An integrated and systematic approach for the development of telematic services in heterogeneous distributed platforms

The advent of deregulation combined with new opportunities opened by advances in telecommunications technologies has significantly changed the paradigm of telecommunications services, leading to a dramatic increase in the number and type of services that telecommunication companies can offer. Building new advanced multimedia telecommunications services in a distributed and heterogeneous environment is very difficult, unless there is a methodology to support the entire service development process in a structured and systematic manner, and assist and constrain service designers and developers by setting out goals and providing specific means to achieve these goals. Therefore, in this paper, after a brief examination of important service engineering matters and service modelling issues, a service creation methodology a proposed and presented focusing on its essential characteristics. The application of this methodology to the development of a multimedia conferencing service for education and training is then examined and a possible enhancement of the methodology through the use of design patterns and frameworks is considered finally.