Access Grid:Australian activities

Markus.Buchhorn@anu.edu.auANU Internet Futures group

and

GrangeNet Grid Services Coordinator

Australian AG nodes

Currently around 12-15 nodes Qld: UQ, QUT, JCU-T, JCU-C, CQU, GU NSW: U.Syd, UTS ACT: ANU(3), AARNet/GrangeNet Vic: VPAC, Monash, U.Ballarat SA: UniSA

Expecting around 30+ by mid 2004.

AU-AGN’s

Mix of technology selections Lots of all-Linux One all FreeBSD “standard” Windows/Linux mix All Windows Some PIGs, etc.

Developments in AG-AU

Several groups working on shared visualisation applicationsSome groups working on instrument integration Electron microscopy Telescopes

At least one group working on usability, performance and functionality

Mine

A separate talk:The Good, The Bad, and The

Ugly

HCI/GUI Issues, A/V localisation, Large group representation

Audio/Video tracking of (moving) targets, A/V SynchronisationWhiteboards, tablets, laser pointersCentralised and automated node operation High quality A/VPerformance

Measurement, Analysis, Tuning Stressing

Reliability/AvailabilityHolographyHapticsNon-flat and immersive projectionRear-wall projection

Aids remote interactionIntelligent gateways

H.323, SIP Transcoding Source selection Streaming

Recording and playbackSupport non-AG spaces, non-GrangeNet bandwidth

Layered codecs Stereo to 2-D

Security Access, encryption,

Network Services Smarter (reliable?) multicast, QoS wireless devices

Additional interaction modes

Linkage of Venues, Services and applications

Linkage to other (any!) Grid Services computing, data, instruments, visualisation

Visualisation Shared or independent views

Data browser Sharing, discussion, annotation

Computational Steering

Instrument Consoles

Screen Scraping vs application awareness It’s important! It’s independent of the space!

Physical Security Use of public spaces for AGN, tempting equipment

Use AG equipment (cameras, mikes) for automated, intelligent security out of hours.

Use other sites as your security guard (follow the sun security)

AG@ANU~4 staff plus 4 studentsBuilding 3 AG nodes,

another 3-4 on order/design Strong user focus – astronomers, medical school,

biologists, administrators Strong interest in visualisation (3D) and

computational/data interfaces.

Attacking several problems now Performance (analysis/measurement) Connectivity (multicast/unicast) UI (managing video/audio) Integration (H.323, SIP) User friendliness, node operator removal Hardware integration (electronic whiteboards)

Performance measurement

RTPreplicateStress your display/audio machinesOne stream goes in, N come outUse feedback from rtcp to benchmark

Derive a meaningful number

Full throughput test network, interfaces, CPU/RAM/graphics bus

Connectivity

Multicast isn’t everywhereBandwidth isn’t everywhereMulticast/unicast bridges don’t scale well in management

Host must reconfigure all the time

RCbridge and rcb-forward client

RCBridge

•http is scriptable – command line clients

•Can build a P2P network of unicast fowarders, e.g. for failover

User Interface

Vic (video) and rat (audio) old, unfriendly Few new codecs (DV, MPEG-x, MJPEG, HDTV, …) And don’t scale all that well

No lip-synch no mbus

No audio-localisationNo “remote-site UI management”Manageability is a problem

Major effort of node operator

No ability to scale codecs across clusters Performance and reliability advantages

VP – a new start

Plug-able architecture Codecs Filters (pre/post)

E.g. captions Devices

Use of OpenGL capabilities Smooth (not just quantised) scaling, done in hardware Much more flexible user interfaces possible

Audio, lip-synch, localisation, UI, site-grouping

Starting with a decode app first

Integration with H.323

H.323 is wide-spread, AG is not (yet)Bridging between two worlds Analogue VRVS

Silver23 Open source, software gateway Some MCU-like functionality

Hardware constrained, but clusterable http managed, very flexible stream selection

Provides an easy path into our VoIP and PSTN Integrate with telephony with no additional hardware Your mileage may vary…

Hardware, and Humanware

Integrate electronic pen-tracking whiteboard Astronomers want blackboard/chalk integration! E-beam and Mimio are excellent

Node operator is too expensive Design nodes to be remotely managed Hardware integration with out-of-band interfaces Maintain rapid user support in rooms

Generalised application sharing is a BIG issue.

Treat VGA as a new kind of video source, separate channel for mouse/keyboard events