1. Tutorial on Web-Based Collaborative Tools Introduction
18 January HEAT Center Aberdeen Md.
Geoffrey Fox, Ahmet Uyar
Florida State University
Department of Computer Science and
CSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology)
400 Dirac Science Library
Tallahassee
Florida
11/28/2018

2. Topics to be Covered I
1. Introduction: What is a Collaboratory and Collaboration Technology; Tools, Standards, Portals
2. Web Conferencing Tools (Centra, WebEx, PlaceWare, Latitude) + demos of Centra and PlaceWare
3. Learning Management Systems (Blackboard and WebCT) + demos of Blackboard and WebCT using WebEx.
4. Shared display in WebEx and VNC
5 Management Tools: TMD (Training Management Database) and Virtual Classroom Manager (“NPAC Grading System”)
6. Learning Object standards: IMS and ADL
11/28/2018

3. Topics to be Covered II
7. Authoring and Authoring Standards from Macromedia, Adobe, .. Flash, SVG, VML, OpenOffice.org
8. HearMe Voice over IP including demo
9. Access Grid high end audio-video conferencing
10. Instant Messengers (Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Jabber)
11. Calendars and Schedulers
12. Palmtop Interfaces and Comments on Palmtop Technology
13. Portals for education and computing.
11/28/2018

4. What are we Trying to do I?
Build web-based support for people to interact with each other and with other resources: computers, documents, instruments
This was originally called a Collaboratory by Bill Wulf in a famous Science article in volume 261, 13 Aug 1993
We must do this while technology is rapidly changing and while we are not certain what collaborative tools, scientists will actually use i.e. requirements are not known
We will find a set of successful capabilities where some consensus exists as to what they do and how they look to users – these are typically (now) commercialized
There are some clearly useful technologies and standards on which to build – we will mention these en passant
Need to identify those areas where there is a potential requirement and Industry will not provide (or render our solution invalid) in next year or so
11/28/2018

5. What are we Trying to do II?
Object Web technology suggests how systems ought to built today
Program in Java
Data Structures in XML
Use multi tier architecture
There are some important internet trends which suggest where systems will go –
Bandwidth and latency of networks (Gilder’s law)
growing use of Palmtop devices
Advising you as to what systems work and how to support them
Discussing differences and similarities between support of training, administration and research
11/28/2018

6. Collaboratory Applications
Distance Education including advanced seminars and training
Help Desk including
Microsoft helping user debug problem on home PC (connected to Internet)
MSRC consulting staff interacting over distance in real time with a user with a program bug
Yahoo staff asking in depth questions from users browsing either their knowledge or Shopping sites
Scientists brainstorming difficult research issues in distributed locations
Virtual communities around the world from children chatting to each other or integration of distributed organizations (like ARL)
Indian Nation remaining in their homeland but participating electronically in modern economy (digital.indigineousworld.org)
Implementing next round of PET activities
Crisis Management and Command and Control for Military
11/28/2018

7. Basic Principles in Building Systems
Everything electronic is by definition an Object
Some objects are easier to deal with than others
All (systems) software will be written in Java
As it has best software engineering properties
All Object (meta)data and data streams will be defined in XML
Whether you use COM, CORBA, Jini/RMI, SOAP, HLA Object Model
All Systems built in multi-tier fashion so front end rendering and back end functionality are disassociated
Object 1
Object 2
XML Datastream
XML Interfaces
11/28/2018

8. Object Web Portals think of things as objects and services
System View
User View
Rendering Engine
CORBA or Java
Broker or Server
Objects
XML Request for service
followed by return of XML result
XML
Browser (HTML)
Rendering Engine
Universal Interfaces
IDL or XML
“Computing Portals” portalML Interface
“Grid Forum” resourceML Interface
11/28/2018

