A Set of Information Management Clients

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A Set of Information Management Clients
Higher Ground

• IBM Almaden
• Harvey Mudd College
• Computer Science Clinic
• 1997-1998

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IBM Almaden

• Located in San Jose, California
• Second largest IBM Research laboratory
• Research foci
• Storage systems
• Cyberspace development

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Grand Central Station
Plugboard
HTTP
Profile Engine
FTP Server
Gatherer
Channel Master Admin Server
POP Server
XML Repository
Collector
CICS Server
Profile Engine
Data Collection
Data Distribution (High Ground)
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Pushing Forward

• Push vs Pull
• Persistent Queries
• Well Organized Data

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General Solutions

• Multiple Environments
• Portable Data
• Information Clients

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Extensible Markup Language

• Similar to HTML
• Tags
• More Powerful
• User defined tags
• Higher Ground Communication Format

A Lotus Notes Calendar Entry
ltCalendarEntrygt ltDategt 3/3/98
lt/Dategt ltEventgt Clinic Presentation
lt/Eventgt lt/CalendarEntrygt
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Channels

• Define categories of information
• Use push technology
• Becoming widely used
• PointCast
• Netscape Netcaster
• Internet Explorer

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Channel Definition Format

• Proposed Open Standard
• Specifies Channels and their Properties
• Title
• Refresh Interval
• Items

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Channel Definition Format

• Example

ltChannel HREFhttp//almaden.ibm.com/username.cdf
gt ltSchedulegtltIntervalTime DAY1
/gtlt/Schedulegt ltItem HREFhttp//almaden.ibm.
com/articles/xml1.htmlgt ltLastMod
VALUE1998.3.05T1100 /gt ltTitle
VALUEIBM Buys Microsoft /gt ltAuthor
VALUEIBM 97 Clinic Team /gt
lt/Itemgt lt/Channelgt
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Higher Ground Overview
Lotus Notes
XML Entry
Login
CDF Updated
Admin Server
Palm Pilot
Web Server
Email Client
Get CDF File
Get XML List
XML Repository
Get XML Entry
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Plugboard

• Graphical User Interface
• Client Manager
• Specify available clients
• Specify channels for clients
• Launches clients
• Communicates with the Admin Server and the Web
  Server

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Plugboard

• Logs into Admin Server
• Admin Server Signals Plugboard
• Plugboard gets CDF file from the web server
• Plugboard parses CDF file to get a list of XML
  documents for each channel from the web server
• Plugboard gets new XML documents for each channel
  from the web server
• Plugboard pushes new XML documents to the clients

Admin Server
Web Server
CDF File ltChannelgt lthrefList1...
XML List lthrefXML1... lthrefXML2...
Client
XML ltSubjectgt... ltAbstractgt...
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Email Client

• Receives XML from Plugboard
• Emails XML to specified users

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Lotus Notes Client

• Receives XML from the Plugboard
• Parses XML into database items
• Creates new Lotus Notes documents

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Pilot Proxy Server

• PilotClient
• processes XML from Plugboard
• pushes XML into T Space
• PilotProxy
• retrieves XML from T Space
• Communicates with Pilot over TCP/IP

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PilotGround Client

• USR PalmPilot based client
• Communicates with Pilot Proxy over TCP/IP
• Retrieves data events from P Space
• Sends data events to P Space
• Graphical Interface for viewing XML documents

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Team Members

• Kevin Eustice - CS 99 (Team Leader)
• James Holloway - CS 99
• Damon Lundin - CS/Math 98
• Michael Rodriguez - CS 99
• Dr. Joshua Hodas - Faculty Advisor
• Dr. Toby Lehman - GCS Liaison (IBM)
• Dr. Dan Ford - GCS Project Leader (IBM)