphical user interface and the API) can be installed an run on any Windows 98 or higher computer.
The product is shipped with a set of sample projects that work out of the box! You can send and receive a limited number of SMS messages through our SMPP Demo Server.
SMS Messaging Server Design
The Message Database and the Configuration Database play a central role in the SMS Messaging Server (see also
figure 1):
- The Configuration Database contains all configuration parameters, like communication devices, scripts, general settings, etc. Can be any OLE/DB compliant database, like MS Access, MS SQL and MySQL (default: MS Access);
- The Message Database contains all incoming and outgoing messages. Can be any OLE/DB compliant database, like MS Access, MS SQL and MySQL (default: MS Access).
| |
| Fig. 1: SMS Messaging Server Design |
SMS Messaging Manager API
The SMS Messaging Server allows you to create, delete and modify in/outgoing messages, as well as process incoming messages. The API can be used in any ActiveX/COM compliant development language, incl.
VBScript, Javascript, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.NET, Visual Basic, Visual C++, ASP, ASP .NET, PHP, Delphi and more.
SMS
- Send and Receive SMS messages on multiple communication lines simultaneously;
- Support for GSM Modems and GSM phones (GSM 07.05 and GSM 07.07 specifications) for low-volume messaging;
- Support for SMPP-compliant SMSC centers (SMPP 3.x) for high-volume messaging, according to Industry Standard SMPP 3.x for external and internal connections;
- Support for multiple SMPP/SMSC connections and multiple GSM modems/phones running simultaneously;
- Support for multi-numbering formats;
- Support for multi-part messages, to allow messages longer than 160 characters;
- Support for SMS delivery verification;
- Support for Unicode, to support foreign languages like Chinese, Turkisch, etc.;
- Support for WAP Push messages and WAP Bookmark messages;
- Support for traffic limitations (maximum number of SMS messages per day);
- Full TAPI (Windows Telephony) support;
- Incoming SMS messages are stored in a central, vendor-independent message database (default: MS Access);
- Outgoing SMS messages are fetched from the message database and sent through an available GSM/SMPP communication channel;
- All SMS communications can be viewed real-time using the SMS Messaging Monitor application;
E-mail
- Send and Receive e-mail messages on multiple network connections simultaneously;
- Native SMTP- and POP3 support;
- Incoming e-mail messages are stored in a central message database (default: MS Access);
- Outgoing e-mail messages are fetched from the message database and sent through an available SMTP communication channel;
- All E-mail communications can be viewed real-time using the SMS Messaging Monitor application;
Database
- All configuration information is stored in a central, vendor independent database. An MS Access based configuration is installed by default. SQL scripts are provided to streamline migration to MS SQL or any other vendor-independent database;
- All incoming and outgoing messages is stored in a central, vendor independent database. An MS Access based message database is installed by default. SQL scripts are provided to streamline migration to MS SQL or any other vendor-independent database;
- The SMS Messaging Server Manager enables you to define different views of the database;
- An API is provided to allow custom scripting. The API provides full access to the Configuration Database and the Message Database.
Scripting
Scripting plays a very important role in SMS Messaging Server. Each incoming message (SMS or e-mail) will be processed by the system
- VBScript is the default scripting language;
- Each incoming message is processed by the system. Depending on the Script configuration in the Configuration Database, one or more VBScript programs are triggered to process the message;
- The SMS Messaging Server API can be used in VBScript. A lot of sample code is included, showing how to use the API in VBScript;
Monitoring, Logging and Tracing
- The Monitor applications shows the real-time activity of the Channels; all modem operations and network operations (SMPP, POP3 and SMTP) can be viewed real-time;
- Logging can be written to ASCII files, an MS Access database, MS SQL server or any other OLE-DB/ADO compliant database. Product is shipped with an Access database file that works out-of-the-box;
- Maximum Log size is configurable.
- Message tracing allows you to see exactly what happened with a message, at what time. For instance, you can see at what time a message was received by a POP3 server, at what time it was received by SMS Messaging Server and at what time it was processed by the system.
System requirements
The SMS Messaging Server service must be running on a Windows server platform, and must meet either of the following requirements:
| Windows 2003 | Windows 2000 | Windows Vista | Windows XP | Windows NT4 | CPU | x86 550MHz or higher | x86 133MHz or higher | x86 800MHz or higher | x86 233MHz or higher | 486DX 33MHz or higher | Memory | 256MB or more | 128MB or more | 512MB or more | 128MB or more | 96MB or more | Service Pack | - | SP1 or higher | - | - | SP5 or higher | Free diskspace | 50MB | 50MB | 50MB | 50MB | 50MB |
|
The Client Tools (i.e. graphical user interface applications and the API) can be running on any Win98SE or higher operating system. There are no special requirements for running the Client Tools.
SMS Messaging Server requires a database to store its SMS- and e-mail messages. By default, an MS Access database is used. To improve performance, ActiveXperts recommends an MS SQL database (MS SQL 2000 or higer).
It can be an MS SQL database on a remote server. SMS Messaging Server is provided with a migration wizard that migrates the message database seamless to a (remote) MS SQL database.
Case Studies
There are several Case Studies for ActiveXperts SMS Messaging Server. Each case study describes an implementation of ActiveXperts SMS Server, and can help you designing and implementing ActiveXperts
SMS Server in your own organization.