9. Use of Object Technology in Computing I
Basic Principle: Use object technology wherever possible
This will give you a more productive development environment which are easier to maintain
Objects can be used at different granularities
Fine and Very Fine Grain
The computational kernel
The linkage of different kernels as different routines
Characterized by low latency (memory access or subroutine call or at worst MPI invocation) -- a few nanoseconds to a microsecond
Object technologies are not essential here although eventually languages like C++ and Java will be preferred solution here
Maybe you have a lot of legacy Fortran code in this category
Converting to Java is probably not the best use of scientists’ time
11/28/2018

10. Use of Object Technology in Computing II
Coarse Grain objects characterized by modest latency ( but maybe high bandwidth) are where you use Object web technology immediately
All programs, sensors, datasets, simulations are objects
There are many competing object models -- Java, COM, CORBA, SOAP but doesn’t matter -- use XML to define all objects -- we can convert
Data format is not 16I5 or 8F10.4 or even a Java or C++ data structure -- it is defined in XML. This ensures interoperability between sensors and programs
Objects can have multiple views -- Oracle can think in rows and columns; the user as a correlated time series -- Internet technology filters convert very easily
Each Science field should set these XML based coarse grain object standards for its area
IMS and ADL are doing this for education and training. Thousands of other efforts
11/28/2018

11. Example of XML Specifying a Program as an Object
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE application SYSTEM "ApplDescV2.dtd">
<application id=”Casc2d" installable="No"> selected application
<target id="aga.npac.syr.edu"> selected host
<status installed="Yes"/>
<installed>
<CmdLine command="/npac/home/haupt/CASC2D/casc2d" />
<input>
<inFile Path="/npac/home/haupt/CASC2D/lms/" Name="sand.map"/>
<source Host="maine.npac.syr.edu" Path="C:\LMS\fromEdys\" Name="S.map" >
</input>
<output>
<outFile Path="/npac/home/haupt/CASC2D/lms/" Name="sed.out"/>
<dest Host="maine.npac.syr.edu" Path="C:\LMS\toEdys\" Name="sed.out" >
</output>
<stdout Host="aga.npac.syr.edu" Path="/npac/home/haupt/CASC2D/history/" Name="job2001.out" >
<stderr Host="aga.npac.syr.edu" Path="/tmp/" Name="haupt_job2001.err" >
</installed>
</target>
</application>
how to run it
it expects this input file
it generates this output file
Actual location of the file
store it permanently here
save stdout
and stderr
11/28/2018

12. Aspects of Collaboration
Collaboration means Sharing and we identify three classes of capability
Share the people: Audio/Video Conferencing
Basic Tools: , Instant Messenger, Bulletin Boards, White board
Shared resources i.e. shared objects (Basic tools are special case where object is a text message or simple drawing)
Objects can be shared in several ways
Shared display
Shared export
Shared event
Which trade off ease of use versus flexibility versus ease of implementation
If we share objects and we have a lot of them, then we must have management capabilities so we can store and retrieve them
Management issues have special needs in some areas e.g. store grades and homework in learning systems
11/28/2018

13. Collaborative Visualization
Object
Filter
Map
Transform
Broker
Event
Adapter
Input
Output A B
Shared Display C
W3C
Custom
Master User B Collaborators A and C
Shared “events”
Consider a computer program (object above) and then its output and input wend their way through multiple filters (tiers) until they are finally rendered on some sort of device: CAVE through PDA.
One can share “object” at any stage in pipeline
11/28/2018

14. Architecture of Collaboration I
The web is full of objects – web pages sitting on web servers – and these support asynchronous collaboration
You post a web page and I later look at it in my own time
Replacing web document by a “CGI script” or servlet (web interface to program, database etc.) gives general multi-tier object sharing
This is Publish/Subscribe mechanism
If add some mechanism (automatic or word of mouth) to tell viewing client when new information is posted
We use JMS (Java Message Service) as Industry standard for publish/subscribe systems
Synchronous Collaboration provides “real-time” notification and automatic update of changed objects
11/28/2018

