SIP Interop Test StartsSIP Interop Test Starts

The 14th SIPit event has begun testing the functionality of Session Initiation Protocol devices

February 13, 2004

3 Min Read

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France -- On Monday the sun was shining outside the Royal Casino hotel in Mandelieu, France, but for the 130 engineers sent here from 60 companies, that was out of sight and out of mind as the SIP interoperability test (SIPit) got underway, hosted for the third time in its history by the Plugtests(tm) service of ETSI.

The 14th SIPit, like other SIPit's before it, is testing the SIP functionality of SIP User Agents, proxy servers, software, phones, IP gateways, voice mail systems, protocol testers, etc. This is being done in (mostly) peer-to-peer tests and some multi-party tests, with over 30 percent of the SIP implementations here being completely new products.

Robert Sparks, of the SIP Forum Board of Directors, commented:

"Worldwide adoption of SIP is steadily increasing. The SIPITs are an essential part of refining the level of interoperability as new implementations appear and existing implementations are improved.

The excellent testing environment provided by ETSI Plugtests allowed the SIPIT 14 participants to focus on rigorous testing of the core protocols and the important ways SIP is used in deployed networks. Many participants are also getting to test advanced functionality, from IPv4/IPv6 translation to video conferencing."

Rohan Mahy, Cisco Systems, Co-Chair of the IETF SIP and SIPPING Working Groups, expressed his support for the event:

"SIPit is a great opportunity for those of us involved in the standardization of SIP to see what really works. Because of SIPit we can test functionality such as End-to-end security, IPv6, and NAT traversal well before the relevant standards are cast in stone. This makes for better standards and leads to better understanding of the standards and better implementation quality".

SIP is a non-proprietary Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard for real-time Internet communication services. The testing in Mandelieu this week is aimed at identifying cases where equipment does not work together. This will allow trouble-shooting and re-testing and, where needed, problems with the specification could also be fed through to the standards making process.

Karl Heinz Rosenbrock, the ETSI Director General, stated:

"ETSI is proud to be hosting the SIPit event, which is clearly fostering a great spirit of cooperation between partners and competitors from the IT and telecoms world".

Daniel Petrie, of Pingtel Corp., observed:

"SIPit provides the industry's only real opportunity to test field-deployable solutions with complex configurations outside of development and enterprise labs. We have been an active participant in all 14 events and have always found the experience tremendously valuable as a community member and product vendor."

One of the major reasons for the success of the SIPit series is undoubtedly that these tests are non-competitive in nature. Involving testing of code and products in various states of maturity, without fear of failure. Results of testing are not circulated outside of the SIPit auditorium and all of the participants stick to the rules that ensure that SIPit and all Plugtests events for that matter, are strictly "engineering" events.

However, it is no secret that the SIPit events are a success wherever in the world they are held. After successful events in the U.S. and Europe, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan will host the Fifteenth SIPit event, during September 2004.

The current SIPit event ends tomorrow.

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