Philippe Galvez California Institute of Technology

1. VRVS Overview Philippe Galvez California Institute of Technology September 27, 2000

2. Historical Background • Starting by the end of 1995, the Caltech/CMS group started the deployment of videoconferencing facilities and the development of a first Web-based user interface. • At the beginning of 1997, pushed by strong demands from users preparing the LHC experiments, Caltech/CMS group started a prototype service. • In 1997, The VRVS System became the basis of the Videoconferencing Project, approved by the LHC Computing Board (LCB). • In 1998/1999 VRVS received Widespread and Strong Support from the Research and Education Communities and became the foundation for new video and multimedia services to be deployed throughout Internet2.

3. Why a challenge ? • Some key points for the HEP community • Very Large Community • Very Disperse Community (located in all continents) • Large number of different Physics experiments • Need collaboration between small or large groups inside experiments • Need one or several features: Audio, Video, Shared Application, Shared desktop, Very high Quality,.. • Area of work is physics research and not “Collaborative tools” • Today no “magic” commercial tools available • ISDN still very limited to cover all the mentioned key points • No H.323 deployment done in large scale • Clients and Gatekeepers interoperability problem. • MCU’s management • However, Initial test and deployment in some well control network clouds.. • No tendency to provide very high quality (address mass market) • No tendency to provide integrated system

4. Vi5tual Room Videoconferencing System

5. Current System • VRVS is now a production system: • As of today, more than 3327 machines from 2025 different users are registered into the system. • During the year 1999, 872 Multipoint Conferences were conducted (Total 2325 Hours). • More than 3000 point to point connections were established. • Since January 2000: 100 multipoints (300 hours) of videoconference per month in average. • The system provides Video, Audio, Whiteboard, Chat in multi-point and point to point connections. • Organizing videoconference via a full graphical booking system. • Advanced options are available, such as the access control via passwords, the recording and the playback of session.

6. VRVS Statistics

7. HENP Community • HENP Community. • Hosts registered from: CMS, Atlas, Alice, Lhc-b, Aleph, NA48, NA49, NA50, AMS, Aleph, Babar, RHIC, CDF, Ceres/NA45, Chorus, Delphi, DESY/ZDV, H1, CEBAF, KLOE, KTeV, L3, Minos, Soudan2, OPAL, PHENIX, STAR, SpEcTrE, WA95, WA98, ZEUS, etc …

9. User Statistics: Scheduling

11. User Interface 1/6 • http://VRVS.cern.ch Full Documentation and Tutorial A download VRVS package area Latest News page A user profile editor with identification and general information Virtual Room Booking, Scheduling; Request Reserved Bandwidth the Virtual Room Join process Point to Point meeting within Registered Persons the “About” section with all the information about the organization and the project

12. User Interface 2/6 • The Schedule Manager • Booking a Virtual Room is performed in the same way as you would book a local conference room. • If all the Virtual Rooms are booked, it means that the (pre-set) maximum number of parallel conferences has already been reached. Select the Virtual Room Select the scope of your videoconference Continental Virtual Rooms World Wide Virtual Rooms

13. User Interface 3/6 • Schedule Manager • Different views are provided like a Year, a Month and a Day view from the calendar. The user can see in one shot what is reserved and what is free. • Some options are available: • the conference can be recorded automatically • a previous conference already recorded can be played back • a customized password can be entered to increase the control of the access • URLs about the subject of the conference can be added

14. User Interface 4/6 • How to join a videoconference in VRVS ? • Select the Virtual as in the Schedule Manager • Enter the already booked Virtual Room. • Fill the password requested for the security enhance session. • Start the client applications. Information: Virtual Room name,Title, Current time and ending time Participants: geographical origin, media started, Full name and email Click to start: audio, video, whiteboard and web links

15. User Interface 5/6 CHAT WhiteBoard RAT VAT VIC QuickTime Player 4.x • Client Applications currently used in VRVS. • Public-Domain or Free Players • Good “Sense of Presence”: 10 Frames/sec Within 100-200 Kbps or 20-25 Frames/sec within 300-500 Kbps • Tunable Bandwidth/Quality/Resource Matching • Multi-Platforms : Linux, Unix’s, Windows95/98/NT/2000, Macintosh (only with QuickTime) • Efficient, Tunable

16. User Interface 6/6 Example:9 Participants, CERN(2), Caltech, FNAL(2), Bologna (IT), Roma (IT), Milan (IT), Rutherford(UK)

17. Implementation 3/4 : Reflectors 30 reflectors Running around the world. • Europe: • Switzerland: CERN (2) • Italy: CNAF Bologna • UK: Rutherford Lab, Wales • France: IN2P3 Lyon, Marseilles • Germany: Heidelberg Univ. • Finland: FUNET • Spain: IFCA-Univ. Cantabria • Portugal: LIP • Israel: Weizmann Institute • Asia: • Academia Sinica (Taiwan), • KEK (Japan) • APAN/SingaREN (Singapore) • Russia: • Moscow State Univ., • Tver. University • JINR Dubna • United States of America • West: Caltech, LBNL, SLAC • Center: FNAL, ANL • East: BNL, Jefferson Lab • DoE HQ Germantown • Internet2: Ann Abor • Esnet: Berkeley • South America • Venezuela:CeCalcula • Brazil: University de Rio de Janeiro

20. Implementation Model VRVS Web User Interface Others ?? MPEG QuickTime V4.0 Mbone Tools (vic, vat/rat,..) H.323 Collaborative Applications VRVS Reflectors (Unicast/Multicast) QoS Real Time Protocol (RTP/RTCP) Network Layer (TCP/IP) done Partially done Continuously in development Work in progress