15. Architecture of Collaboration II
All forms of Collaboration are Event based
Different modes: Display, Export, “Event” correspond to events generated at different places in object rendering pipeline
Shared Display – Events contain updates to frame buffer
Shared “Event” – Events contain updates to state of either original or transformed object
Shared Export – Convert (rendering of) object to some standard form that is more flexible than bitmap of Shared Display. Build a custom sharing for this exported form
WebeX uses “patented sharing of virtual printer” which is equivalent to sharing export to PDF
I like shared HTML (web pages) or SVG described later
11/28/2018

16. Architecture of Collaboration III
Pub/Sub Server
Receive events on subscribed channels
Post Events
Subscribe
Exported
Object
Subscribing Object II
Subscribing Object I
Objects are all “copies” of each other with events maintaining state
Result can be identical or different renderings – e.g. one can choose on subscribing client to resize rendering to a larger (so can see) or smaller (as PDA) size
11/28/2018

17. Architecture of Collaboration IV
This is replicated between
each collaborating client. It is “frame buffer”, “original object”, Web/SVG/PDF/.. Export for Shared display, event and export models
Original
Object
Exported
Export
Render
For each collaborative model, we are sharing and replicating an object
We just need to choose which version of original object to use
11/28/2018

18. Requirements of Collaboration I
We have learnt a lot from our own experiments (systems called Tango (synchronous) and WebWisdom/Virtual Classroom Manager (asynchronous))
and from study of commercial models
WebeX Centra and Placeware (and others) have evolved to more or less identical synchronous models
Yahoo, Excite, NetCenter are asynchronous information portals
WebCT and Blackboard are asynchronous education portals
There are technology trends of importance
Abstract some lessons and requirements for (future) systems
11/28/2018

19. Technology Trends and Principles
All performance and capability measures of infrastructure continue to improve
Gilder’s law says that network bandwidth increases 3 times faster than CPU Performance (Moore’s Law)
The Telecosm eclipses the Microcosm ….
George Gilder Telecosm : How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World
(September 2000, Free Press; ISBN: , #146 in Amazon Sales Jan )
11/28/2018

20. Small Devices Increasing in Importance
There is growing interest in wireless portable displays in the confluence of cell phone and personal digital assistant markets
By 2005, 60 million internet ready cell phones sold each year
65% of all Broadband Internet accesses via non desktop appliances
CM5
11/28/2018

21. Palm Tops help define Client Model
One needs to design web systems so they can be accessed from either a PDA or a PC or a Powerwall
This implies that only code in browser should be that immediately needed to relay events between user and web system – all “logic” (state) should be outside browser.
Supports Server based Computing model with clients “just” for rendering
11/28/2018

22. Requirements of Collaboration II
Need to support both synchronous and asynchronous models in an integrated fashion
Some think asynchronous web based education will replace conventional methods
Maybe role of synchronous (teacher-student interaction) shifts from lecturing to mentoring
Implies need to archive synchronous sessions for later replay
Implies build collaborative portals
Need to support PDA and PC seamlessly
Define content in XML and use style-sheets or other transformation tools to map into HTML (PC) or WML (PDA)
This is part of portalML
Collaboration implies sharing objects – the better object structure exposed, the better sharing is possible
So define everything you can in XML (ResourceML)
We can share Word/PowerPoint best in Web or SVG form as this is universal export. Could build a custom office sharing tool but hard
11/28/2018

23. Requirements of Collaboration III
Predict that future will see higher quality web pages as Web allows more competition (e.g. between education providers)
So need to understand how to share pages written with Macromedia Flash and other high end authoring tools
Need to migrate to evolving standards whether “sure things” like SMIL (multimedia) or W3C Universal Access or possibles like OpenOffice or WML
Must assume all commercial and indeed academic products will evolve (rapidly) and so generic collaboration framework strongly preferred
Special requirements of Science and HPCC
Share Mathematics (MathML) and other science symbols (e.g. molecules) in scientific whiteboard etc.
Share Computing (submit jobs, visualization etc.)
11/28/2018

