powerpoint

04/07/23 http://aspen.csit.fsu.edu/project/cctutorialjan01 1

Tutorial on Web-BasedCollaborative Tools

IntroductionMarch 1 2001

ERDC Vicksburg

Geoffrey Fox, Ahmet UyarFlorida State University

Department of Computer Science andCSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology)

400 Dirac Science LibraryTallahassee

Florida [email protected]


Topics to be Covered I1. Introduction: What is a Collaboratory and

Collaboration Technology; Tools, Standards, Portals2. Web Conferencing Tools (Centra, WebEx,

PlaceWare, Latitude) + demos of Centra and PlaceWare3. Learning Management Systems (Blackboard and

WebCT) + demos of Blackboard and WebCT using WebEx.

4. Shared display in WebEx and VNC5 Management Tools: TMD (Training Management

Database) and Virtual Classroom Manager (“NPAC Grading System”)

6. Learning Object standards: IMS and ADL


Topics to be Covered II7. Authoring and Authoring Standards from

Macromedia, Adobe, .. Flash, SVG, VML, OpenOffice.org

8. HearMe Voice over IP including demo9. Access Grid high end audio-video conferencing10. Instant Messengers (Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Jabber)11. Calendars and Schedulers12. Palmtop Interfaces and Comments on Palmtop

Technology13. Portals for education and computing.


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


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


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


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

XML Interfaces

Object 1 Object 2XML Datastream


Object Web Portals think of things as objects and services

ObjectsCORBA or Java

Broker or Server

RenderingEngine

Browser(HTML)

RenderingEngine

Universal InterfacesIDL or XML

XML Requestfor servicefollowed by

return of XMLresult

XML

“Computing Portals”portalML Interface

www.computingportals.org

“Grid Forum”resourceML Interfacewww.gridforum.org

User View System View


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


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


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

Actual location of the fileit generates this output file

store it permanently here

save stdoutand stderr


Aspects of Collaboration Collaboration means Sharing and we identify three classes of

capability– Share the people: Audio/Video Conferencing– Basic Tools: email, 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


Collaborative Visualization

Consider a computer program (object above) and then its output and input wend their way through multiple filters(tiers) until they are finally rendered onsome sort of device: CAVE through PDA.

One can share “object” at any stage in pipeline

ObjectFilterMap

TransformBroker Event

Adapter

Input

Output

Output

ObjectFilterMap

TransformBroker Event

Adapter

Output

InputA

B

SharedDisplay C

W3CCustom

Master User BCollaboratorsA and C

Shared “events”


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 email 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


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

Architecture of Collaboration II


Architecture of Collaboration III

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

Pub/SubServer

ExportedObject

PostEvents

SubscribingObject I

SubscribingObject II

Subscribe

Receive eventson subscribedchannels


Architecture of Collaboration IV

For each collaborative model, we are sharing and replicating an object

We just need to choose which version of original object to use

OriginalObject

ExportedObject

Export Render

This is replicated betweeneach collaborating client.It is “frame buffer”,“original object”,Web/SVG/PDF/.. Exportfor Shared display, eventand export models


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


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: 0684809303, #146 in Amazon Sales Jan 15 2001)


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


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


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


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.)


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


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.


Typical Virtual Class(Meeting)room Invoke this from myACES or myProfessorSee Centra, Placeware, WebEx….

Chat Room

Lecture PageAnnotations(student, teacher)Pointers etc.

Control buttons for Audio/Video/Floor Control etc.

Invoke Quiz

Alert/Raise Hands

index


Tutorial on Web-BasedCollaborative Tools

Introduction18 January 2001

HEAT Center Aberdeen Md.

Geoffrey Fox, Ahmet UyarFlorida State University

Department of Computer Science andCSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology)

400 Dirac Science LibraryTallahassee

Florida [email protected]


Typical MyProfessor Interface Messages will give you access to email, 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 alerts6 new msgs

My Professor Log Out

Edit Intro To JavaNext Class: Thursday, 9/14/2000, 4 pmMessage: 5 new, 2 unread, 15 total

Edit Java: SwingNext Class: Thursday, 9/14/2000, 2 pmMessage: 0 Total

Visible

Edit Java: AWTNext Class: Tuesday, 9/12/2000, 1 pmMessage: 1 new, 0 unread, 3 total

Now

View

View

View

Announcements & NewsFSU announces 50 new online courses.

Routine maintenance for 9/16 @ 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 23 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 1617 18 19 20 21 22 2324 25 26 27 28 29 30

Su M Tu W Th F Sat

Month Week

Today

Main Menu

Add DelActivity

View

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Java: AWT

HomeCourses

Messages

Agents

Schedule

PreferencesProfile

To Do’s


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


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.


