• Spring 2004 International Main page
• ITF Meeting: 1st Part (Mon)
• ITF Meeting: 2nd Part (Mon)
• Global Connectivity: Case Studies (Tues)
• Extending the reach of advanced networking Workshop (Thurs)
• Spring 2004 Member Meeting

Continental Breakfast

Welcome and Opening Remarks
Ana Preston - Internet2 (US) [presentation]

Transatlantic Performance Monitoring Workshop: presentation from e2e on workshops at CERN
Eric Boyd - Internet2, (US) [presentation]

The Transatlantic Performance Monitoring Workshop 2004 brought together researchers from the Internet2 community and our European counterparts working for DANTE and the various NRENs. I will provide a brief overview of the talks presented and discuss our plans for future collaboration. For those interested in reviewing the talks directly, they can be found here: http://people.internet2.edu/~eboyd/transatlantic_workshop.html

Deploying and Operating a Large Scale Multicast Backbone
Congxiao Bao, Xing Li, CERNET (China) [presentation]

China Education and Research Network (CERNET) is the first Native Multicast backbone in China. It provides multicast access service in 38 Pops to its more than 1,000 member universities. CERNET multicast network has national multicast ISP peer with NSFCNET and international multicast ISP peers with APAN, JANET HARNET and STARTAP. CERNET multicast backbone is the first step towards the group communication and collaboration. In this presentation, we will

1. Summarize the design principles of a large scale nationwide multicast backbone. Discuss the operation experiences of the CERNET multicast network.
2. Introduce CERNET multicast monitoring tool, which greatly help to find the critical multicast failure point and help to do debugging of a large-scale multicast backbone.
3. Look for international partners to participate the CERNET multicast monitoring project to monitoring the international links.
4. If time permits, the CERNET2 (pure IPv6) backbone and the IPv6 multicast design considerations will be discussed.

Voice and Video over JANET
Roger Bolam, UKERNA (United Kingdom) [presentation]

Content Delivery on JANET:
It is generally accepted that there is a need in any network for strong support for efficient delivery of the variety of content required by present and future applications.
The JANET CDI Trial has proved that content can be efficiently delivered over JANET when an appropriate end-to-end infrastructure is deployed. With the convergence of availability of media rich digital content, a requirement to access it for teaching learning and research and the maturing of technology to enable efficient delivery of content it is timely to define an architecture to enable the effective and efficient delivery of content to support applications in teaching, learning and research.

Videoconferencing Development Projects:
The launch of the JANET IP Videoconferencing Service in February 2003, has provided a reliable H.323 videoconferencing infrastructure to the JANET community. UKERNA are now actively developing new videoconferencing services, which aim to both compliment current JVCS services, and to provide new ways in which videoconferencing can be offered to the JANET community. Three projects are currently underway; Conferencing on Demand, Automated QA Testing, and Higher Quality Videoconferencing.

Conferencing on Demand:
The Conferencing on Demand project is assessing the feasibility of providing on-line self administered IP videoconferencing MCU resources to the JANET community. IP MCU resources will be scheduled via an on-line scheduling interface, providing the capability of scheduling IP videoconferences instantly or up to 48 hours in advance. It is planned that the Conferencing on Demand service will not require sites to pass a JVCS Quality Assurance test, and will allow any H.323 compliant CODEC to use its resources. The conferencing on demand service will only require sites to undertake a minimal initial registration, which will be limited to appropriate JANET connected sites.

Automated QA Testing:
The automated QA test project is assessing the feasibility of providing a dedicated on-line audio and video analysis tool for use within the JANET community. The system will provide feedback to users on their current audio and video levels. The Automated QA test system will compliment (not replace) the current JVCS Quality Assurance procedure. The automated QA test system will be reserved using the Conferencing on Demand scheduling tool.

Higher Quality Videoconferencing:
Whilst the quality of H.323 & H.320 codecs has improved over the last couple of years, applications exists where there is a clear requirement for higher quality video resolution and audio clarity.
Examples include:

• Medical applications which typically input a mixture of camera and medical imaging sources.
• Interactive music tuition i.e. ‘master-classes’.
• Large scale lecture theatre tuition.
  
  UKERNA are currently considering the most effective way in which High Quality videoconferencing can be conducted on JANET.

Global Content Sharing via High Speed Networks
Jacqueline Brown, Univ. Washington (US), Egon Verharen, SURFnet (The Netherlands), Michael Wellings, ResearchChannel and Univ. Washington (US) [presentation]

Internet2 fosters many collaborations and new partnerships through the member meetings that take advantage of high-bitrate networks and spurs the development of advanced applications. One such collaboration exists among SurfNet in Netherlands, LARC in Brazil, UPC in Spain, ANF in Korea, AARNET in Australia, and ResearchChannel in the United States. This collaboration stretches the limits of networking and computing on a world wide scale.

Successful projects for this group include the first trans-Atlantic High Definition Video over Internet demonstration to the IGrid 2002 conference and content distribution through multicast of video programming. This group has several projects in work and is exploring new ideas for future development. This session will include a demonstration of the DVTS system that is being developed and used by these partners. DVTS is a high quality interactive system using DV cameras at 30mbps that others may wish to use for their projects. New participants are welcome.

A Videoconferencing Service for the German Network for Research and Education "DFN"
Renate Schroeder, DFN (Germany) [presentation]

In the past, video conferencing mostly suffered from lack of resources (basicly capacity) and low quality network performance (high jitter). In high performance National Research Networks this is no longer an issue. In the absence of bad audio or video quality, other problem areas like administration of video conference facilities and the requirement to control and moderate a video conference become more visible and have to be addressed. Based on more than a year of operational experience, a number of tools and services have been developed in DFN and will be presented. At the time being, more than 150 institutions are registered and use the service on a regular basis.

BREAK

CR2Net Experiences: Present and Future of Costa Rica's Research and Education Network
Vigny Alvarado, CR2Net (Costa Rica) [presentation]

Update on TERENA Technical Programme
Valentino Cavalli, TERENA (Europe) [presentation]

The TERENA technical programme supports development and testing of new networking, middleware and application technologies in Europe. After a quick overview of current task forces and projects the presentation will focus on most recent results, which include among others, TACAR, a scheme for the storage and exchange of CA root certificates inside among European NRENs and the IP Telephony Cookbook. Being published in spring 2004 the cookbook focuses on components and protocols like H.323, SIP and Media Gateway Protocol and provides guidelines for deployment and set up of basic and advanced IP Telephony services

AARNet3 and SXTransPORT - Positioning Australia's contribution to Global Cyberinfrastructure
Chris Hancock and George McLaughlin, AARNet (Australia) [presentation]

In the last few months of 2003, AARNet finalized a number of new or enhanced strategic relationships that resulted in it gaining access to: two fibre pairs across Australia; fibre in regional areas of Australia not otherwise well served by conventional carriers; and dual 10Gbps circuits from Australia to the US west coast via Hawaii. In addition, AARNet became the management company for the Commonwealth Government's Australian Research and Education Network (AREN) initiative. The combination of these relationships and acquisitions will provide Australian researchers and educators with state of the art infrastructure and services allowing them to participate in global collaborative initiatives. The infrastructure will facilitate the contribution of Australia's cyberinfrastructure and expertise to the global pool.

New Peering Updates:

• Pacific Wave - Jacqueline Brown, Univ. Washington (US) [presentation]
• MAN LAN - Rick Summerhill, Internet2 (US) [presentation]

Adjourn