# Natural Access components

Natural Access includes the following components:

Component | Description
--- | ---
Core | Provides lower-level command processing functions that are available in linkable libraries or as part of an executable Natural Access Server (ctdaemon).
Services | Groups of related telephony functions.

The following illustration shows the Natural Access components:

## Natural Access core functionality

When creating applications with Natural Access, you use Natural Access core functions to set up the operating environment and service functions to access telephony functionality. Natural Access core functions provide a standardized interface for performing tasks such as

- Initializing the Natural Access environment

- Creating, sharing, and destroying event queues

- Creating, sharing, and destroying contexts

- Opening and closing services

- Controlling parameters, events, and tracing

## Services

A service is a group of logically related telephony functions. A service can be implemented on multiple boards. All services with the same functionality have a standard API regardless of the hardware providing the functionality, allowing device-independent programming.

The following illustration shows a standard application programming interface (API):

Each service has a defined set of standard parameters managed by Natural Access. Equivalent services implemented on different hardware platforms can have additional parameters called extension parameters to handle unique functionality for that specific board. Natural Access provides the capability to access and modify both types of parameters.

Natural Access provides two types of services:

- Base services that provide generic functionality across a variety of applications.

- Domain services that provide special purpose functionality for a specific group of tasks.

### Base services

Natural Access provides the following base services:

- ADI service

- Digital Trunk Monitor (DTM) service

- Natural Call Control (NCC) service

- Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) service

- Parameter Management (PRM) service

- Point-to-Point Switching (PPX) service

- Switching (SWI) service

- Voice Message (VCE) service

For more information about a service, refer to the service-specific reference manual.

### Domain services

Natural Access provides the following domain services, available as separate installable packages:

- NaturalFax

- NaturalConference

- Media Stream Processing Protocol (MSPP)

### Service managers

Service managers are software wrappers surrounding one or more services. They implement the required Natural Access binding functions that enable a service to integrate into Natural Access. Service managers are provided as dynamic link libraries (DLL) in Windows or shared libraries in UNIX.

Note: Applications specify service managers during Natural Access setup.