virtuality and efficiency â€“ overcoming past antinomy in the

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Virtuality and efficiency ndash overcoming pastantinomy in the remote collaboration experienceTo cite this article Joao Fernandes et al 2010 J Phys Conf Ser 219 082006

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Virtuality and Efficiency - Overcoming Past Antinomy in the

Remote Collaboration Experience

Joao Fernandes1 Knut Bjorkli David Martin Clavo Thomas Baron

CERN IT-UDS-AVC 1211 Geneva 23 Switzerland

E-mail JoaoFernandescernch

Abstract Several recent initiatives have been put in place by the CERN IT Department to

improve the user experience in remote dispersed meetings and remote collaboration at large in

the LHC communities worldwide We will present an analysis of the factors which were

historically limiting the efficiency of remote dispersed meetings and describe the consequent

actions which were undertaken at CERN to overcome these limitations After giving a status

update of the different equipment available at CERN to enable the virtual sessions and the

various collaborative tools which are currently proposed to users we will focus on the

evolution of this market how can the new technological trends (among others HD

videoconferencing Telepresence Unified Communications etc) impact positively the user

experience and how to attain the best usage of them Finally by projecting ourselves in the

future we will give some hints as to how to answer the difficult question of selecting the next

generation of collaborative tools which set of tools among the various offers (systems like

Vidyo H264 SVC next generation EVO Groupware offers standard H323 systems etc) is

best suited for our environment and how to unify this set for the common user This will finally

allow us to definitively overcome the past antinomy between virtuality and efficiency

1 Introduction

In 2007 the RCTF board (Remote Collaboration Task Force) was formed in response to

recommendations of the LCG RTAG 12 Final Report [3] The RTAG 12 has recommended several

actions considered critical for the future of the collaborative tools in the LHC Perhaps the most

important one was to centralize the coordination of the remote collaborative activities under CERN IT

with oversight from the LHC experiments Since then RCTF has overseen the progress at CERN

effectively implementing most of the key recommendations This has included the signing of service-

level agreements by ATLAS and CMS and specifying the installation and support of conference

facilities at CERN Much of the deployment and installation work is now complete the attention is

shifting toward other challenges including service and infrastructure consolidation and central

application support by CERNIT The author will summarize a few of the successful implementations

of the new policy and developments before pointing out the new challenges and directions to focus in

the near future

2 Progress Achieved amp Current Status

21 Organization

1 To whom any correspondence should be addressed

17th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP09) IOP PublishingJournal of Physics Conference Series 219 (2010) 082006 doi1010881742-65962198082006

ccopy 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd 1

The most important outcome of the initiatives described above was the creation of an organizational

body at CERN responsible for the design planning development and maintenance of collaborative

tool facilities and services for the LHC CERN IT-UDS-AVC was identified as this body with

oversight from the collaborations provided via the RCTF With this scheme in place significant

progress was made on several fronts This has included videoconferencing facilities Web casting and

Web Lecturing systems integrated environments and web-based authentication and authorization

representing progress basically on every major recommendation of the RTAG 12 final document This

effort is seen as an excellent example of strong coordination and cooperation between CERN IT and

the Experiments The facilities were installed following a specification that was taking into

consideration such key factors as the lighting and sound characteristics of the rooms common use

cases documentation central management support and maintenance capabilities in order to achieve a

specified standard to be replicated site wide

22 Videoconferencing Facilities

The video conferencing hardware agreements between CERN IT and the Experiments required some

time and effort by all parties involved However as soon as the agreements have been reached the

way for serious progress was opened In 2008 only 21 new meeting rooms and auditoria commonly

used by the LHC Experiments were equipped for high-quality audio and video conferencing for a total

of 35 standard videoconferencing rooms on site Agreements have been reached not only with the two

biggest Experiments (ATLAS and CMS) but also with the majority of CERN Departments (AB AT

DSU Directorate IT etc) which allowed to fully standardize the whole infrastructure A complete list

of facilities (constantly updated) their equipment and status is available via the CERN IT-UDS-AVC

web pages [12]

The installed endpoints take advantage of the latest videoconferencing technology on the market

supporting H323 and SIP protocols all of them supporting phone and video connections High-

Definition flat screens are employed for the videoconferencing endpoints with projectors displaying

the presentation material in a large format for local andor remote viewing Audio is transmitted via

microphones using high quality echo suppression systems (built-in the codecs) for best audio quality

Figure 1 Standard videoconferencing room at Point 1 (ATLAS)


