Global Platform for Rich Media Conferencing and Collaboration Philippe Galvez California Institute of Technology Feb 2nd, 2004 DESY Seminar

VRVS: What it is ? The Virtual Rooms Videoconferencing System has been developed by Caltech since 1995 to provide a world wide videoconference service for education and research communities. VRVS is a realtime distributed system which provide a scalable communication infrastructure for large collaboration dispersed all over the world. Different technologies and protocols are supported (and mixed) and allow users to connect their preferred videoconference. Supports Mbone, H.323, SIP, QuickTime, Access Grid, JMF and MPEG2. The system is composed of 1 main server and several reflectors (network servers) spread around the world.

VRVS Web Service Design Unified Web User Interface to schedule and join/leave a meeting independently of the application. Multi-platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS and Unix Easy to use: Everybody (from 4 to 77 years old) knows how to click on a web page today. Not true for running a VCR Virtual Room Concept, Scheduling; Create a virtual space were people can exchange real-time information Join or Leave a Collaborative session anytime. Do not need to know in advance how many participants and booked ports capacity. Just announce the meeting and people will join from anywhere. Full Documentation and Tutorial Self service: Don’t need a technician or expert to organize and join a conference

VRVS Reflector Implementation Avoids Duplication of Streams on a given Link Can be set to Unicast or Multicast mode or both Connection peer-to-peer with neighbors network servers. Connectionless (more reliable to network breaks) Enables Optimized Routing Enables Bandwidth Control Provide low latency communication Could be use for real-time interactivity or broadcast Provide elegant solution to cross firewall/NAT Remote Management Features. Compliant with IETF RTPv2 Protocol, ready for new applications.

VRVS Model Implementation VRVS Web User Interface Mbone Tools (vic, vat/rat,..) SIP H.323 QuickTime Player MPEG Minerva Applications Collaborative VRVS Reflectors (Unicast/Multicast) QoS Real Time Protocol (RTP/RTCP) Network Layer (TCP/IP) done Partially done Work in progress Continuously in development

VRVS Deployment and Usage

VRVS Reflectors Deployment 78 Reflectors deployed worlwide

VRVS Reflectors Deployment 79 reflectors Deployment World wide in 27 Different Countries USA 27 Spain 5 Brazil Switzerland UK 3 France Slovakia Canada 2 Taiwan Greece Portugal Israel Japan Pakistan Italy 1 Germany Chile Poland Venezuela Hungary China Ireland Russia Czech Republic Belgium Romania Australia Finland

VRVS registered users and current usage as of Nov 4th, 2003 8029 different Users Registered from 102 Countries USA 1932 Spain 1153 Italy 549 Switzerland 491 France 474 Brazil 421 Germany 402 UK 333 Japan 154 Canada 149 Taiwan, Greece, Argentina, Russia, Slovakia, etc…

Machines and OS 1st : Windows 2nd: Linux 3rd: Macintosh VRVS support different Operating Systems according to the need and the demand of the final users: 1st : Windows 2nd: Linux 3rd: Macintosh 4th: Other UNIX

Call Details Record (CDR) Number of VRVS Meetings Number of Participants Total number of Minutes of video/audio connection NOV 2003 692 2951 144 Days, 17h, 14mn (3473 hours, 14mn) DEC 2003 656 2734 129 Days, 18h, 57mn (3114 hours, 57mn) JAN 2004 687 2980 189 Days, 4h, 23mn (4540 hours, 23mn)

Some Examples

VRVS on Mac OS X

VRVS on Windows KEK (JP) Caltech (US) RAL (UK) Brazil CERN (CH) AMPATH (US) Pakistan SLAC (US) Canada AMPATH (US)

Example 1: 20 participants BRAZIL (3 sites) + SWITZERLAND (CERN) + USA (Caltech)

Exemple 2: 17 participants JAPAN + UK + SWITZERLAND + BRAZIL + USA (SLAC + FERMILAB)

