Distributed feature composition: a virtual architecture for telecommunications services

Distributed Feature Composition (DFC) is a new technology for feature specification and composition, based on a virtual architecture offering benefits analogous to those of a pipe-and-filter architecture. In the DFC architecture, customer calls are processed by dynamically assembled configurations of filter-like components: each component implements an applicable feature, and communicates with its neighbors by featureless internal calls that are connected by the underlying architectural substrate