Skip to main content

Communication platform as a service


Communications platform as a service (CPaaS) is a cloud-based delivery model that allows organizations to add real-time communication capabilities such as voice, video and messaging to business applications by deploying application program interfaces (APIs). The communication capabilities delivered by APIs include Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), telephony and video. Communication services can be embedded into business applications, such as sales software, to add features such as notifications, click-to-call and multifactor authentication.

CPaaS is deployed by organizations that want to embed communications in their business applications, as well as cloud service providers and developers looking to add communications capabilities to their applications and services. The platforms include standards-based APIs, comprehensive software developer's kits, and Java or .NET libraries for building applications on various platforms. CPaaS providers can also offer bundles that provide pre-packaged, fully functional communication features that can be dropped into applications. CPaaS is typically billed on a monthly basis at a fixed rate for blocks of messages or minutes. Some CPaaS providers offer a pay-per-call, per-video or per-message billing model.

CPaaS offers organizations a faster and lower-cost alternative to communication-enable applications rather than developing their own custom applications. Early CPaaS deployments have focused on applications in telehealth, field services, education, customer service and social media. The CPaaS market was originally driven by startups, such as Twilio, TokBox and Plivo, which offer APIs for embedding communications. Legacy unified communications vendors have entered the market with new services, including Genband's Kandy and Avaya's Breeze. Other vendors have acquired startups, such as Cisco acquiring Tropo and Vonage acquiring Nexmo.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ghosting

Ghosting is to cease communications without notification. The use of the word "ghost" as a verb originated in social media in reference to dating, but the term is now used by employers to describe employees and potential employees who suddenly disappear. Typically, ghosting is used to describe: Job candidates who suddenly stop responding to messages. New hires who fail to show up for their first day of work. Employees who do not show up for a shift. Employees who leave work in the middle of the day and never come back. Some analysts blame ghosting on millennial entitlement. The reasoning is that members of the millennial generation have been brought up to feel they are special -- so special, in fact, that they do not need to follow conventional rules of behavior. Other analysts, however, maintain that ghosting behavior stems from changes in the job market and the phenomenon is simply a reflection of the laws of supply and demand in a healthy jo...

Data deduplication

Data deduplication -- often called intelligent compression or single-instance storage -- is a process that eliminates redundant copies of data and reduces storage overhead. Data deduplication techniques ensure that only one unique instance of data is retained on storage media, such as disk, flash or tape. Redundant data blocks are replaced with a pointer to the unique data copy. In that way, data deduplication closely aligns with incremental backup, which copies only the data that has changed since the previous backup. For example, a typical email system might contain 100 instances of the same 1 megabyte (MB) file attachment. If the email platform is backed up or archived, all 100 instances are saved, requiring 100 MB of storage space. With data deduplication, only one instance of the attachment is stored; each subsequent instance is referenced back to the one saved copy. In this example, a 100 MB storage demand drops to 1 MB. Target vs. source deduplication Data deduplica...

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a computer chip that performs rapid mathematical calculations, primarily for the purpose of rendering images. A GPU may be found integrated with a central processing unit (CPU) on the same circuit, on a graphics card or in the motherboard of a personal computer or server. In the early days of computing, the CPU performed these calculations. As more graphics-intensive applications such as AutoCAD were developed; however, their demands put strain on the CPU and degraded performance. GPUs came about as a way to offload those tasks from CPUs, freeing up their processing power. NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and ARM are some of the major players in the GPU market. GPU vs. CPU A graphics processing unit is able to render images more quickly than a central processing unit because of its parallel processing architecture, which allows it to perform multiple calculations at the same time. A single CPU does not have this capability, although multi...