Higher Ed: Regrouping Around Collaboration

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Higher Ed Regrouping Around Collaboration Mary
Trauner Georgia Institute of Technology,
ViDe Tyler Johnson University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill 2005 ESnet Collaboration
Workshop October 12-14, 2005 Berkeley, CA
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Three Presentations in One! A ViDe Transformation
(Mary) Adventures at the Internet2 Commons
(Mary) The Yellow Brick Road to Real Time
Communications (Tyler)

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The ViDe Transformation
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Our Mission
The Video Development Initiative (ViDe) promotes
the deployment of digital video in research and
higher education. Leveraging our collective
resources and expertise, ViDe advances digital
video deployment through promotion and
development of interoperable, standardized, and
cost-effective technologies.
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Who We Are What We Do

• Higher Education digital video professionals (US
  and International )
• Collaborations that architect, operationalize,
  educate, and influence commercial video products
  and standards
• Research activities leveraging support from many
  organizations

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Our Training and Outreach

• 7 Conferences focused on Digital Video
• Use in Higher Education
• Best Practices for Operations/Support
• Integrating new technologies
• Seminars on Specific RTC Topics
• Videoconferencing Cookbook (4 versions)
• H.350 Cookbook (2 versions)
• Dublin Core and Metadata Resources
• ViDe Web Site (3500 Visitors/Month)

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Our Activities and Services

• Dialing Scheme and Directory Services
• Standards Application Profile Development
• Vendor Collaborations
• Working Groups
• Research Portals
• Test Beds

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Our Organization

• Up to now
• Informal
• Steering Committee
• Working Groups

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Our Organization

• Future
• Fiscally Sponsored via SURA 501(c)3
• Name and Logos registered
• IP protection, business framework
• Formal planning processes
• Joint proposals and donations
• Targets
• Business Plan (November 1)
• Fiscal Sponsorship (January 1)

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Our Organization

• Future
• Bylaws
• Officers
• Chair, Secretary, Treasurer
• Steering Committee
• Working Groups
• Formal Membership Plan

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Steering Committee

• Current Members
• Grace Agnew
• Larry Amiot
• Markus Buchhorn
• Bob Dixon
• Jill Gemmill
• Chris Hodge
• Peter Marshall
• Ed Price
• Mary Trauner
• Egon Verharen
• Mary Fran Yafchak

• New Members
• David Devereau-Weber UW-Madison
• Leslie J. Finken UIowa
• Erik Hofer UMichigan
• Dan Kniesner OHSU
• Jennifer L. MacDougall UPenn
• Mike Pihlman LBNL ESNet
• Kewin Stoeckigt AARNet

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The Membership

• Future
• Individual Members
• Universities, colleges, research institutions,
  K-20 institutions
• Corporate Affiliates
• Corporations, other non-educational institutions
• Participation fees and benefits under study

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2006 Conference
Conference 2006Week of March 27 (last week of
March)Atlanta, Georgia Watch www.vide.net for
news..
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Adventures at the Internet2 Commons
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The Internet2 Commons Mission

• Promote and facilitate remote collaboration
  throughout the Internet2 research and education
  community by means of innovative and integrated,
  standards-based Internet technologies.
• Build on useful technologies to create
  collaboration services that are reliable,
  sustainable, scalable.

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The Internet2 Commons Services

• Polycom, Radvision, FVC,
• Tandberg, Codian, VRVS
• Streaming/archiving
• H.264, multicast bridging
• H.239, firewall traversal
• 24/7 help desk VERY successful
• 2,000 for 300 port/hrs or 1,000 for 100 port/hr
  backup
• Nearly 100 retention, 30 subscribers
• 2005 live online Site Coordinator Trainings
• H.323/SIP, GDS/H.350, Network troubleshooting,
  Data collaboration

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.Commons Hosting Environment
Wave Three and Marratech

• Both are SIP desktop collaboration suites
• Both work on Mac or PC
• Both include presence, chat, shared desktop,
  whiteboard, data collaboration, voice and video
• Marratech is lower quality and lower bandwidth.
• Challenges Windows servers are vulnerable. Many
  lessons learned about security firewalls. Tough
  business to be in for small companies. W3 is
  merging with others to share costs Venture
  Capital access. SIP standard isnt quite ripe.
  Incompatibility a problem.

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.Commons Hosting Environment
inSORS and Conference XP

• inSORS is a commercial version of the Access Grid
  that really works! Comes with all the
  collaboration tools. Requires multicast, supports
  H.264, Commons also runs inSORS bridges for
  unicast/multicast and AG/H.323.
• Conference XP, from Microsoft Research, is a
  PC-only, VRVS-like, full featured, desktop tool
  that uses Windows Media 9. Great tool, almost
  production-ready. Also prefers multicast.

