Collectors
A Collector is a core data capture component used to connect to a communications endpoint (telephony system), both to capture the Conversation media and metadata, and securely stream data in realtime to the U‑Capture Core Services via a NATS Streaming Server. Due to its lightweight microservice architecture, the Collector consumes very little compute resources. Collectors are deployed and managed using Docker Compose on a separate host or hosts to the U‑Capture Core Services, providing flexible deployment and resiliency options. Docker Compose is similar to Kubernetes, providing orchestration and management of multi-container applications.
High call volume capacity, up to 3000 channels per collector (channels usually refers to participants of a call, for example a stereo call consisting of an agent and a customer would take up two channels).
Each Collector supports a single integration (telephony system).
Multiple Collectors per system, providing both scalability and resiliency.
Local NATS message caching for data persistence for network outages and disaster recovery.
Deployed as Docker Containers using Docker Compose, enabling complete portability and deployment flexibility.
Collector Components
A Collector is comprised of the following core components:
Media Connection: Used to actively capture the media stream from recorded devices. The connection type used is dependent on the integration, although typically audio is captured via an RTP connection, and connections may be direct to individual devices or via a PABX or Media Gateway.
Metadata Connection: Used to actively capture the metadata stream from recorded devices. The connection type used is dependent on the integration, although typically metadata is captured via a SIP, CTI, or telephony specific connection.
PCAP: Used to passively capture media and metadata from recorded devices (depending on the integration).
Integration Adapter: This component handles the data processing steps such as, decoding, encoding, and decryption, and also creates the payload (data chunks) to be transmitted via the NATS Streaming Server.
NATS Streaming Server: An open source, lightweight, high-performance, cloud native infrastructure messaging system. It’s used by the Collector to deliver the media and metadata chunks to the U-Capture Core Media and Metadata Consumers In the Core Services and offers “at-least-once” delivery guarantees by implementing publish and delivery acknowledgements, and persisting messages to a local store until messages have been successfully delivered.
Local Storage: The Collector is resourced with a persistent local store used as a temporary backup of the NATS data chunks and utilizes disk encryption for secure local storage of data. This storage is especially useful if the Collector is unable to communicate with the U‑Capture Core Services.
Health Services: Provide health monitoring, performance metrics, and diagnostics to the U-Capture core health services.
Configuration: The Collector configuration can be managed via the U-Capture Configuration API from the U-Capture Core Services.
Note
The features, functions, connections, and capabilities for each recording integration type are detailed in the recording Integration Technical Guidelines. Details specific to each customer deployment are provided in your U-Capture Solution Design Document from Uniphore.
Capturing call data via Collectors is one way that U-Capture can integrate with communication systems, for cloud integrations the Audio Connector can be used to capture directly from those systems. See the relevant Integration Guidelines topic for integration specific information, and see Audio Connector for more information on the Audio Connector's functions in the system.