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High-speed Network Projects. Tibor Gyires School of Information Technology Illinois State University BIAC/TAB Meeting October 17, 2003. Contents Traditional Collaborative/Teleconferencing Systems Collaboration via the Grid Network Performance Measurements.
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High-speed Network Projects Tibor Gyires School of Information Technology Illinois State University BIAC/TAB Meeting October 17, 2003
Contents • Traditional Collaborative/Teleconferencing Systems • Collaboration via the Grid • Network Performance Measurements
Technologies POTS, ISDN, T-1, microwave, Satellite, and IP Point-to-Point Multipoint Some popular tools are: H.323 based Hardware Assist, OpenH.323, Software Clients, VRVS, MPEG, Motion JPEG (MJPEG), Access Grid, Web Clients, etc.
2. Collaboration via the Grid • Grid: A heterogeneous complex of advanced networks, computers, storage devices, display devices, and scientific instruments. • NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure: An integrated system of interconnected computation, communication, and information elements that supports a range of applications. • “Cyberinfrastructure is the means; e-Science is the result.”
Access Grid • A suite of hardware and software that supports collaboration via high-speed networking. • Contains high-end audio and visual technology needed to provide a high-quality compelling user experience. • Remote application and data sharing. • Any site can transmit as many streams as suit their needs. • It uses IP-multicast for the transport mechanism eliminating the need for a Multipoint Control unit (MCU). • It is based on free available standards and open-source software.
Access Grid (cont.) • Enables groups of collaborators to increase productivity by reducing the work involved in finding expert resources, people, publications, source code, data and computing resources. • Used for classroom lectures, training, invited talks, and collaborative activities, such as strategy and management meetings.
Virtual Venues • In order for a person or a group to communicate with another person or group, both persons or groups can meet in a virtual venue room. • There are many virtual venue rooms available. • Some venues require reservations.
Wide Range of Configurations • Personal node with compact display and a single video and audio stream. • Room node with multiple desktop computers and projectors. • Advanced node with tiled displays and multiple video streams.
Personal Nodes • A minimal node has a compact display, single video stream, and single audio stream (e.g., a handheld device). • A laptop node has a laptop display, minimum number of video streams, and single audio stream. • A desktop node has a desktop monitor, some number of video streams, and a single audio stream.
Personal Node Scenario • Each person has an Access Grid node configured on his or her laptop and all the participants navigate to the same venue. • They have unique PowerPoint and Excel files located on their laptop that they wish to share with the group. • Their files will all appear on the venue client window and they can open each file and see each other’s files on their laptop. • One or more participants can control the application while everyone else watches.
Room-based Node Scenario • Demo • Video capture and audio processing run on one or more Linux operating system computers. • Multiple users have a shared display, multiple video streams, and a single audio stream. • A large display area (often projected onto a screen or wall), with 3 projectors, and microphones and cameras.
Remote Group Interactions • Small, informal meetings that a manager calls rapidly. • Large meetings planned in advance. • Training sessions, seminars, and classes. • Project and program reviews with other units • Medium-to-large conferences.
Advantages • Substantially reduce travel. • Hold regular meetings nationally or worldwide without leaving our offices. • Real-time access to a worldwide community of teachers, experts, researchers who collaborate over the Access Grid, both within an organization, at universities, and in industry.
Computing Equipment • The Display Computer is responsible for video decoding and running applications on the Display Screen. • The Video Capture Computer is responsible for the software compression of multiple video streams. • The Control Computer is to run the control software for the Gentner echo cancellation hardware.
Media Equipment • Audio processing hardware, microphones, speakers, video cameras, etc.
Matchmaker Matchmaker matches semi-pro, industrial and consumer audio equipment into professional balanced systems:
Projection Equipment • Projectors and Screen A minimum of three projectors is recommended to provide adequate display space for AG images with at least 1024x768 pixel resolution. • WallTalkerLike a wallpaper used as a non-reflecting projector display screen. Using a special felt pen, a presenter can write on it and erase it like a white board.
Bandwidth Considerations • Peer-to-peer relationship; all users can stream to all other users. • 10 Mb/sec will typically support a meeting with three AG nodes. Each additional participating AG node will consume roughly 2 Mb/sec of IP multicast bandwidth. • Video codecs only send changes of the image. A room with little motion will have high-quality images on little bandwidth, while a room with many changes will consume more bandwidth and may have poorer quality.
Connections • A multicast enabled 100bT connection to the node hardware is required and at least DS3 bandwidth to the Internet from the node is recommended.
Platforms • The Access Grid Toolkit 2.1 supported platforms: • RedHat Linux, Microsoft Windows2000, XP, Mac OS. • Personal node installation of Access Grid: Personal Interface Grid (PIG) Toolkit 2.1 on Windows.
Applications • Distributed, collaborative college courses. • Guest lecturer in a course. • Collaborative students’ projects. • Distributed Network Modeling and Simulation. • Co–teaching a course. • Participating in Megaconferences (Universities and organizations from throughout the country or other countries), etc.
3. Other Projects • End-to-end Performance Evaluation and Analysis Measure and better understand the characteristics of the traffic generated by high-speed network applications. • Quality of Service The goal is to evaluate and measure the performance of various QoS solutions. • Security The research will focus on the security services that can be used on campuses.
References [1] Robert S. Dixon, “Internet Videoconferencing; Coming to Your Campus Soon!”, Educause Quarterly, Number 4, 2000 [2] http://e2epi.internet2.edu/ [3] http://www.accessgrid.org/ [4] http://www.internet2.edu [5] http://www.vide.net