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.Commons Outreach Training

• Revamped Trainings
• First 4 hr advanced module
• Supporting big research collaborations at FMM
• High definition videoconferencing to be at ViDe
  Workshop
• Online site coordinator trainings concept proven
• 120 attended first 2 remote trainings, to our
  surprise
• 50 fee paid for second training, still popular
• Will increase to 125 and see what happens,
  sustainable then.
• Intend to grow this area to spread the knowledge
• Remains our best outreach tool

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.Commons - Near Future

• Add Tandberg Management Suite for scheduling
• Add Managed Service Packages to Subscription
  model.
• Add parts of original vision (mpeg2)
• Consolidate global community of site coordinators
• Work toward Total Quality Managed Service with
  E2E monitoring across peering networks, tackle
  firewalls
• Working with Real-Time Communications-Advisory
  Group for guidance, future-proofing, and whole
  solution, big-picture design.

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.Commons - Sponsored Events

• Annual Bandwidth Fests
• Keystone Conference (2nd on October 3-5)
• Megaconference (6th on December 9)
• Annual Megaconference Jr. (2nd on May 19)
• Gigaconference (1st on August 5)

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Gigaconference

• Demonstrate and Assess the current state of the
  art of high-performance H.323 and other forms of
  video conferencing.
• Provide a venue for vendors to test, debug and
  demonstrate their highest-performance equipment.
• Provide a showcase for leading users of high
  performance video conferencing technology.
• Minimum Requirements
• 1 Mbps video speed
• 4 CIF resolution
• 30 fps

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Gigaconference

• The Participants
• Cleveland School of Music
• New World Symphony
• Mote Marine Laboratory
• CERMUSA (ambulance)
• Pier Wisconsin
• Ohio Supercomputer Center
• University of Helsinki
• Ohio State University
• Distance Learning 2005 Conference
• The Video
• If time permits

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The Yellow Brick Road to Real Time Communications

• RTC-AG Directions

October 2005

• Real Time Communications Advisory Group

• Dennis Baron, MIT
• Markus Buchhorn, ANU
• Ben Chinowsky (Scribe), Internet2
• Tammy Closs, Duke University  
• Phillipe Galvez, CalTech
• Jill Gemmill, University of Alabama at Birmingham
  
• Gwen Jacobs, Montana State University
• Tyler Johnson (Chair), University of North
  Carolina

• Ivan Judson, Argonne National Laboratory
• Deke Kassabian, Upenn
• Stephen Kingham, AARNet
• Walt Magnussen, Texas AM
• Steve Smith, University of Alaska
• Ben Teitelbaum, Internet2
• Mary Trauner, Georgia Tech
• Jonathan Tyman (Flywheel), Internet2
• Egon Verharen, SurfNet
• Garret Yoshimi, University of Hawaii

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The Problem

• Users should be able to easily collaborate across
  Internet2 but cannot.
• Multiple technology directions being pursued
  within campuses
• Internet2 working group activities fractured
• Overlap of work
• Multi solutions for similar problems (e.g.
  multiple dial plans)
• What is the message to community?
• What is the message to partners?

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Charter - Deliverables

• A technology/application architecture with a
  roadmap of what is available today and what is
  visible on the horizon, including identification
  of key standards that are necessary for
  interoperability of real time communications
  applications
• Recommendations for production, Internet2-wide
  and beyond, implementations of RTC tools and
  applications that integrate with work on
  middleware and include end-to-end diagnostics and
  support mechanisms
• A guide to RTC applications that will help
  members understand which of the applications or
  approaches may best fit their needs and
  information on how to best deploy them for
  different purposes in our community
• A recommendation on how best to align the
  production service, research and development
  activities now going on within Internet2. The
  result should be an alignment of working groups
  and a set of prioritized activities

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Audiences

• Campus
• CIO / Technology Decision Maker
• Why to do RTC and at what level
• IT Operational Staff
• How to do RTC, implementation
• Faculty Researchers
• Which tool are choices are available
• Vendor / Developer
• Understanding of Internet2s direction
• Bid specifications
• Invitations to partner in development

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RecommendationsTo Campuses

• The Value of RTC
• The value of working as a community to build
  inter realm RTC is in amplifying the campuses
  power to collaborate for research and
  instruction, thus increasing funding
  opportunities.
• Participate in order to be ready Organizational
  Readiness
• Maintain control of your enterprise
  communications
• Enables rapid response for inter-institutional
  efforts (research, public safety)
• Security!
• Value added by tying in RTC services to existing
  campus resources (ID Management auth-based
  services, groups roles, location based
  services, assurance of identity)
• Directives
• A model internal architecture
• Inter-campus signaling specifications
• Organizational and business considerations

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Obstacles to Campus Deployment

• It has not been articulated how RTC applications
  solve current problems on the ground RTC cant
  get above immediate budget priorities.
• Technical (e.g. firewall, NAT)
• Lack of ID Management system at a campus
• Lack of IDM integration makes RTC support too
  resource intensive, i.e. requires additional
  staff because not integrated
• Lack of recognition of value of centrally
  provided RTC services
• Organizationally complex issue crosses org
  boundaries

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The Yellow Brick Road
Deliverables Architecture Roadmap Recommended
Production Implementations Guide to RTC
Applications Working Group Alignment
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Case Study RTC Architectureat University of
North Carolina