24. Summary of Architecture
Multi-tier with resourceML to define Objects and portalML to define client server interface and dissociate Object and its rendering
Server side logic to allow range of clients and exploit increasing network bandwidth
Automatically gives universal archiving
Publish/Subscribe can be used as universal mechanism for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration
“only” need latencies of fractions of a second as this built already due to browser update time, long distance transmission time etc. (JMS latencies around 0.1 second for modest size message going from publisher to subscriber)
Will need multicast (not in JMS) to scale to lots of clients
Naturally supported by event based model of computing with all transactions expressed as time stamped messages (events) which are archived and forwarded by middle tier
11/28/2018

25. myPET Portal Interface
Yahoo Messenger is an interesting model for the myPET or more generally myProfessor (Education) or myHPCC (general computing) interface
“Small” Application that invokes browser
Runs on PC or Palmtop and “only” contains summary information suitable for Palms – can we use Java (J2ME)
Has services like file manipulation, send a message and set of custom buttons
Access News, Weather, Stocks etc.
Develop myPET with computers, papers, programs and sensors instead of news and stocks
Develop myProfessor with school events, classes etc.
11/28/2018

26. Typical Virtual Class(Meeting)room
Invoke this from myACES or myProfessor
See Centra, Placeware, WebEx….
Control buttons for Audio/Video/Floor Control etc.
Lecture Page
Annotations
(student, teacher)
Pointers etc.
index
Alert/ Raise Hands
Invoke Quiz
Chat Room
11/28/2018

27. Typical MyProfessor Interface
Messages will give you access to , instant messenger, voice messages, alerts etc.
Agents scan for useful resources you requested e.g. news about Enterprise Javabeans
Calendar and Scheduler supports CDIS, CAP and CIP data Interchange, access and Interoperability standards (see iPlanet Calendar Server 2.1)
2 alerts
6 new msgs
My Professor
Log Out
Edit
Intro To Java
Next Class: Thursday, 9/14/2000, 4 pm
Message: 5 new, 2 unread, 15 total
Java: Swing
Next Class: Thursday, 9/14/2000, 2 pm
Message: 0 Total
Visible
Java: AWT
Next Class: Tuesday, 9/12/2000, 1 pm
Message: 1 new, 0 unread, 3 total
Now
View
Announcements & News
FSU announces 50 new online courses.
Routine maintenance for 1:00 am
Alerts & Notifications
New speech recognition spanish course available.
Your Java: AWT class starts in 3 min.
Schedule September, 2000
My Courses 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Su M Tu W Th F
Sat
Month
Week
Today
Main Menu
Add
Del
Activity
Home
Courses
Messages
Agents
Schedule
Preferences
Profile
To Do’s
11/28/2018

28. Synchronous Virtual Environments
Several similar systems offering shared display and shared export (for PowerPoint)
Commercial: WebeX Centra Placeware Latitude NetMeeting
Public Domain: VNC shared display
Limited functionality in areas of archiving, export models, management and PDA support
VNC designed for “different problem” – client doing administration on multiple remote machines and not optimized for one master and lots of clients
Audio-Video Support limited – Centra has built in Windows audio (with Java front end). WebeX using Lipstream and perhaps HearMe
Have built in shared annotation of display and chat/whiteboard tools
11/28/2018