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.


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 email– 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)


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

(http://capa4.lite.msu.edu/capa-bin/class.html) 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

http://capa4.lite.msu.edu/capa-bin/class.html


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 – http://www.imsproject.org 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– www.adlnet.org whose links section includes all other

useful URL’s IEEE (Computing Community) set up P1484 Learning

Technology Standards Committee LTSC

http://www.imsproject.org/

http://www.adlnet.org/


LearningServer

Content Server(s)

External systems:HR, E-Commerce, ERP...

MigrationAdapter

Learning Server

APIAdapter Application

Browser

AdapterServer Side

Client Side

HTML+

Services or Adapter

Course Interchange:Course Structure Format (CSF), Metadata

RuntimeEnvironment:Launch, API, Data Model

“LearningManagement

System”LMS

Critical InterchangeCapability

Client

Server

LMS Model used by ADL


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)


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


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”


Hand Held Internet 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


Collaborative Palm TopsShared Display: Share pixels between clientsShared 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-HTMLWAP

Collaboration Server URL or (scaled)frame buffer


Hand Held devices and WirelessUbiquitous access to resources from palm-top

devices will new access modes from simple job submission through visualization of results– Control large screen

displays – Banksand Erlebacher

– Control active walls ofFlat Panel screens (Sunray)

– Support in Gateway forjob submittal

– Collaborative client inresearch or training

– Shared display or Sharedweb-page with differentmodes for each type of device


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


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


disloc

ALARM

Dial Stations(and database)

GIPSY/auto_p

simplex

page

web simplex

Caltech

JPL

USGS

JPL

JPL

Boulder(University of Colorado)

JPL

modem

page WAKE UP!

quake location, size --

sorted station potential --

station raw files --

station motions --

WAKE UP!

single-fault model

--graphics--hazard model

--graphics--refined fault model

disloc

--maps for civil authorities

JPL

Virtual_California

WAKE UP!

multi-fault model

pagedisp

collaboration


SCEC Demo (Sept 99)Collaboration in GEM Earthquake Analysis System

Will becomemyACES

SharedBrowser

ofSimulation

Results

Chatroom

Conferencing

Shared map of faults/sensors


Collaborative Portal

PortalML

Database

Database

ResourceML

Synchronous Distributed Science

Asynchronous Access

Persistent Store of Earthquake Data

WebPage

PersonalServer “Client”

CollaborativemyACES

HTML WML/WAP Rendering Standards

Store

Real time Share

Real Time controlAnd sensor data

Simulations


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 UniversityComputing 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


Commodity Portals are Web Interfaces for Consumers

Yahoo, NetCenter, Amazon.com, Ebay.com etc. are portals fore-commerce, news etc.


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 ProblemWish to re-usecomponentsbetweenEducation andComputing


……...

Hierarchy of Portals and Their TechnologyPortal Building Tools and Frameworks (XUL, Ninja, iPlanet, E-Speak, Portlets, WebSphere, www.desktop.com)

Enterprise Portals

Generic Portals

Information Services

Compute Services

Education andTraining Portals Science Portals

K-12 University Biology GEM

Generic ServicesCollaborationUniversal AccessSecurity …….

Databases …….

MathML etc

Quizzes Grading ...

Education ServicesGrid ServicesVisualization ...

……...

User customization, component libraries,fixed channels

www.computingportals.org


GEM Computational Environment Multi-Tier Architecture

Application IntegrationVisualization Server

Seamless Access

Databases (HPCC) Computers General“Web” Info

CollaborationSecurityLookup

RegistrationAgents/Brokers

Seismic Sensors Field Data Geophysical“Web” Info

Backend Services

MiddlewareBunch of

Web Serversand Object

Brokers

(Java) Interactive Analysis Client VisualizationClients


PET Computing Portal: Driving RequirementsGoal 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 (email etc.)– Support access from hand-held (Palm) devices– Allow customization of choice and arrangement of

material


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)

AnyPortal


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

WebFlowServers

ApacheTomcat PSE

ORB

ORB

SECIOP

krsh, krcp

CharonORB

ResourceMLPortalML

Current Generic Gateway Interface

Select Code to Run

“Wrapped Codes”Use Caltech XSILfor XML specification

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

Review Previous Runs


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


MyHallD Collaborative PortalMyHallD 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


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


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


Features of Virtual MyHallD PlacesVirtual 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

powerpoint

Documents

computer science

information

computational

cell phone

demos

live elearning

instant messenger

object technology