Some Features

Network and Security Possibility of tunneling (TCP or UDP) between reflector servers. All communications use only ONE port ! Peer-to-peer design with high scalability and flexibility Solution for Firewall and NAT Perform some packet recovery VRVS Proxy Java agent for users behind NAT environement Fix incompatibility between several H.323 end points Remotely mute/unmute video or/and audio Optimized network bandwidth utilization Real-time packet loss monitoring Support up to 16,000 Virtual Rooms (parallel meetings)

Administration Interface Pure Java J2EE + XML HTTPS/SSL secure web interface Monitoring reflectors and users in ongoing conference Full control on database

Monalisa: Real-Time Monitoring

With special 4 output graphic card Most powerful VRVS End Node VRVS Virtual Setup 1 dual processors PC With special 4 output graphic card 6400 x 4800 pixels Most powerful VRVS End Node

What next ?

On-going and Future developments (1/2) Adaptation to emerging standards: IPv6, SIP Develop advanced monitoring and tracking tools for ad-hoc conference as well as scheduled multi-site conferences Develop advanced network monitoring agents (based on Java and web services) to run on each network servers. Possibility to automatic rerouting between VRVS network servers to find a better network path. Improve Security (Firewall, NAT, Authentication, Encryption) Develop a pure peer-to-peer VRVS reflectors network to be able to handle thousands of parallel sessions

On-going and Future developments (2/2) Wireless/Mobile Client Integration: User Interface dedicated for small screens Integration of low end client: Provide dedicated software clients (VVP, JMF) Transcode streams to lower bandwidth Support MPEG4 Integration of new hardware/software for high-end interactivity. Developed a multipoint videoconferencing system based on MPEG4 compression standard. Developed a system using HDTV standard If affordable hardware devices available.

VRVS, Caltech Team Philippe Galvez Gregory Denis David Collados Project Manager Pasadena (USA) Gregory Denis Main Web Developer Geneva (Switzerland) David Collados Administration Developer Kun Wei Reflector Main Developer Dave Adamczyk CGI, Java and SIP Developer Dennis Lattka System operation responsible Joao Correia Support Responsible

Contact@VRVS.org Support@VRVS.org WWW.VRVS.ORG Contact@VRVS.org Support@VRVS.org

Additional Slides

Virtual Access Grid User can connect to either unicast or multicast videoconferencing with full supported features User can create his/her own virtual AG node and virtual venues and integrated into VRVS Different Video modes possible: Voice switched: default mode for H.323 clients. one video stream at a time Timer switched: browse through all the video based on preset timer. One video stream at a time. Selected Streams: Click among the video participants to view selected video streams (one or several streams available). All Streams

VAG with Mbone Clients

Conclusion: We believe that VRVS offers the following unique differentiators: Usability – VRVS’ web-based user interface is easy to use and allows almost any desktop of videoconference suite to connect to a VRVS virtual room conference with only few clicks. Its default client apps enable multi-standards audio, video and data collaboration. Scalability – VRVS scales up with the needs for quality and volume more elegantly and beyond anything possible now. More simultaneous participants in a same virtual room More simultaneous virtual room conferences Wider range of video and data sharing quality

Flexibility – VRVS allows inter-operation of collaborative communications between end points of various audio, video and data sharing capabilities as well as different types of connectivity. Efficiency – VRVS server software makes efficient use of bandwidth by routing required information only to various nodes. Ubiquity – VRVS’ ease-of-use and scalability unlocks the value of network-based collaboration tools and allows anyone, anywhere, anytime to improve their collaborative experience. Robustness – VRVS is field tested on a large scale for a long period of time. It has demonstrated exceptional reliability and simplified its deployment and use beyond anything available today (except maybe POTS and email!)

Web based interface VRVS provides a natural and intuitive interface to organize and manage your meetings. Several interfaces let you see in 1 shot all current conferences, let you book a new one in 3 clicks. Several academic communities are handled by VRVS. Each one has its specific Virtual Rooms. VRVS manages multi international time zones in a transparent way. Its use do not require technical knowledge nor technician action.

Connection Interface co-browsing of web sites Connect / Disconnect the selected videoconference client Provide different video modes Allow CHAT and Private messages Can share your computer desktop Remote control of video cameras. co-browsing of web sites real time list of connected participants share computer desktop with other participants