29. Commercial Collaboration and Training Systems I
October : WebEx Communications, Inc. the leader in communications infrastructure for Web meetings, today announced record results for its third quarter, ending September WebEx added more than 700 new customers this quarter, bringing the total number of customers to more than 1800.
During the third quarter, AT&T and Global Crossing announced the integration of WebEx services into their communications solutions, and Commerce One announced that WebEx services have been integrated into their next generation Commerce One.netTM. WebEx's list of new customers this quarter contains industry leaders in aerospace, automotive, computer software, computer hardware, consulting services, financial services, healthcare, real estate and legal services. New customers include 3-M, Aberdeen Group, Ace Hardware, Altera, Associated General Contractors (ACG), BancTec Inc., Blue Martini, Briggs & Stratton, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., CheckFree Corp., Cosine Communications, Emory University, Enron Energy Info Solutions, Fiserve, Inc., FleetBoston Financial, Forrester Research, Grubb & Ellis, Hewlett-Packard, Keystone Solutions, Kyocera Wireless Corp., Medtronic, Motorola, NEC America, Nexprise, Proxicom, Razorfish, Sunguard, Toyota Motors, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, ZDNet and Ziff-Davis among others.
11/28/2018

30. Commercial Collaboration and Training Systems II
Oct. 12, Centra the world's leading provider of software infrastructure and ASP services for live eLearning and Internet business collaboration, today announced results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2000.
Centra added 73 new customers in the third quarter, bringing the total customer base to 350 accounts. Some highlights include:
Centra continues to grow its extensive customer base, serving more than one million users across all industry sectors and geographies. Contributions to this rapid growth in the third quarter were highlighted by:
The selection of Centra by Andersen Consulting, one of the world's largest professional services firms, as the company's standard infrastructure for the delivery of live eLearning to the company's 65,000 employees.
A significant initial deployment at Coca-Cola Company, the world's largest soft drink provider with over 35,000 employees, to provide eLearning delivery infrastructure for global SAP end user training and ongoing change management initiatives.
Siemens AG selected Centra as the corporate eLearning and collaboration standard to support communications and planning among the company's top 1,500 global operations executives. In addition, Siemens, which operates in over 190 countries, will use Centra to support their extensive SAP rollout through hands-on end user training over the Internet.
11/28/2018

31. Learning Management Systems
Learning Object standards ADL and IMS from DoD and education community
Most education and training stresses asynchronous or web support for conventional delivery
WebCT Blackboard Lotus(IBM) and others offer LMS systems with limited synchronous capability
Support typical educational needs like grading, quizzes, homework, glossaries, group
Varying database backend and
Varying authoring support
Popular with colleges as supports not so expert faculty
DoD use less clear as don’t need homework etc.
No built in support for areas like “programming labs” (VPL from NPAC did this)
11/28/2018

32. Learning Management Tools
“Integrated solutions” have problem that cannot compete well in any one area
E.g. Blackboard (initially) did not support Java applets in curriculum pages
Quizzes do not support (yet) CAPA capabilities to personalize them (
We mention two projects built at NPAC with focused capabilities
TMD supports training at ASC
Virtual Classroom Manager (Mehmet Sen Thesis) which was used for several years in PET to support classes for homework and grading with very simple quizzes
Instant Messenger and Calendar/Schedulers are other generic tools which can be used if you adopt modular approach
11/28/2018

33. Learning Objects
Given changing technology, need standards to protect investment in authoring and administrative data generated and stored in databases
Educational Environment Educause set up IMS – Instructional Management System with selection of companies and universities
IMS focus was changed to drop implementation work and is now “Global Learning Consortium” Inc.
Department of Defense (which has huge training needs) set up ADL Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative
whose links section includes all other useful URL’s
IEEE (Computing Community) set up P1484 Learning Technology Standards Committee LTSC
11/28/2018

34. LMS Model used by ADL Critical Interchange Capability Server Client
Content Server(s)
External systems:
HR, E-Commerce, ERP...
Migration
Adapter
Learning Server
API
Application
Browser
Server Side
Client Side
HTML+
Services or Adapter
Course
Interchange:
Structure
Format (CSF),
Metadata
Runtime
Environment:
Launch, API,
Data Model
“Learning
Management
System”
LMS
Learning Server
Critical Interchange Capability
Server
Client
11/28/2018