2

A significant number of tests were performed under a variety of conditions to assure best-quality

audio for both audio only and videoconference sessions User input was obtained and evaluated The

development team put a serious effort on monitoring and reviewing data from meetings held in pilot

rooms before designing the final standard configuration to be employed and replicated All facilities

are documented with user guides available on the Web and printed in the rooms

Tutorials are available online and on-site training is provided by direct requests or through the

official CERN Training Catalogue [25] Although several meeting conveners are running many

meetings in an autonomous way any user are welcome to request assistance and training for meetings

including monitoring and debugging

23 Videoconferencing Service

To cope with the infrastructure expansion and refurbishment a proper professional service has been

set up where only random initiatives where in place before After setting up a coordinated team of

experts hosted at CERN IT-UDS-AVC several initiatives have been planned to support manage and

maintain the new infrastructure being rebuilt

Some of the initiatives implied to put in place a model where central frameworks were setup to allow

the remote management operation and maintenance of the main potential ldquopoints of failurerdquo of the

whole infrastructure (video codecs PCs and projectors) by setting up alarms via mail and sms in case

of system malfunction centrally scheduled software updates both for PCs and video codecs gathering

statistics of usage etc In short the objective is to have a standard infrastructure mostly automated

and at the same time centrally controlled The real activity of the service is somehow impressive

average of 1000 remote collaborative sessions per month that have a CERN venue as a central point

more than 10000 users distributed in more than 160 institutes over 37 countries The number of

sessions and users involved is expected to grow at least by a factor of 2 with the LHC startup

Figure 2 TMS (Tandberg Management Suite) for remote management of the VC infrastructure

With the new tools and developments in place it was possible to completely review the support

model giving emphasis to remote support This step was very important since it allowed reducing

dramatically the times required for user support including time to understand the problem and propose


3

a successful fix On the contrary to what happens in other IT services the collaborative activity is a

completely real time so delays in problem solving or troubleshooting at the user or system level are

simply not an option To achieve this a VCROC (Videoconferencing Remote Operations Centre) has

been setup The VCROC consists of a set of 4 PCs with 4 displays and a videoconferencing unit

Through the VCROC operators can have a constant snapshot of the service activity proactively

intervene in case of a problem detected or interact with users for troubleshooting assistance etc

In terms of videoconferencing infrastructure some progress has also been achieved A new

MCU[14] (Multipoint Control Unit) service will be put in place during the summer of 2009 to be part

of the catalogue of services offered to the LHC A gateway is already hosted to allow users to use any

Telephone Conference system from the same H323 terminal avoiding setup and equipment

duplication

The service activity is not limited to the day-to-day operation of the LHC collaborative activity but

also to provide support consultancy and expertise for major events and outreach activities The service

members have been actively involved and sometimes leading the setup of the big events for the LHC

start-up namely the LHC Beam Day [22] and the LHC Grid Fest [21] Moreover the Team is

providing expertise to all the Experimentsrsquo special projects in the Collaborative Tools domain such as

the CMS Centres Worldwide project [5]

Figure 3 CMS centre at CERN (Meyrin)

24 Technology Research amp Indico Integration

In parallel with all the activities described above several initiatives took place to analyze the market

trends technologies vendors applications and related services in the Unified Communications and

rich media conferencing and collaborative fields In short the idea is to be in close contact with the

initiatives in the commercial world and directions taken By tightening partnerships with commercial

vendors some results have been already achieved general guidelines for service and setup

specifications high quality endpoint tests and pilots such as Telepresence[23] and new scalable codec

implementations for Desktops (such as H264-SVC)[24]

This ongoing assessment has also produced another immediate conclusion large dispersed

communities such as the LHC will probably not converge to one single collaborative tool as the

multiplicity of use cases scenarios bandwidths available endpoint setups etc will make this task

very difficult if not impossible From the end user point of view this finding implies that any Unified


4

Communication scenario is provided with an additional degree of customization where all the

underlying collaborative technologies and the associated resources can be operated managed and used

in a transparent way For the LHC the customization layer has been early identified that should be

provided by Indico Management system [18]

The Integrated Digital Conference (Indico) software is a web‐based multi‐platform conference

lifecycle management system and agenda It has also become the long term archiving tool for

documents and metadata related to all kinds of events that take place at CERN and LHC at large The

software is used in production at CERN (hosting gt65000 events and around 10000 visitors per day)

and in more than 50 institutes worldwide Due to this high interest the expectations on the tool are

high being permanently under heavy development providing grounds for the establishment of many

challenging RampD projects

Figure 4 New Indico interface to be in production during 2009

Concerning collaborative tools integration the first prototype has been developed and will be put in

production during the summer of 2009 The future versions of Indico will allow the user to book and

start collaborative resources such as EVO[13] or an MCU and start the remote session by pushing a

software button at the time of the meeting

Figure 5 Collaborative Tools integration in Indico


5

The next step will be to add the necessary intelligence to Indico (using remote agents) allowing the

automatic management of the remote session (automatic start if the user wishes)

