1. ASC Review October 24-25 2000 Geoffrey Fox Florida State University Department of Computer Science and CSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology) 400 Dirac Science Library Tallahassee Florida 32306-4130 fox@csit.fsu.edu

2. Agenda Information Environment Database Gateway and and Computational Science Portals Training Management Database Technology review: XML Databases New Internet Technologies and Application to Portals –Macromedia Authoring –Commercial Training and Collaboration Portals: Blackboard, Centra, WebeX –Audio-Video Conferencing: HearMe and Access Grid –Calendar and Scheduling –Hand-Held Devices: VNC

3. Standard PreInput Data Allocation/Utilization User/Project Push (FTP) Standard Current Input Data Standard Post Output Data Post Output Data Pre Input Data Allocation/Utilization User/Project Pull (FTP) Pull (SQL) Pull Push (SQL) Common Data Architecture Loader Kerberized Webserver MSRC based Data Remote Data unchanged except for uniformization of existing Data between sites New data added New Process Push High Performance Computers Queue and Individual Job Status Existing Process IEDB Functionality

4. Dynamic HPC Status Updated every few minutes Classic Database Realtime or Batch (nightly) update Dynamic HPC Status Classic Database Oracle.. Flat File Allocation Utilization Reporting Queue Job Status Allocation Matchmaker User Project Update Common IEDB Database Virtual or Real (Oracle or XML or..) 4 + # DC’s Heterogeneous Distributed MSRC/DC Info 4 IE Services with possibly Heterogeneous Implementations and 4 Custom servers IE Kerberized Broker Distributed Clients IEDB Architecture

5. Component Activities Overall Integration –Architecture –XML standards –Common (Broker) User Interface –Monitor of four major sub-tasks 1) Allocation/Utilization Reporting 2) (Dynamic) Queue and Process Status 3) Resource Allocation Matchmaker and Exchange 4) User Project and Account Application

6. Key Features I IEDB is a standard commercial database into which existing information/databases are interfaced –Each data item has one and only one home responsibility for its integrity Four types of Interface –1) Access Only –2) Computer Status from queuing system which is updated every few minutes and stored in database –3,4) Access and Update of Data The 4 interfaces to IEDB can be entirely disparate technologies – common broker as “controller”

7. Key Features II There is an XML definition for all IEDB data which is used by –Distributed backend information systems –Four access subsystems Contractor and DoD HPCMO to agree on this XML specification Well defined mechanisms provided to interface with IEDB either from flat files (data streams) or standalone database Owners of original data responsible for putting in standard form – IEDB will “just” run simple checks and filters

8. Evaluation of Some Internet Technologies XML Databases: maybe for smaller databases we can keep information in XML ASCII files with easier maintainability –Mechanism for dynamic exchange and interpretation of data Highend Authoring Tools: Distance and web-based training/education –allows more re-use of material –more students taught with given material –Competition favoring highest quality curriculum –Implies more emphasis on high quality authoring environments –Macromedia tools appear to be current “best-practice”

9. 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: 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: Supports multiple high-quality audio and video streams –Each client client needs 20 megabits per second

10. Commercial Collaboration and Training Systems I October 19 2000: WebEx Communications, Inc. the leader in communications infrastructure for Web meetings, today announced record results for its third quarter, ending September 2000. 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. Commercial Collaboration and Training Systems II Oct. 12, 2000-- 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.

12. Commercial Collaboration and Training Systems III Centra, WebeX and Placeware are synchronous systems with a similar virtual classroom model –TangoInteractive also quite similar –IMS (Community Education standards) doesn’t discuss such things Blackboard and WebCT are asynchronous server-based systems to integrate curriculum with various tools –They seem to have difficulties supporting sophisticated authoring tools –Need to be IMS compliant One can produce IMS compatible infrastructure based on existing commercial event bus (iBus) that should support both capabilities and which has open interfaces

13. Master Plan …. Produce in February  May 2001, a best of practice training portal with –Commercial (iBus) core (so avoid large cost of Tango) –Architecture that supports all the things we could want in computing, training and education –Well defined Interfaces which are IMS Compatible (Note Grid Forum “mistake” is that doesn’t know about IMS DoD SCORM etc.) – Draft exists of GXOS Garnet eXtensible(XML) Object Specification –Has capabilities of existing systems such as Centra and WebeX –Supports best tools and standards for “add-on” capabilities cf. calendaring evaluation Till December 2000, agree on requirements and evaluate existing systems and “add-ons” – produce a paper summarizing this June 2001, extend training and migrate technology to Gateway for collaborative computing

14. All we know and love Authoring must support Macromedia, PowerPoint, HTML –Unit is (sub)page not presentation –Good hierarchical module support (IMS does) with as in WebWisdomNT, UNIX/PC file system model for labeling GXOS allows Java—CORBA interchange with multiple realization of objects; any rendering; composition of objects (to add A/V to page etc.) Full rendering support for PC, Palmtop and “universal access” (cf. tribal colleges) Solve Audio/Video problems – Access Grid or HearMe Uniform event model (iBus) Uniform archiving in any database – can faithfully save complete session so synchronous and asynchronous education both fully supported Message Center and Virtual Classroom/Desktop model

15. Collaborative Portal PortalML Data base Data base ResourceML (IMS) Synchronous Lesson Asynchronous Archive and Access Persistent Store of Shared Courseware Events, User Info Real time Share Web Page Personal Server or Application “Client” Local Event Queue User Specific Session Logic HTML WML W3C WAI Rendering Standards Store Event Bus

16. PET Message Center Interface Yahoo Messenger is an interesting model for a portal interface Application that invokes browser – more robust than browser Runs on PC or Palmtop and “only” contains summary information suitable for Palms Has services like file manipulation, send a message and set of custom buttons –Access News, Weather, Stocks etc. Develop “PET Messenger” as control centers for PET functions –Access MSRC machines; DoD News; Success Stories; Control IMT Test; invoke director’s meeting …

17. Typical Virtual Class(Meeting)room Centra, Placeware, WebEx…. Chat Room Lecture Page Annotations (student, teacher) Pointers etc. Control buttons for Audio/Video/Floor Control etc. Invoke Quiz Alert/ Raise Hands index

18. 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 –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

19. 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 Web Server …………….. HTTP-HTML WAP Collaboration Server URL or (scaled) frame buffer