Next Generation Videoconferencing: Technologies and Deployments (including K-20)

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Next Generation VideoconferencingTechnologies
and Deployments(including K-20)

• Ken Klingenstein
• Internet2

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Topics

• Acknowledgements
• Basics
• Video Conference Layers
• The devices
• The network
• The encoding
• The middleware
• Its not just video, its collaboration tools
• Activities in Higher Ed
• Issues for K-20

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Internet2

• A consortium of 200 universities, sixty companies
  and government partners with the common interest
  of advancing Internet technologies
• Activities include high performance networking
  (Abilene), technical development (IPv6,
  multicast), applications support, and the
  creation of a national middleware infrastructure
  for higher education.
• www.internet2.edu

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Internet2 and K-12

• A modest, focused effort to include K-12 as
  feasible
• Connectivity to Abilene via sponsorship/support
  by a state/regional I2 member
• In the requirements definitions for the
  development of middleware
• Assist in the translation of higher ed constructs
  to K-12 relevance and help establish models of
  deployment

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MACE (Middleware Architecture Committee for
Education)

• Purpose - to provide advice, create experiments,
  foster standards, etc. on key technical issues
  for core middleware within higher education
• Membership - Bob Morgan (UW) Chair, Scott Cantor
  (Ohio State), Steven Carmody (Brown), Michael
  Gettes (Georgetown), Keith Hazelton (Wisconsin),
  Paul Hill (MIT), Jim Jokl (Virginia), Mark
  Poepping (CMU), Bruce Vincent (Stanford), David
  Wasley (California), Von Welch (Grid)
• European members - Brian Gilmore (Edinburgh), Ton
  Verschuren (Netherlands), Diego Lopez (Spain)
• Creates working groups in major areas, including
  directories, interrealm access control, PKI,
  medical issues, etc.
• Works via conference calls, emails, occasional
  serendipitous in-person meetings...

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NSF and NIH

• Catalytic NSF grant in Fall 99 started the
  organized efforts, with Early Adopters and Early
  Harvest
• NSF Middleware Initiative (NMI) - three year
  cooperative agreement, begun 9/1/01. Work
  products are software, community standards, best
  practices, schema and objectclasses, reference
  implementations, open source services, corporate
  relations
• NIH and FPKI support of the HEBCA, of the Annual
  PKI Research Conference, and multiple other
  collaborations

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A Layered view of Interactive Life

• Applications are developed to support
  interactions
• Communities of users want to interact using those
  applications and agree to establish the necessary
  agreements and conventions for those interactions
• Middleware enables widespread and transparent
  usage and implements the community agreements
• The network provides capabilities to deliver the
  applications
• All must be integrated the applications must use
  the middleware the middleware must reflect the
  conventions and agreements of the users the
  network must use the middleware and sustain the
  applications

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A Map of Middleware Land
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Next Generation Video

• The network
• Quality of Service
• Multicast
• Overprovisioning
• The applications
• H.323-based clients
• SIP-based clients
• VRVS and Access Grids
• The middleware
• Authentication and authorization
• Resource discovery
• Directories
• The Community and its enterprises

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Next Generation Networks

• Quality of Service to give different levels
• Multicast to permit several to many interactions
• IPv6 to permit more devices
• Overprovisioning in case we cant do QoS or
  multicast.

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Next Generation Video Apps

• H.323 the installed base and market leader
• SIP the internet-oriented future also
  Microsoft
• VRVS software-based, with scheduling and other
  utilities
• Access Grid high-end multipoint specialist
• Your client depends on who you are and what you
  typically want to do

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App Interoperability

• Interoperability among clients (and even within a
  particular technology) depends on
• converting formats and streams
• MPEG to H.235, MPEG2 to MPEG1, etc
• plugging together separate signaling
• call setup and take down
• user authentication and authorization
• locating a user

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Next Generation Video Middleware

• Today
• Tomorrow

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Its Not Really About Video

• Its about collaboration in general
• Collaboration requirements include
• Effective and secure sharing of web-based
  materials
• Chat/Instant messaging where identities are
  secured
• Preservation of privacy as a core design
  principle revelation of affirmed identity as
  needed
• Archiving of the above mechanisms for
  asynchronous use
• Management of the archive

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Activities in Higher Ed

• First, a standardization on the information that
  institutions might exchange for collaborations
• eduPerson 1.5 eduOrg 1.0
• Then architectures and open source
  implementations to exchange that information in a
  secure but privacy-preserving standards based
  technology.
• Shibboleth
• Then the NSF Middleware Initiative to accelerate
  and disseminate the work and integrate it to
  other science
• Soon applications in video and DRM that leverage
  these approaches
• With increasing and consistent middleware
  deployments on campuses

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The objectclasses

• eduPerson 1.5
• describes the use of standard attribute fields
  as applied to higher education and research
• adds a few new attributes key to higher
  education
• affiliations, primary affiliation, ePPN (login
  names), entitlements, etc.
• defines syntax and semantics
• extensible and scalable increasingly
  international
• eduOrg 1.0
• defines a set of attributes about higher ed
  institutions
• pointers to on-line services and policies

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Shibboleth

• A word which was made the criterion by which to
  distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites.
  The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce sh,
  called the word sibboleth. See --Judges xii.
• Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a
  party a party cry or pet phrase.
• - Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  (1913)

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Shibboleth Basics

• Interrealm Attribute-based Authorization for Web
  Services
• An initiative to develop an architecture, policy
  framework, and practical technologies to support
  inter-institutional sharing of resources
• Provides the secure exchange of interoperable
  attributes which can be used in access control
  decisions
• Controlled dissemination of attribute
  information, based on administrative defaults and
  user preferences
• Shifts the model from passive privacy towards
  active privacy
• Based on a federated administration trust
  framework
• Vendor participation - IBM/Tivoli
• Standards Alignment - OASIS/SAML
• Open solution(protocols and messages documented
  rfc-style, open source implementation available)

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Stage 1 - Addressing Three Scenarios

• Member of campus community accessing licensed
  resource
• Anonymity required
• Member of a course accessing remotely controlled
  resource
• Anonymity required
• Member of a workgroup accessing controlled
  resources
• Controlled by unique identifiers (e.g. name)
• Taken individually, each of these situations can
  be solved in a variety of straightforward ways.
• Taken together, they present the challenge of
  meeting the user's reasonable expectations for
  protection of their personal privacy.

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Timeframes

• Process - began late summer 2000
• Architecture and protocol completion - Aug 2001
• Coding began - Nov 2001
• Alpha-1 release April 24, 2002
• OpenSAML release July 15, 2002
• Pilots commence around Oct 1 (some already
  underway)
• Beta-1 code (the real stuff) Sept 27 CMU, OSU,
  MIT, Columbia
• Shib 1.0 released as part of NMI R2 - Oct
  25,2002, with Shib subsystem 1.0, Resource
  Managers 0.3, Attribute Release Managers 0.4
• Post 1.0 -Shib 1.1 and 1.2, ARM and RM
  development, applications enablement listprocs,
  desktop videoconferencing, streaming video,
  calendaring, etc

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Issues for K-12

• Deployment
• What is the enterprise school, district,
  state
• What are the technical platforms
• What are the social issues
• Privacy
• Security
• Consensus on meaningful roles and attributes
• Curricular Use
• Professional development
• Thinking beyond the limits
• Realizing the opportunities