Session integration service over multiple devices

One of the most important research subjects in session initiation protocol (SIP) is mobility management. Session mobility is a key issue in SIP mobility management. Session mobility is an advanced feature that maintains an ongoing media session from one device to another. In this paper, we consider the issue of session mobility and propose a complete integrated solution, referred to as ‘session integration service’, to transfer an ongoing media session over multiple devices. To provide flexibility in session mobility, three new agent states are introduced based on the user agent definition. They consist of session manager, session user, and free node. This paper also proposes two split session integration methods for session integration service based on these three agents. The proposed method provides session mobility flexibility and allows the user the ability to transfer, split, and retrieve a session over multiple devices. Moreover, the split session can be integrated in any devices. To ensure session mobility over multiple devices, the session integration service will be implemented through a modification of the open source project ‘SIP‐communicator’. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The concept of session integration service was introduced into SIP to transfer an ongoing media session over multiple devices, retrieve and integrate the transferred split sessions at any SIP device. We also built a prototype implementation based on the SIP‐Communicator to ensure the ability of the proposed mechanism. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.