21. R&D : Medium Term Plan • Principal Investigator: Caltech and ESnet • Collaborators: CERN, Internet2/UCAID • The new system aimed at using the capability of Internet2 and ESnet for rapid data exchange, will be based on VRVS • Develop a prototype and start deployment of high performance “next generation Integrated Environment for Collaborative work” • We will adapt and extend VRVS API to accommodate and support high performance multimedia application suites (MPEG1 and MPEG2 streaming video, shared iGRID applications, integration with H.323.) • QoS tests over ESnet and Internet2 networks • A Next Generation Integrated Environment for Collaborative Work Across Internets

22. R&D: Future System • VRVS Future evolution/integration (R&D) • Deployment and support of VRVS. • High Quality video and audio (MPEG1, MPEG2,..). • Shared applications, environment and workspace. • Integration of H.323 I.T.U Standard into VRVS. • Quality of Service (QoS) over the network. • Improved security, authentication and confidentiality. • Remote control of video camera via a Java applet.

23. R&D: H.323 Integration VRVS reflectors topology (Only video from the speaker is sent to H.323 clients) Join a VR 4 - Send video/audio to VRVS reflector Mbone Client VRVS Web Server 1 - Join a VR 1- Join a VR 2 - contact VRVS Gateway 3 - H.323 Call 3 - H.323 Call VRVS H.323 Gateway H.323 Client H.323 Client

24. R&D: H.323 Integration • No limitation of cascading numbers of reflectors • No limitation of number of participants or parallel conferences. The limitation will be only the network. • Optimize calling process for by passing firewall issues. • Possibility to have muticast/unicast between reflectors and multicast/unicast between the client and the reflector. • Possibility for the H.323 client to: • See the video from the speaker only • See all video using vic application • See all video from all the participants in a round robin way following a specified timer • Selected and see ONLY the video from one selected participant even if he is not the speaker. • Possibility to have Mbone applications (vic, vat/rat) in the same videoconference

25. R&D: H.323 Integration

26. R&D: MPEG2 deployment • Acquisition of MPEG2 Encoder/Decoder boxes. • Support for the RTP (Real Time Protocol) • Very low latency (around 120 ms for full duplex mode) during the real-time communication (videoconference). • Availability of a Video Development Toolkit (VDK) for integration with existing applications or with the VRVS framework. • One box has been installed at two sites: Caltech and CERN • Other boxes are available among ESnet sites Goal : To deploy MPEG2 technology among HENP community. MPEG2 will provide full TV quality, full frame and full interactivity in a range of 2 to 15 Mbps

27. R&D: MPEG2 deployment VRVS MPEG2 reflectors (Only video from the speaker is sent to MPEG2 clients and the current speaker still receives video/audio from the previous one) VNP MPEG2 box LNBL VNP MPEG2 box CERN VNP MPEG2 box LLNL VNP MPEG2 box Caltech Instance of MPEG2 topology already tested. Video: 2.0 Mbps Audio: 224 Kbps stereo

28. R&D: Sharing Desktop • VNC technology integrated in the next VRVS release

29. Examples • LEPC broadcast from CERN (November 9,1999) • 35 participants connected via VRVS (ex. QuickTime Player)

30. Examples • GLASTmeeting (October 14,1999) • 10 participants connected via VRVS (and 16 participants in Audio only)

31. Requested received last weeks • Francis Lee (Application manager SingAREN) “I am a member of the Asia Pacific Advance Network(APAN) as well as Singapore Advance research & education network(SingAREN). We are members of the Internet2 community. I found your VRVS site very interesting. I would like to explore some point of collaboration…” • Pavel Murin (Slovak outreach).“..Slovak institutes participating in LHC program have an interest to install VRVS reflector in Slovakia. Some financial support we have obtained from NATO (NATO net infrastructure program for Partner countries), we would like to buy a computer equipped with hardware proper for VRVS server/reflector…” • Dan Mønster (Danish Research Network, DARENET).“..I am presently looking into the possibility of using our network for videoconferencing between the universities in Denmark. One of the applications is to create virtual class rooms, in which a teacher can interact with both local and remote students. VRVS is extremely interesting for the applications that I have in mind..”

32. Requested received last weeks • Steve Williams (University of Wales Swansea)”..I have been looking at the vrvs pages and am impressed by what it can do. What is the situation with the reflector/server side software - is it available for outside use? We may have a requirement for a similar system..” • Rodrigo Castro (Spanish National Research Network (RedIRIS) ) :”..Our first idea would be to introduce this technology in our research network and extend it along different points of Spain. Since one of the lines of future development you mention in your Web pages is the distribution of a package containing VRVS, we feel we can collaborate with you in this are..” • James MacKinnon (Univ. Alberta Canada)“..This looks encouraging, as we are very interested in providing a framework for conferencing within ATLAS Canada, and a reflector site would greatly facilitate this..”

33. Some Conclusions • VRVS is now a production system with more than 3327 registered host computers located in more than 52 countries. • VRVS will support all the types of videoconferencing; from the Mbone and the H.323 applications to a very high video and audio quality like MPEG2; • Manpower resource shared between the production system and the R&D -- Critical Situation -- • Videoconferencing is a just one piece of a collaborative toolkit which is today a vital part of the widely spread Research and Education community

34. Questions ? Philippe Galvez California Institute of Technology Philippe.Galvez@cern.ch