Synopsis
The practical implementation of VoIP was started on hardware based IP Phones. The idea was well received and was transferred into the concept of Soft Phones or software based IP Phones. These softwares always required some additional installation to the native Operating System. Most common examples of Softphones or Software based SIP client is Counterpath's X-Lite and Bria.The Evolution of Software Development made it possible to translate or formulate equivalent of almost every desktop based application to web based application. This brought major shift in Software Industry as the web browsers are integral part of almost every Operating System. SIP clients, were also transformed into Web Extensions. Most of the time, Flash was used to develop such extensions however, it always required extra plugin installation, thus decreasing system performance, and increasing chance to troubleshoot as it required additional resources to be deployed. And this problem gave rise to the concept of WebRTC.
Overview
WebRTC provides the functionality of realtime multimedia applications without any installation of additional plugins, downloads or extensions. The ideal form of WebRTC describes such web based Real Time Communication independent of Browser being used by user. It's a Javascript based API originally being developed to develop browser to browser communication applications for Voice, Video and Peer to Peer File Sharing tasks.
Architecture
The architecture of WebRTC, as described by W3C looks something like this:
Design
Major components of WebRTC include:- getUserMedia, which allows a web browser to access the camera and microphone
- PeerConnection, which sets up the audio/video calls
- DataChannels, which allow browsers to share data via peer-to-peer
Support
Chrome WebRTC Development Team
Discussion List: https://groups.google.com/group/discuss-webrtcGoogle Plus Page: https://plus.google.com/113817074606039822053
Chrome WebRTC Issue Tracker: http://code.google. ...