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Rio Grande do Sul uses advanced technology in international videoconference

This month, the Computer Science Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) took part in an unprecedented experiment. A videoconference framework called Access Grid was used for the first time in a truly global conference through the web. Representatives of seven countries - Brazil, Canada, Germany, the United States, Italy, China and Japan - could not only attend but also effectively participate in lectures, interacting with one another by means of videoconference tools. The lecturers could be from any of the countries involved, transmitting information directly from their homeland. UFRGS did not present any lectures since, according to professor Cláudio Geyer, from the Computer Science Institute, there was no time to make preliminary tests, which prevented the institution from contributing to the program of the event.

In order to ensure UFRGS's participation in the conference, RNP made an exclusive link of 10 Mbps between the Points of Presence in Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro, from which the 45Mbps line connecting Brazil to the Internet2, in the United States, leaves. Furthermore, RNP lent equipment to UFRGS, configurated the net so that it could operate IP and multicast, configurated ATM connections and gave all the necessary technical support. According to the organizers in Rio Grande do Sul, around 40 people contributed to the success of this enterprise, which involved, besides RNP and UFRGS's Computer Science Institute, people from RNP's Point of Presence in Porto Alegre and the High Performance Metropolitan Network in Porto Alegre (Metropoa). The Multimedia Unit of UFRGS's Engineering School also cooperated, lending video and audio equipment and giving support to generate sound and image.

"Everything worked perfectly, without any flaws from the beginning to the end", celebrated Marko Petek (petek@hotnet.net), technical coordinator of the project of installation of the Access Grid site in UFRGS. "All the network problems that happened were originated in the conference center in Denver [USA]. However, in everything related to the Brazilian network, there was no problem whatsoever", said Petek. Cláudio Geyer added that "according to some professors who had already participated in similar events, the quality of this experiment -as compared to others - was great."

Access Grid in UFRGS

UFRGS's Computer Science Institute has been working for a few months in the implantation of an Access Grid site to be used by the whole university. According to the staff responsible for this idea, the focus of the project is to use the Grid technology to permit the remote cooperation among groups of people. This way, it is possible, for instance, to offer distributed classes and seminars, to participate remotely in panels and debates, and to organize virtual meetings.

The Grid concept encompasses an infrastructure allowing the integrated and collaborative use of high performance computers, networks, databases and scientific tools belonging to several organizations. Its applications frequently involve great amounts of data or computing and they require safe sharing of resources. The Access Grid applies this concept to individuals; that is to say, it permits groups of people to interact with the Grid resources. According to the site www.accessgrid.org, the Access Grid points are knots in the net which supply the necessary advanced audio and video technology for this interaction to occur.

UFRGS's technicians have made an effort to configurate the Access Grid site in Rio Grande do Sul in time to participate in the global conference Supercomputing 2001 (SC'2001). The results of this experiment will serve to the whole national network community. "Now it is up to us to work in order to perfect this technology so that we can make this resource available on a permanent basis to all the Brazilian institutions that wish to use it", stressed Marko Petek. UFRGS is creating an Internet page to show the reflexes of this experiment. The SC'2001 took place between November 10th and 16th in Denver, USA.

[RNP, 11.23.2001]