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ReMAVs present projects at the Second RNP2 Workshop

The organizers of the Second RNP2 Workshop reserved a special place for the presentation of ongoing works of the High Speed Metropolitan Networks (ReMAVs). A Review Committee was set up to pre-select 26 of the 41 works submitted. The ongoing projects selected by the Committee were disclosed in plenary sessions in the auditorium and in the form of posters placed along the entrance hall in the Chancellor's office of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). On the first day of the event, the coordinators of all 14 consortia presented a general panel with their team's project. The sum of these presentations constitutes part of the first generation of national applications to be directly benefited by the new RNP2 backbone. They are projects that are being designed for just the purpose of exploring new infrastructure technology for Internet access for education and research in Brazil, with intensive use of multimedia resources and online interaction.

The 14 ReMAVs are, in general, made up of five institutions each. Considering that each of them in turn promotes a specific project, the total number of projects currently under development in the consortia is around 70. The actual number is even greater as this is quite a conservative estimate. It does not take into account the fact that many of the institutions in the consortia are dedicated to the development of more than one project. Moreover, some ReMAV coordinators announced in Belo Horizonte that they are already working with new partners while others said they were in the process of negotiating new partnerships, which shows that new work-fronts are being added to the consortia. Another fact that bolsters the belief in the onset of next generation applications for the Internet in this country is the migration of researchers and ReMAV experts to private enterprise. They take with them to the marketplace knowledge acquired in the consortium laboratories, thus reflecting the spread of new potential services.

New backbone guarantees quality of service

One set of projects concurrently appears in all consortia. Since the infrastructure of the new backbone is using ATM technology as a means of transporting IP packages, it has become necessary to learn and become adept in the operational and monitoring aspects of this network. In addition, the need has arisen to try out already existing tools or even design new ones for routine management tasks. Included in this set of basic projects are those using the new Ipv6 protocol, plus those implanting Quality of Service (QoS), the latter having been cited by the coordinators of ReMAVs in Porto Alegre, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Salvador, Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro.

The possibility of using QoS is one of the major differentials of the new backbone. Current network services technology does not allow for differentiated priority attributions leading to band guarantees for individual flows within the various information packages that make up the general transit flow. It is not possible to identify, separate and create levels of priority to manage the data flow. E-mail, ftp, web and telnet packages containing text, audio, image, exec, script and other files are identified by labels but pass through the network without any sort of management that might consider levels of priority to guarantee quality to a specific service or application. When we think, for example, of an application for remote manipulation of electronic microscopes, we need to be able to guarantee sufficient availability of bandwidth, amidst all the network traffic, so that the application is not interrupted. The hypothesis of real time transmission of a surgical operation with remote participation of specialists exemplifies the critical nature of the procedure. Any interruption, flaw or delay in the transmission of images might make the remote participation of the specialist impracticable and jeopardize an otherwise successful endeavor, to the point of actually setting at risk the patient's health. The new RNP2 backbone will guarantee the supply of services with assured quality of service (QoS). Quality in the new network means active differentiation of packages for the establishment of parameters to guarantee quality of services.

Projects designed by ReMAVs

Aside from the basic network management projects, there is a set of projects that can be classified by theme areas. Within this set, each ReMAV has designed projects that reflect the profile of institutions within each consortium.

The field of Long-distance Courses, for example, contains a great many projects. The emphasis in these projects is in the use of the network as a means to offer courses with multimedia resources. Aulanet software, designed by PUC-RJ, is being used as a basis for project development in various ReMAVs. This program presents an environment in which to offer online courses with multimedia content.

The field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is being considered by projects in Salvador, Recife, Goiânia, Brasília and Belo Horizonte. We can single out from amongst them those of Salvador and Recife. Regardless of their individual characteristics, they both have the common goal of making available a single geo-referential mapping system of metropolitan regions in order to afford better planning and use of public areas. The idea is that all public service organizations and outsourcers be able to work through the network with the same cartographic references based on a single blueprint for the city, as well as be accountable for data updates in their respective levels of operation and interest.

In Tele-medicine there are projects being designed to make available medical imaging databank in Santa Catarina, São Paulo, and Paraná, in compliance with DICOM worldwide standards. Salvador is designing a Tropical Pathology imaging databank of worldwide interest. In Recife, the ReMAV already has its sights on a commercial application aimed at integrating to the project a hotel under construction in the city, the second medical complex in the country, allowing even remote assistance to patients "housed" at the hotel.

Projects for videoconference and multicast protocol transmission applications are scattered throughout various ReMAVs. Natal is preparing digital access to the University TV collection at the Rio Grande do Norte Federal University (UFRN). The collection of 1,400 tapes produced over the past 27 years contains educational, cultural and public service programs. Moreover, it is being designed for live transmission of TVU programming and for video downloading applications upon request.

The website for the Second RNP2 Workshop will be updated with files of all presentations made in Belo Horizonte. The NewsGeneration bulletin will bring out a Special July Edition dedicated to the Second RNP2 Workshop wherein the published texts of the 12 articles presented in plenary sessions during the event will appear.

[RNP, 06.09.2000]