1. Collaboratory Highlights and Issues
Stu Loken
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

2. Many Faces of Collaboration
Video Conferences and Seminars
Small Group Meetings
Document Preparation
Model and Software Development
Data Management and Analysis
Experiment and Model Validation
Visualization

3. Issues Need for a broader set of tools Need for integrated tools
Collaborative Visualization
Data Management
Real-time Analysis
Software Management
Project Management
Need for integrated tools
Common Interface
Easy to learn and use

4. DOE2000 Collaboratories Focus on a subset of tools and technologies
Multi-lab projects
Pilot projects to test tools and gain acceptance

5. Collaboratory R&D Projects
Shared Virtual Reality
Software Infrastructure
Collaboration Management
Security Infrastructure
Electronic Notebooks
Floor Control
Quality of Service

6. R&D Progress
Projects have made significant progress in the past year reported in DOE2000 pages
Tools are now being deployed into Pilot projects and into other programs
A repository has been established at LBNL to distribute emerging tools

7. Collaboration Tools Taxonomy
Persistent Information
Real Time Information Exchange
News group
Papers
Mail
Electronic Notebook
Telephone
Video Conference
Chat/White board
Shared authoring & applications
Shared VR space
Instrument control
Legal and
Records
requirements
Notebook is a chronological record of ideas, data and events.

8. Motivation Many advantages of using Electronic Notebook
can be shared by remote collaborators (WWW access)
always available for input or reading (can’t be “lost”)
can contain rich media types (text, images, files, 3D structures, voice, animations, video, ...)
can take input directly from computers (instrument or editors)
easy transfer of information from one notebook to another
simplified notarization process (over the Web)
allows querying/ searching (complex query possible)
can include hyperlinks to other data and references

9. Design a common (open) Notebook Architecture
Project Goals
Design a common (open) Notebook Architecture
extensible as technology advances
interoperable with other notebook viewers
customizable for unique inputs of a given project
Develop prototype implementations
make them available to DOE collaboratories
general research community
education
industry

10. Notebook Architecture Design
Notebook Engine
Plug-ins
storage
interface
Storage
implementation
dependent
storage object
Notebook Object
Notebook Client
(Web Browser based)
familiar interface
widely used and available
existing standard
cross-platform
lots of existing software

11. Common Architecture Notebook Client Input Tools ODB OPM Files Notebook
Advanced
Features
Advanced Features
HTTP
JAVA
Notebook Client
Notebook
Engine
Text
Images
Equations
Sketches
Data Type N
...
Input Tools
Editor API
mcast
Data
Acquisition
Systems
ODB
OPM
Files
Data Storage
Interface

12. Highlights Demonstrations Defined Notebook Object Defined Editor API
Increased User Base
Released Improved Software
Web distribution for SC’98
Papers
CENSA Electronic Records Specification

13. Ongoing and Future Import/Export between Notebooks
Digital Signatures and Timestamps
Fine-grain Access
Versioning
Software Development
PKI Authentication
Integration of third-party software
Input devices and Voice Annotation

14. Some other issues Notebooks for project management/tracking
Commercialization of tools

15. Video Conferencing Work continued on MBone Tools developed at LBL
New Conference Controller enables remote control of conference tools and cameras
Other tools being used for specific projects
NetMeeting
PictureTalk
Streaming JPEG
CUSeeMe

16. Floor Management
Provide Floor Control and Mediation for MBone conferencing tools
Plug into existing protocol support
Two coordination models
Moderated meeting
Consensus meeting
Floor management should be integrated into Session Management

17. Shared VR: Long Term Goals
Investigate the integration of collaboration technology with immersive virtual environments
Develop tele-immersion concepts and demonstrate them on interesting DOE applications areas
Explore the notion of persistence in shared collaborative spaces
Investigate alternative software architectures for developing tele-immersion applications
Develop new concepts for supporting wide area collaboration and man-machine interactions
Investigate large-scale VR for collaborative design

18. ManyWorlds

19. ManyWorlds
An OO core software environment for developing tele-immersive applications.
Enables synchronous sharing of VR applications
multiple users, multiple worlds, multiple environments
Navigation, avatars, control, user interaction, communications and session management services
Persistent world servers
CAVE family of display environments

20. Integration Framework
Produce the distributed computing architecture required to support development of scientific laboratories
Infrastructure will include common communication library which includes multicast and unicast with various reliability levels
Group is preparing an Architecture Document to promote standards

21. Objectives
Facilitate development and interoperability of collaboratory components by providing:
Convenient access to unicast and multicast messaging
Common communication API for unicast and multicast communication
Reliable multicast communication
CORBA evaluation and integration
Directory services
Integration of security
Access from multiple languages (Java, C++ and C)

22. CIF Structure Applications PRE CORBA Directory service Security
CIF Communication API
Reliable
unicast
Unreliable
multicast
Unreliable
unicast
Reliable
multicast
Legend
development
integration

23. Approach A requirements analysis:
Robust implementations of reliable multicast
Communication service providing uniform interfaces to unicast and multicast communication
Directory services and resource location services
Integration of authentication and authorization services
Investigations of CORBA and Java-based technologies

24. CIF Highlights
Development of CIF toolkit components (CIFcomm, CIF shared state)
Exploratory investigations of technology integration (e.g., Globus security, Akenti, CORBA) and application experiments
CIF technologies were demonstrated at several major conferences.
CIF-based collaborative data analysis system part of SC’98 “Best in Show”

25. Security Architecture
Distributed security architectures that are flexible, effective and easily deployed, administered and used for:
Authentication
Authorization
Access control
Confidentiality
Infrastructure protection
Distributed enterprise

