EMS General Description

General Description

The Enhanced Media System (EMS) consists of a family of high-performance and scaleable software and hardware systems designed to provide the most cost-effective and reliable solutions.
The Enhanced Media System has two major system-level components

and software at the subscribers end to empower their desktop applications to submit documents as faxes to EMS over Internet.

Typical Enhanced Media System Environment

A single GMS is required for operation of the Enhanced Media System. A minimum of two Advanced Media Server’s also are required as the foundation of the Enhanced Media System network. The system servers are connected over a wide area network with backbone as Internet. Connectivity to Internet can be via a Lease line, T1/E1, ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM depending upon the feasibility & suitability of the connection in that area. EFS system supports any combination of Internet connectivity medium. Also the connectivity can be attained by a dial-up access depending upon the traffic.

Each of the AMS support a minimum of 4 fax ports and up to a maximum of 16 fax ports. AMS's can be cascaded by a LAN to have theoretically infinite number of ports at each node; however, practicality suggests a number in the low hundreds. One AMS at the node acts as a Master which controls the flow & scheduling of faxes to other slave AMS's. Receiving and sending of faxes take place from the fax ports on the slave AMS's. This allows for an almost unlimited expansion of the system capacity at each node and Enhanced Media System.

Each Advanced Media Server on the network acts as a Store & Forward gateway between PSTN-based fax devices and the Advanced Fax System. Fax traffic is introduced to the network by placing a normal fax call to the selected Advanced Media Server. The fax is stored at that Advanced Media Server and then routed over TCP backbone over Internet to a remote Advanced Media Server. When received at the remote Advanced Media Server, a call is placed to the destination fax machine. After the fax has been transmitted to the destination machine, the originator is notified with an acknowledgment.

The silent partner in this transaction is the GMS. Subscriber maintenance, development of the routing tables, and system addressing of the Advanced Media Server's is all accomplished through the GMS. However, as the GMS downloads all necessary operational information to the Advanced Media Server’s, the GMS is not required during operation. Not having to rely on the GMS is a major advantage of the Enhanced Media System. Any service provider will be able to appreciate the operational independence this will provide.