35. Areas (Object Properties) Covered
Metadata from IEEE and IMS
Roughly Properties of educational objects thought of as “documents” (author, title …)
Course Packaging from SCORM and IMS
How to form bigger units of instruction from smaller units
Called Content Packaging by IMS and Course Structure Format (CSF) by SCORM which goes in greater depth than IMS
Tests and Quizzes from IMS
Specialized CSF descriptors from SCORM (via CMI)
Such as objectives, prerequisites, completion requirements
LMS Runtime API from SCORM – I am doubtful about value
Enterprise Properties from IMS
Link to people and organization databases (rather incomplete at present but must be important as probably can agree)
11/28/2018

36. Audio-Video Conferencing
In Tango training, audio-video conferencing was always problematical
Video may or may not be necessary – Internet only supports “postage stamp” talking heads
Audio only requires a few kilobits per second but quality of service critical and not likely to be supported on current Internet
HearMe desktop audio: Support general mix of internet and “ordinary” phone lines which have:
Quality of service and good echo canceling etc. on high-end phones
Should work with modem (28.8 kilobits per second)
Access-Grid community audio/video: Supports multiple high-quality audio and video streams
Each client client needs 20 megabits per second
11/28/2018

37. Authoring Authoring on the Web can include
Basic HTML
Macromedia/Adobe/etc. packages like Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Illustrator
PowerPoint and Word exported
Also can include RealNetworks or Microsoft or .. Format Multimedia
Note Streaming multimedia formats have larger buffers than A/V conferencing formats
Pressure to improve web quality
Training and Education need a lot of material and so custom editing of each page not practical
Using XML to specify content and include this in beautiful framework seems best
SVG and SMIL are 2D vector graphics and multimedia standards
HTML does not give reproducible pages
Flash can be thought of as “proprietary SVG”
11/28/2018

38. Hand Held Internet Grid on the Go Meeting April 2001
So we will have convenient hand-held devices linked to the “wireless internet”
Wireless Internet is basically the same as conventional Internet except that content is optimized for size and communication limitations of wireless systems
Current bandwidth is around 14.4 kbaud – “poor modem”
Maybe WAN Cellphone bandwidth will be limited for near future
“Bluetooth” standard should give hand-held devices megabit per second communication bandwidth for LAN
Two positives for the wireless hand-held device
Cheaper than a PC (relevant for students)
More portable and more pervasively useable than a PC
Grid on the Go Meeting April 2001
11/28/2018

39. Collaborative Palm Tops
Shared Display: Share pixels between clients
Shared Event: Share URL between clients – in general have different versions (WAP for Palm-top, HTML/HTTP for PC’s) of display controlled by same XML content
Collaboration Server
URL or (scaled) frame buffer
……………..
HTTP-HTML
WAP
Web Server
11/28/2018

40. Hand Held devices and Wireless
Ubiquitous access to resources from palm-top devices will new access modes from simple job submission through visualization of results
Control large screen displays – Banks and Erlebacher
Control active walls of Flat Panel screens (Sunray)
Support in Gateway for job submittal
Collaborative client in research or training
Shared display or Shared web-page with different modes for each type of device
11/28/2018

41. Two Hand Held Prototypes
Latest release of VNC (public domain shared display) for Palm tops is quite impressive – fast and includes server side resizing for reducing “shared display” for smaller hand held display
We have a prototype of a Java client in a Palm controlling 3D object on PowerWall through a wireless connection
PalmVNC
11/28/2018

42. Real Time Collaborative Systems
Real time situations demand immediate response from anywhere expert
spacecraft reports unexpected problem
IMT test surprise
Commanders or field personnel in Crisis Management
Scientific analysis during aftershocks of Earthquake
Collaboration (must bring in special expert) and support of diverse displays – maybe critical person only has Palmtop – are particularly important in these application
Synchronous and asynchronous
11/28/2018