26. Common Needs for Security
Scientific community requirements are very similar to financial services industry (e.g. PKI and general certificate content interpretation)
We are evolving a use-condition centered model and architecture
Verifiable use conditions
Secure and verifiable satisfaction of conditions

27. Security Goals assured, multiple stakeholder representation
trusted third-party certification of user attributes
distributed management of all information needed for access decisions
use of X.509 identity certificates and their generation and management infrastructure from multiple institutions

28. Security Goals (cont.) integrated with existing security protocols
capable of action and object-level access
easily integrated with applications
capable of supporting emerging approaches

29. Technical Progress
Akenti prototype is operational and has been deployed in several testbeds
It is used in the Diesel Combustion Collaboratory
It is used to allow restricted access to download the Akenti code
It has been integrated with a collaboratory camera management system

30. Technical Progress (cont.)
We have implemented SPKM for secure communications between end peers
Also, the security context establishment is coupled with Akenti access control for authorization decisions as a part of the protocol itself
We have two applications that use the SSL protocol.

31. Technical Progress (cont.)
Integrated with several standard server / gateway mechanisms
we have developed an Akenti enhanced Apache Web server that uses the SSLeay patches
Web user and password access control replaced with one implemented by Akenti and based on the ID certificate the user passed in, and the distributed Use Conditions that have been created by the stakeholders for the documents.
A pilot integration of Akenti with a CORBA ORB using the (OMG) defined interceptor mechanism has been built.

32. Technical Progress (cont.)
Demonstrated in several prototype applications
We are using the Akenti/Apache Web server to secure a prototype Image Library and a prototype implementation of a secure file uploading facility.
We demonstrated the use of Akenti to control access to a collaboratory instrument resource.

33. Issues Broad deployment needed to support collaborative work
Export issues for international collaboration

34. Session Management
Presenting collaboration tools as parts of a single, coordinating, collaborative environment can make them much simpler to use, and can help preserve the natural, informal nature of small group interactions.
By gathering functionality for tracking users, providing security, managing control of resources, etc., into a central session manager for the user, one can make development of new tools much easier.

35. Approach
PNNL is collaborating with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on the development on a Java-based Collaboration Management Engine.
The work is based on software developed at PNNL and NCSA’s Habanero environment.
PNNL has obtained source and distribution licenses to Habanero and is developing CORE, a hybrid system with advanced capabilities.

36. CORE Functionality
The functionality of CORE is available through two standardized development APIs:
Collaboration Management API: provides access to collaboration management capabilities and allow development of alternate user interfaces
Collaborative Tool API: allows the integration of new collaborative applications

37. Highlights Fifth Release of CORE2000
Cross-platform Application Sharing
Web Session Directory
Remote Camera Operation
Directory Schema for User, Session, and Instrumentation Information
Demonstration of Collaborative Scientific Instrument Control

38. CORE2000 Tools: TeleViewer (Shared Screen Viewer)
Video (vic - video option for Multicast Backbone users)
Audio (vat - audio option for Multicast Backbone)
CU-SeeMe
WhiteBoard
Chat
Voting Tool
Molecule Modeler (PDB file viewer)
3D XYZ (XYZ file viewer)
Camera Controller

39. Some issues Multiple tools need to fit into a standard architecture
Interoperability standards

40. Quality of Service
Deploy Differentiated Services on selected ESnet links to support collaborative work
Implement a Bandwidth Broker to provide sustained bandwidth to collaborative or distributed application
Link to authentication architecture

41. Accomplishments
Design and implementation of bandwidth broker with authentication
Interaction with IETF to establish standard
Demonstrated capability with Cisco routers on ANL-LBNL link
Now looking at deployment issues on ESnet and on I2

42. Pilots
Designed to test emerging technology and give feedback to technology developers
Major Projects:
Diesel Combustion Collaboration
Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory
Some other efforts are going ahead with other (limited) funds

43. Diesel Collaboratory
Focus on next generation of engines which must meet very tight emissions limits
Collaborative computation as well as experiments to validate models
Strong connection to industry, labs and university

44. Diesel Collaboratory Features
Shared Combustion Models
Computational Steering
Library of Combustion Images
Video Conferencing
Electronic Notebooks

45. Accomplishments Client/Server for remote execution
Multiple combustion codes available as “collaboratory-wide” resources
Secure collaboration environment (phase I)
LBNL PRE-server hosting ChemkinII/soot
Security definition and implementation
Secure Image Library
Data archive loaded with complete data from Cummins/SNL optical diesel engine

46. Diesel Collaboratory Issues
Security especially for proprietary data
Infrastructure at industrial partners
Concerns about connections to Internet

47. Materials Collaboratory Features
Common interface to instruments at all sites
Remote control of instruments
In-situ experiments using computer control
Electronic notebooks
Video conferencing

48. Accomplishments Outreach at all levels!
Improvements to Instrumentation
Uniform Architecture
Security Infrastructure
Video Everywhere
Online Research Sessions

49. Materials Collaboratory Issues
Security to protect instruments
Some concern with proprietary data
Avoiding “least common denominator” for instrument features
Diversity of platforms
Macintosh legacy

50. Observations
Pilots must use a mix of commercial software and custom applications
None of the tools is a perfect fit to needs
Collaboratory tools are not well integrated with each other or with other packages already in use

51. Deployment Issues
Integrating emerging tools into on-going science program
Who supports the tools?
Installation
Training
Infrastructure
Commercialization
Interoperability and Standards

52. Signs of Progress
Despite problems and rough edges, the tools are being used
Industry partners do seem to be joining in the collaborations although less quickly than university and lab scientists
Other collaboratory projects are starting even with absence of new DOE funding