Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Access Grid in the UK

John Gordon Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Michael DawManchester Computing

The Current Situation…

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Access Grid in the UK

• About 70 AG nodes

• …and rising!

• E-Science

• Virtual Research Environments

• E-Social Science

• Art

• Teaching

• Seminars, etc.

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Typical Views of Access Grid

Weddings

SeminarSC Global Workshop Performance Arte-Social Science

SC Global

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Access Grid Support Centre

• General support

• IG Pix

• IG Recorder

• Virtual Venue Servers

• Multicast-Unicast Bridges

• QA Tests

• Training

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

• 1st & 2nd line support

• For node ops / end-users

• FAQ’s

AGSC – Support

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – IG Pix

• Product from inSORS

• Allows shared presentations

• Slides viewed via web browser

• No need for specialist client software

• No need to distribute files beforehand

• Available free to registered users

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – IG Recorder

• Product from inSORS

• Allows recording of AG events

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – Virtual Venue Servers

• InSORS:– All original venues (Full Sail,

Bridgeport, etc.)

– All UK institutional venues

– AGSC-specific venues

– Any venue you want!

• AG2:– Same venues as inSORS VVS

– UK e-Science X.509 certificates (or regular AG certs)

– Can set up secure venues (based on DN) for your group

– All the features of AG2 (shared docs, shared apps, etc.)

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – Multicast-Unicast Bridges

• InSORS – for reliability

• AG2 bridge – for AG2 users

• rcBridge (originally written by ANU Internet Futures, adapted by Manchester) – especially good for low bandwidth connectivity

• staticBridge (written by Andrew Rowley, Manchester) – for users behind firewalls

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – QA Tests

• Aim: to improve the AG experience for users

• Audio– Echo

– General quality

• Video– General quality

– Picture construction

• Networking– Multicast

– Use of beacons

• Collaborative software – IG Pix

– VNC

– Text chat (Jabber)

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – Training

• July 2005:

– “So you want to have an Access Grid ?”

– “Access Grid Research & Development”

– “The Access Grid Support Centre”

– “QA Tests & Node Maintenance”

– “Node operation”

– “Advanced Audio”

– “Collaborative Visualization” (by Brian Corrie, SFU, Canada)

• Next workshop: January 2006

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – Documentation

• Port usage (Javier Gomez Alonso):http://www.accessgrid.org/agdp/guide/ports.html

• More to come!

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

AGSC – Who’s Using It?

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Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Maths Teaching over the AG

• DTAGMATHS – teaching Maths to school children in deprived areas using the AG

• InSORS have given us financial support to enable us to do this

• http://www.sve.man.ac.uk/Research/AtoZ/DTAGMATHS

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Meeting Memory and the AG

• Memetic – improving the ways we conduct meetings to enable asynchronous collaboration

• http://www.memetic-vre.net

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

CSAGE

• Collaborative Stereoscopic Access Grid Environment

• Build extensions to the AG to enable full-sized stereo viewing

• E.g. for collaborative dance…

• http://kato.mvc.mcc.ac.uk/sve-wiki/SAGE

Combining the strengths of UMIST andThe Victoria University of Manchester

Contact Details

http://www.sve.man.ac.uk/General/Staff/daw

michael.daw@manchester.ac.uk

Research Support Services @ Manchester Computing