43. Caltech JPL USGS JPL JPL JPL Boulder JPL disp page ALARM
WAKE UP!
quake location, size --
page
WAKE UP!
disp
disloc
JPL
sorted station potential --
modem
USGS
Dial Stations(and database)
station raw files --
page
JPL
GIPSY/auto_p
WAKE UP!
station motions --
JPL
simplex
disloc
JPL
single-fault model
--maps for
civil authorities
multi-fault model
Virtual_California
Boulder
(University of Colorado)
web simplex
JPL
--graphics
--refined fault model
collaboration
--graphics
--hazard model
11/28/2018

44. Shared map of faults/sensors
Shared Browser of
Simulation
Results
Will become
myACES
Chatroom
Shared map of faults/sensors
SCEC Demo (Sept 99)Collaboration in GEM
Earthquake Analysis System
Conferencing
11/28/2018

45. Collaborative Portal Collaborative myACES Data base Real Time control
Persistent Store of Earthquake Data
Data
base
Collaborative Portal
Simulations
Real Time control
And sensor data
ResourceML
Asynchronous Access
Store
Collaborative myACES
Real time Share
Synchronous Distributed Science
Personal Server
PortalML
“Client”
Web Page
HTML WML/WAP Rendering Standards
11/28/2018

46. What is a Web Portal? It is a “just” a web-based application
Commodity Portal is Web-based Information Source (Yahoo) or Shop (Amazon)
Enterprise Information Portal is “Lotus Notes done right”
Education Portal is a Web-based University
Computing Portal is a “Problem Solving Environment”
Well defined Interfaces based on
Grid Forum -- Computing
IMS/ADL/IEEE LTSC -- Education
And a set of Services and Tools
11/28/2018

47. Commodity Portals are Web Interfaces for Consumers
Yahoo, NetCenter, Amazon.com, Ebay.com etc. are portals for e-commerce, news etc.
11/28/2018

48. Portals in Computing and Education
Merrill Lynch predicts that Enterprise Information portal market will be $15B by 2002
Unfortunately it is not trivial to re-use some key commodity systems as they do not provide the right level of interfaces to add capabilities like collaboration and security
We must adopt architecture that maximizes chance that can use new commercial capabilities when they become available
Multi-media, Handheld infrastructure are areas where industry ahead of academia
Hardest Problem
Wish to re-use components
between Education and
Computing
11/28/2018

49. Hierarchy of Portals and Their Technology
Portal Building Tools and Frameworks (XUL, Ninja, iPlanet, E-Speak, Portlets, WebSphere,
Generic Portals
Collaboration
Universal Access
Security …….
Generic Services
User customization,
component libraries, fixed channels
Information Services
Databases …….
Enterprise Portals
Quizzes Grading ...
Education Services
Compute Services
Grid Services
Visualization ...
Education and Training Portals
MathML etc
Science Portals
……...
……...
K-12
University
Biology
GEM
11/28/2018

50. GEM Computational Environment Multi-Tier Architecture
Seismic Sensors
Field Data
Geophysical
“Web” Info
Backend Services
Databases
(HPCC) Computers
General
“Web” Info
Middleware
Bunch of
Web Servers
and Object
Brokers
Collaboration
Security Lookup
Registration
Agents/Brokers
Application Integration
Visualization Server
Seamless Access
(Java) Interactive Analysis
Client Visualization
Clients
GEM Computational Environment Multi-Tier Architecture
11/28/2018

51. PET Computing Portal: Driving Requirements
Goal is to maximize productivity of (Super)computer center user
Provide in a single web interface “myPET”, all resources needed for HPCMO and DoD Research and Computing
Display Sensor results
Initiate and visualize simulations
Necessary information -- from program documentation to latest technical reports
Contact colleagues in real-time (audio/video conferencing) or asynchronously ( etc.)
Support access from hand-held (Palm) devices
Allow customization of choice and arrangement of material
11/28/2018

