High-speed Network Projects

Tibor Gyires

School of Information Technology

Illinois State University

BIAC/TAB Meeting

October 17, 2003

Contents

1. Traditional Collaborative/Teleconferencing Systems

2. Collaboration via the Grid

3. Network Performance Measurements

1. Traditional Collaborative/Teleconferencing Systems

Traditional Internet (PC based or Standalone)

•Needs a special room

•Uses ISDN telephone lines

•High installation cost

•High usage cost

•Scheduled in advance

•Professional operator

•Centralized control

•H.320 standard

•Use anywhere; ubiquitous

•Uses Internet

•Low installation cost

•No usage cost

•Decentralized control

•H.323/350 standards

•Require a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU), gatekeepers, etc.

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.

Personal Node

Room Node

Room Node (cont.)

Room Node (cont.)

An Access Grid Room

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.

Video Capture Computer

Audio System

Display Computer

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.

ITK High-speed Networking Lab

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