3 New Challenges

31 Standard Collaborative Environment

The communication challenges of the LHC are considered critical for the success of the collaboration

and the efforts to address them didnrsquot come from nothing As mentioned above several important

initiatives have been taken to survey the collaborations in order to help clarifying the requirements

(both technical and financial) to understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing tools and to

research the latest developments offered by the scientific and commercial sectors in terms of

applications technologies and services Different collaboration surveys made inside the LHC

community have included extensive studies early in 2003 and 2004 Recently these studies have been

followed up by a general LHC-wide survey [8] performed by CERN IT on behalf of the Experiments

In an effort to consolidate information and to assess the complete requirements of the LHC

for collaborative tools the LCG (LHC Computing Grid) Project launched an RTAG (Requirements

and Technical Assessment Group) in 2004 The grouprsquos findings and recommendations were

presented in a final report [3] endorsed by the LHC experiments This report has been summarized

and presented at numerous international conferences including CHEP 2006 in Mumbai India [9]

Recently in order to follow-up the work already done by RTAG 12 and other previous boards and to

clarify and standardize the Collaborative Environment for the LHC the LCEB[15] (LHC

Collaborative Environments Board) has been created with extended representation from a variety of

other physics Labs to include videoconferencing expertise and representation of the remote users

LCEB is replacing RCTF and given the additional charge of following up the surveys and assessments

in order to draft a standard collaborative environment solution both in technical and financial terms

supported by all parties involved The problem under discussion is clear in exchange of funding the

Experiments would like an integrated collaborative environment for the LHC to be established and

handled through CERN IT with some degree of control over the service development priorities in

order to assure that the LHC issues receive the necessary support In addition provided that the

funding comes from the Experiments the sharing of costs should reflect its measured usage

32 Assessing the LHC Needs

The first task of LCEB is to gather and agree on a set of requirements These requirements are

intended to drive the assessment CERN IT is carrying out in order to compare the current tools in use

at the LHC collaborations with other systems on the market and come up with a standardized offer

which will be well suited for all the users and funded transparently by the LHC community It is well

understood that any change in the current collaborative environment will have to be the result of a

careful maturation process and wont be done over night The next steps of the process will be a test

phase (limited to the systems that fulfil the agreed requirements) and finalized by issuing a

recommendation

4 Summary

Important progress has been made over the past two years in the design planning development and

deployment of collaborative tools supporting the LHC The current state of the infrastructure is not

comparable to what existed only a few years ago at CERN The general feedback about this progress

from the Experiments is very positive The major recommendations of the RTAG 12 on Collaborative

Tools have either been addressed or currently being followed up a professional service has been set

up to handle requests and to intervene quickly for problem resolution the set of the most common

meeting venues at CERN are equipped professionally for audio and videoconference with some

additional to come in 2009 More generally the majority of meetings held by the Experiments are


6

broadcast[20] or recorded in one form or another allowing participation by all members of the

collaborations including important presentations seminars and tutorials an integrated environment is

being designed and put in place in the form of a common customized interface that will support all the

collaborative tool services and activities under its umbrella most importantly the central coordination

of CERN IT is providing project management and accountability critically important to define a path

for the Experiments for technical specifications and viable financial agreements for the services

required

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge and thank the CERN IT Department and the Experiment

Resource Coordinators and Representatives for supporting all the work done in the field of

Collaborative Tools for the LHC In addition the author would like to thank the IT-UDS Group

Leader and IT-UDS-AVC Section Leader for all the support and guidance Finally a special thanks to

Knut Bjorkli and David Martin Clavo for the huge amount of work done

References

[1] RCTF Remote Collaboration Task Force was a body chaired by CERN-IT UDS with

representation from that group and the LHC collaborationsin charge of the development and

installation of collaborative tools at CERN in support of the experiments

[2] Collaborative Tools and the LHC An Update S Goldfarb Proceedings of the International

Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics Victoria 2007 Journal of

Physics Conference Series 119 (2008) 082002

[3] Report of the LHC Computing Grid Project RTAG 12 Collaborative Tools S Goldfarb et

al CERN-LCG-PEB-2005-07 (2005)

[4] Virtual Room Videoconferencing System Developed by the California Institute of

Technology (Caltech) Replaced by EVO in 2008

[5] CMS Centres Worldwide a New Collaborative Infrastructure L Taylor Oral Presentation

Collaborative Tools Session CHEP 2009

[6] Opportunities for Use and Development of Collaborative Tools in ATLAS S Goldfarb et

al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)

[7] VRVS User Community Survey Results March 2004

[8] CERN Remote Collaborative Tools Survey October 2008

[9] LCG RTAG 12 Collaborative Tools for the LHC S Goldfarb Proceedings to International

Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics Mumbai 2006 McMillian

India Ltd Vol I421-425 (2006)

[10] Shaping Collaboration 2006 a joint workshop held Dec 11-13 2006 with participation by the

Workshop for Advanced Collaborative Environments and LHC Users

[11] Shaping Collaboration 2006 Action Items for the LHC S Goldfarb J Herr HA Neal

Proceedings of the International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear

Physics Victoria 2007 Journal of Physics Conference Series 119 (2008) 082003

[12] CERN Videoconference Rooms web site of Audiovisual and Collaborative Services

[13] EVO Enabling Virtual Organizations is video conferencing system designed for HEP

capable of connecting a variety of clients including H323 It succeeds VRVS

[14] CERN MCU is an MCU-based H323 video conferencing system supported by CERN IT to be

put in production during the summer of 2009

[15] LCEB LHC Collaborative Environments Board is a body chaired by CERNIT UDS and

containing representation from that group the LHC experiments other physics laboratories

and expertise in video conferencing

[16] Succesful Video Communication CISCO White Paper Jan 2009

[17] H323 and SIP are the industry standard protocols for video and audio conferencing

[18] Indico is an Event Management System used to manage meetings and conferences (such as


7

CHEP) It is used for scheduling room reservation attaching documents minutes etc

[19] Indico Latest News reports development and plans for Indico

[20] The CERN Webcast Site hosts several dedicated channels broadcasting CERN events live

around the globe

[21] LHC Grid Fest CERN October 2008

[22] LHC First Beam Day September 10th 2008

[23] Tandberg Telepresence is an immersive in-person meeting experience

[24] H264-SVC stands for Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is the name given to an extension of the

H264MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard

[25] CERN Training Catalogue The CERN Technical Training courses are open to members of

CERN personnel (staff members and fellows associates students users project associates

etc)


8

Virtuality and Efficiency - Overcoming Past Antinomy in the

Remote Collaboration Experience

Joao Fernandes1 Knut Bjorkli David Martin Clavo Thomas Baron

CERN IT-UDS-AVC 1211 Geneva 23 Switzerland

E-mail JoaoFernandescernch

Abstract Several recent initiatives have been put in place by the CERN IT Department to

improve the user experience in remote dispersed meetings and remote collaboration at large in

the LHC communities worldwide We will present an analysis of the factors which were

historically limiting the efficiency of remote dispersed meetings and describe the consequent

actions which were undertaken at CERN to overcome these limitations After giving a status

update of the different equipment available at CERN to enable the virtual sessions and the

various collaborative tools which are currently proposed to users we will focus on the

evolution of this market how can the new technological trends (among others HD

videoconferencing Telepresence Unified Communications etc) impact positively the user

experience and how to attain the best usage of them Finally by projecting ourselves in the

future we will give some hints as to how to answer the difficult question of selecting the next

generation of collaborative tools which set of tools among the various offers (systems like

Vidyo H264 SVC next generation EVO Groupware offers standard H323 systems etc) is

best suited for our environment and how to unify this set for the common user This will finally

allow us to definitively overcome the past antinomy between virtuality and efficiency

1 Introduction

In 2007 the RCTF board (Remote Collaboration Task Force) was formed in response to

recommendations of the LCG RTAG 12 Final Report [3] The RTAG 12 has recommended several

actions considered critical for the future of the collaborative tools in the LHC Perhaps the most

important one was to centralize the coordination of the remote collaborative activities under CERN IT

with oversight from the LHC experiments Since then RCTF has overseen the progress at CERN

effectively implementing most of the key recommendations This has included the signing of service-

level agreements by ATLAS and CMS and specifying the installation and support of conference

facilities at CERN Much of the deployment and installation work is now complete the attention is

shifting toward other challenges including service and infrastructure consolidation and central

application support by CERNIT The author will summarize a few of the successful implementations

of the new policy and developments before pointing out the new challenges and directions to focus in

the near future

2 Progress Achieved amp Current Status

21 Organization

1 To whom any correspondence should be addressed


ccopy 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd 1






















web pages [12]








2





























3











duplication





















4



















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3 New Challenges


































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Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























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Acknowledgements






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Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























7




around the globe








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8











duplication





















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5



3 New Challenges


































recommendation

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6







required

Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























7




around the globe








etc)


8



















5



3 New Challenges


































recommendation

4 Summary










6







required

Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























7




around the globe








etc)


8



3 New Challenges


































recommendation

4 Summary










6







required

Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























7




around the globe








etc)


8







required

Acknowledgements






References














al ATL-GEN-2003-002 (2003)























7




around the globe








etc)


8




around the globe








etc)


8

virtuality and efficiency â€“ overcoming past antinomy in the

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