52. Services in Computing Portals
Security
Fault Tolerance
Object Lookup and Registration
Object Persistence and Database support (as in EIP’s)
Event and Transaction Services
Collaboration among scientists around world
Job Status as in HotPage (NPACI) and myGrid (NCSA)
File Services (as in NPACI Storage Resource Broker)
Support (XML based) computational science specific metadata like MathML, XSIL
Visualization
Programming
Application Integration (chaining services viewed as backend compute filters)
“Seamless Access” and integration of resources between different users/application domains
Parameter Specification Service (get data from Web form into Fortran program wrapped as backend object)
Any Portal
11/28/2018

53. Gateway Portal Supports Kerberos Security for DoD
Supported by DoD HPCMO: ASC and ARL
Involves work by Furmanski (Syracuse) and Haupt (MSU)
Browser
ORB
HPC
Resources,
Mass
Storage,
DBs
HTTP
SECIOP
WebFlow
Servers
Apache
Tomcat
PSE
krsh, krcp
Charon
PortalML
ResourceML
11/28/2018

54. Current Generic Gateway Interface

55. Select Code to Run
“Wrapped Codes” Use Caltech XSIL for XML specification

56. One could interface via Globus
One could interface via Globus. Sufficient to submit to ASC Job scheduler

57. Review Previous Runs

58. A Sample Collaboratory
Here is a sample collaboratory designed for “HallD” – a proposed experiment at DoE’s Jefferson Laboratory
HallD produces 1015 data or simulation objects per year
HallD involves hundreds of scientists around the country collaborating in taking data, processing it and analyzing it to find nifty science breakthroughs
One first would establish HallD Digital Object Standard covering everything from LED on experimental apparatus, data produced in each part of apparatus, plots and other analysis artifacts, presentations and papers
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59. MyHallD Collaborative Portal
MyHallD is the portal door to the
Virtual HallD Experiment Control Room
Virtual HallD Monte Carlo Farm
Virtual HallD DST Factory
Virtual HallD Physics Engine
Virtual HallD Board Room
HallD Education and Outreach Area
These share access to HallD digital objects but access (and make) them in different ways and are optimized in different ways
They share certain features and services
All actions are logged (in XML) and archived
Common security infrastructure
Access can be from PC or Hand Held device
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60. Features of MyHallD and it’s HallD Virtual Places
MyHallD would have:
“Handles” to open 6 Community Virtual Places as well as ability to open private virtual rooms
HallD/Jefferson/HEP Calendar, Phone lists etc.
News Items with browser links
Experiment Status etc.
Invoke basic Collaboration Tools – Internet Phone; Local and remote cameras; Chat; Whiteboard
Automatic Update (to myHallD) Feature
Indicator as to which places you are in and who else is active there.
To do list for you in HallD
Gentle and Crass ways of getting people’s attention
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61. Features of Virtual MyHallD Places
HallD Board room can be done today for some capabilities using WebEx Placeware or Centra
DST Factory and Monte Carlo Farm do not require significant synchronous collaboration; build computing portals for standard Physics packages
Need strong management functions
HallD Physics Engine could benefit from innovative user interfaces and collaboration in analysis of results
Here is where difficult decisions made (how to run Minuit optimization program) and distributed experts could be useful
Share analysis results and choice of parameters for future large analysis (which partial waves to include)
HallD Education and Outreach can use Virtual Classroom model being developed by several vendors
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62. Features of Virtual MyHallD Places
Virtual Experiment Control Room could be a big win as (unexpected) real-time decisions need “experts-on-demand”
Similar model with DoD and IMT experiments or NASA for remote spacecraft mission control and real-time scientific analysis of earthquakes
Needs to evaluate collaborative decision making (vote?) and planning tools
Needs to allow shared streaming data as well as shared read-outs of experimental monitors (output of all devices must be distributed objects which can be shared)
Needs to support experts caught on their sailboat with poor connectivity or in their car with just a cell phone and a PDA
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