Digital Content and Internet2: Framing the Opportunities

1. Digital Content and Internet2:Framing the Opportunities ISC Meeting 26 October 2004

2. Topics • April ISC - scan of academic projects • Current Industry Partner Projects • Academic needs in Content Delivery • Technical Considerations • Scope of Work and Resource • Where do we go from here?

3. April ISC Briefing • A broad slice across academic uses of Abilene and high-end networks, from ASC • Wide variety of applications generating digital content flows – multimedia knowledge, video streams, medical apps, etc. • Two types of advanced apps • High-performance scientific, scholarly, cultural collaborations – Grids, performance art, etc • Leading-edge mass market apps – creating such apps and taming them for market – web, video, presence, etc.

4. Movielink Project • Movielink recognizes that pirates will not go away. Movielink must out compete them. • Wants to test performance of delivery to three campuses across the country • Wants to try different delivery architectures and protocols • Central server • Distributed servers • Multicast

5. Warner Bros • Wants to use Internet2 for trials of new technologies • However they do not currently distribute their own content • Possibilities • Streaming HD promos • Interactive gaming (new area business for them) • Delivery of daily shoots to editors

6. Napster • Wants to put servers on Abilene for delivery of content to campuses • Developing a Project Plan • The Plan needs to identify value to the Internet2 community

7. Software Distribution • Microsoft SP2 Release • Redhat • What do we have to learn from these?

8. Current Mode of Commercial Operations • Each vendor develops their own set of Architectures, Formats, Protocols and Infrastructure for the delivery of the content • No system is fully compatible with any other system. • Customers must have systems from each provider

9. Academic Content Delivery • Multimedia Class Materials • Publishers • Digital Libraries • Research Data

10. A Goal ? • The Goal is to define and implement an infrastructure that will provide base for a wide variety of content delivery applications. It will be built on existing Architectures, Formats, and Protocols that can be adopted or developed to create an efficient, easy to use environment for the end user and provider.

11. The Business Model Drives Everything • Technology is used to support a Business Model • However a Business Model is not viable unless the technology exists to implement it • We need to identify some key business models as we evolve the technology

12. Life Cycle of the Content • Obtaining the Content • Storage of the Content • Use of the Content

13. Delivery Time Frame • Interactive, Real-time, minimum delay • Streaming, Broadcast, < minute delay • Download, Off-line use, delay not so important

14. Network Protocols • TCP, new versions of TCP – Reliable Delivery • RTP, Support for Real-Time applications • UDP, Catch-all when others don’t work • Multicast – one-to-many delivery • New Built-in Functions • Forward Error Correction • Encryption • Compression • Security, Dealing with Firewalls and NATs

15. Content Formats • Compatible between the sender and receiver • Should be optimized for transmission by packets at least for interactive and streaming delivery. • Consider effects on network traffic and compute cycles for things like compression, encryption, error correction.

16. Possible Delivery Architectures • Direct Point-to-Point • Hierarchical Servers • Proxy Servers • One-to-Many

17. Digital rights management • Set of functions • Authorization to control operations on digital objects • Wide variety of controls, from R-W-X through annotate, extract a 15-sec clip under fair use, index, etc. • Includes view once, view but not copy, pay per use, etc. • Heavily patent-complicated • Set of tools • Viewers • Extractors and manipulators • Set of data and metadata • Lots of formats • Lots of metadata wars (rights languages,etc.)

18. Client Issues • Highly appliance dependent • Delivery must know presence, characteristics of the client device • User may wish to convert among appliances • Computer desktop tends to have proprietary ownership • Last mile performance very hard to effect

19. Work already being done A lot of individual efforts are being done on parts of the overall content delivery area, from both the R&E and Industry sides. Many of the basic goals are the same. We need to bring these efforts together in a common framework to provide the system picture, glue them together, and identify new areas of work that should be started.

20. NSF Digital Rights Workshop • Sponsored by Internet2, CNI, EDUCAUSE, and NSF • Held in the early days of middleware, when it was only vapors • Defined a spanning set of use cases • Suggested parts of an architecture • No follow-on funding; campus personnel moved positions; ahead of its time

21. Issues and Opportunities • Aligning agendas • Among corporate members • Between campus members and corporate members • Between researcher and practitioner • Attracting the research community • Which research groups and how to support interdisciplinary work • The need for funding • Real and opportunity costs • Is there a systems strategy? • What parts to work on? • Do piecewise advancements work and show progress? • Who are the partners?

22. Outside of scope • Real-time communication scenarios • Piracy prevention/detection tools per se • Focus is on enabling authorized use • Part of the solution, still part of the problem • Collaboration tools and technologies

23. Not the Real Issues • Peer-to-peer architectures • Peer-to-peer trust fabrics • Patent trading

24. Areas of work • Network/Storage Layer • Servers, caching, multicast, performance • Access Control/Digital Rights Management • Formats for delivery • Actions that can be performed on the content • Client Issues • Web-based approaches • Non web services • Firewalls, NAT’s and other middleboxen • Business/Marketplace Model

25. Bringing to Bear • A Systems Orientation • Expertise • Central within Internet2 in a few cases • Flywheeling initiatives • Often at campuses • IT organizations • Engagement with the research community • Engagement with the open-source development community • High Performance Network • End-end to dorms • End to server in other instances • Federation and Basic Access Control • Some middleware-related work in client applications

26. How to proceed? • Discussions with Councils (NPPAC,ISC,ASC) • Workshop to create an Initiative Plan • Create an Architecture Advisory Group • Identify key business models • Identify and support key projects that will advance the development of the architecture. • Working Groups to achieve specific goals • Resources for the above?