SIP Technology
Start Here to Learn About SIP!
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol that is used by technology products for creating session-oriented connections between two or more endpoints in an IP network. These endpoints could be IP telephones, instant messaging clients, or a collaborative multimedia conference application.
The core protocol itself (chiefly RFC 3261 to RFC 3265) is maintained within the IETF SIPCORE working group. Work on extensions to SIP is carried out in a number of IETF working groups established as needed. In addition, the IETF DISPATCH working group considers proposals for extensions to SIP and allocates work to new or existing working groups as appropriate. Note that prior to 2009, work was carried out in the former SIP and SIPPING working groups.
The SIPCORE and DISPATCH charters are available from the IETF website here:
http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/sipcore-charter.html
http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/dispatch-charter.html
It is important to note that the SIP Forum is not an SDO (Standards Development Organization) or protocol creation body; Our charter is to promote and advance the interoperability of products and services using SIP.
However, in this context, the Forum does assist the industry by specifying various recommendations on how industry vendors and service providers should select among choices available within the protocol itself in order to build and deploy products and services which are highly interoperable with each other.
The SIPconnect Technical Recommendation
The SIPconnect Technical Recommendation is an industry-wide, standards-based approach to direct IP peering between SIP-enabled IP PBXs and VoIP service provider networks. The SIP Forum promotes the SIPconnect initiative to the IP Communications industry, and supplies all input for future versions.
SIP Training and Other Resources
There a number of other resources – both online and in print — that are available to learn more about SIP and related technologies.
For example, there are online (and onsite) training courses available from the following companies: