Platinum Rail Phase I MCTWG Workshop 1 May 2000

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Platinum Rail - Phase I MCTWG Workshop 1 May
2000
Jo Ann Murphy CIA/AAT/Information Sharing
Solutions
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Objectives

• Provide technical information on IC tool
  interoperability
• IBM/Lotus Sametime
• General Dynamics InfoWorkSpace
• Microsoft BackOffice/Office2000/NetMeeting
• Mitres Collaborative Virtual Workspace (CVW)
• Focus on synchronous functionality
• Address complex issues (security, policy,
  performance, and platform diverity) in Phase II

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Basic Approach

• Six-stage evaluation process to gather data on
  the levels of interoperability
• 1. Document the products functionality
• 2. Demonstrate basic interoperability (test
  clients with foreign servers)
• 3. Discover client software installation
  conflicts
• 4. Determine if these conflicts affect
  interoperability
• 5. Determine if servers from different systems
  can operate independently on same network
• 6. Demonstrate direct server-to-server
  communication, if possible

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Tool Architecture

• The four IC collaboration frameworks employ a
  client-server architecture, where the client is
  one of these
• Java applets that run in the Browsers JVM
• Java applets plus plug-ins that must be installed
  in addition to the Browser
• a Java client application that contains its own
  JVM and does not require a Browser
• a native stand-alone client application

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Test Results
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Test Results (continued)
1 Works with NetMeeting 3.01, does not work
with NetMeeting 2.11. 2 Works with NetMeeting
2.11, does not work with NetMeeting 3.01. 3
Session Management is via the Browser
only. 4 Works as a demo if a Browser and
NetMeeting 2.11 are installed
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Summary / Findings

• IC members have two choices for attending virtual
  meetings outside of native collaboration
  environment
• Use
• Browser (i.e., Netscape or Internet Explorer,
  with or without plug-ins)
• Browser plus a standards-based application to
  interface with standards-based server ( i.e.,
  NetMeeting)
• Most tool vendors use browser interface for
  meeting management functions not yet standardized
  
• Mixed clients did not cause problems