STI: A Next Generation Integrated Environment for Collaborative Work Across Advanced Networks

开发，建设和部署VRVS 2，一个独特的，全球可扩展的下一代系统的实时协作的小型工作组，中型和大型团队从事研究，教育和推广，在一个国家和国际网络的合奏建议。该合作系统建立在现有的有限规模的原型生产系统的基础上，该系统服务于高能和核物理（HENP）社区以及其他一些数据密集型科学和工程部门。 该提案的主要目标是扩展VRVS技术，以提供满足许多领域的研究和教育需求所需的软件基础设施和启用Web的用户界面。VRVS 2将覆盖全球范围，涵盖用于日常协作的所有现有和新兴协议和客户端设备，从移动的设备到台式机，再到大型企业中的安装。它将与加州理工学院目前正在开发的网格分析环境（GAE）集成，该环境与美国的GriPhyN，iVDGL和PPDG项目以及欧洲的DataGrid，DataTAG和Cross Grid项目合作。目前的VRVS系统已被Internet 2数字视频（I2-DV）计划选为美国研究和教育学校和实验室的Internet 2社区开发高级视频，音频和多媒体协作应用程序的首选基础。VRVS 2项目将创建一个“测试平台视频网络”，并开发必要的中间件，以支持快速数据交换的一系列新的基本要求，以及大规模科学合作中的高水平交互性，包括支持新兴标准。 新的设计，基于一个纯粹的对等体系结构，将促进监测功能，以及提供高度的可靠性和可扩展性。 处理实时流量的每个VRVS网络服务器将是独立的，由内部监控代理进行自我管理，并且仅与其对等反射器节点进行交互。该架构将是完全冗余的，在一个反射器故障的情况下具有分组流的自动重新路由，包括反射器之间的自动带宽和QoS监控（延迟、分组丢失和抖动），以确保真实的时间通信的最佳可能连接性。 将使用一个基于网络服务的模块化和可扩展的架构，以提供支持大量会议和用户的先进监测和跟踪工具。 在桌面或计算机中心运行的网络代理将允许来自具有防火墙和/或NAT的受保护站点的任何视频会议客户端与公共或私有远程位置中的任何其他客户端进行通信。将增加认证和可选加密，以保持个人通信的机密性。 美国国家科学基金会资助这一项目，因为他们相信VRVS 2项目可能会对教育和研究产生深远的影响。

The developing, building and deploying of VRVS2, a unique, globally scalable next-generation system for real-time collaboration by small workgroups, medium and large teams engaged in research, education and outreach, over an ensemble of national and international networks is proposed. The collaboration system builds on the existing limited-scale prototype-production system serving the high energy and nuclear physics (HENP) community and some other data-intensive science and engineering sectors. The primary goals of this proposal are to extend the VRVS technology to provide the software infrastructure and Web-enabled user interfaces required to meet the research and education needs of many fields. VRVS2 will be global in scope, covering the full range of existing and emerging protocols and client devices for daily collaboration, from mobile devices to desktops to installations in large auditoria. It will be integrated with the Grid-enabled Analysis Environment (GAE) now under development at Caltech in partnership with the GriPhyN, iVDGL and PPDG projects in the US, and the DataGrid, DataTAG, Cross Grid projects in Europe. The current VRVS system has been chosen by the Internet2 Digital Video (I2-DV) Initiative as a preferred foundation for the development of advanced video, audio and multimedia collaborative applications by the Internet2 community of US Research and Education schools and labs. The VRVS2 project will create a "testbed video network" and develop the necessary middleware to support a set of new and essential requirements for rapid data exchange, and a high level of interactivity in large-scale scientific collaborations including support for emerging standards. The new design, based on a pure peer-to-peer architecture, will facilitate the monitoring functions as well as provide a high degree of reliability and scalability. Each VRVS network server, which handles the real-time traffic, will be independent, self-managed by internal monitoring agents, and will interact only with its peer reflector nodes. The architecture will be fully redundant, with automatic re-routing of packet streams in case one reflector fails, including automatic bandwidth and QoS monitoring (latency, packet loss, and jitter) between reflectors, in order to assure the best possible connectivity for real time communication. A modular and scalable architecture based on web services to provide advanced monitoring and tracking tools that support a very large number of conferences and users will be used. Networking agents that run on the desktop or at the computer center will allow any videoconferencing client from a protected site with a firewall and/or NAT to communicate with any other client in a public or private remote location. Authentication and optional encryption will be added to maintain confidentiality of inter-personal communications. NSF is funding this in the belief that the VRVS2 project may have a profound impact on education, as well as research.