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RNP's Working Groups present results in the 4th WRNP2

On the first day of the 4^th Workshop RNP2, the coordinators of the five working groups of RNP (WG-RNP) presented the results of the activities carried out in 2002/2003. At the end, Michael Stanton, RNP's Innovations director, announced the launching of the bid notice for the formation of new WGs for the period of 2003/2004. Michael is in the technical committee that will evaluate the proposals together with Alexandre Grojsgold and Marta Pessoa, respectively RNP's Operations director and Information Management director; Iara Machado, manager of the WG-RNP program, and professors Edson Moreira, from USP, and Luci Primez, from UFRJ.

A summary of the presentation of each WG can be found in the following lines.

QoS WG- identification of the data on RNP2 to define priorities

The aims of the Quality of Service WG (QoS) were to evaluate the measuring tools currently available on the market, to develop an environment of data collection and to identify what kinds of data form the traffic on RNP2 as a premise to define priorities. The pilot proposed by the QoS WG was implanted in two stages. In the first one, there was the generation of specific traffic for monitoring in three categories of services: premium, assured and best effort. In the second stage, the video traffic of the Digital Video WG was followed. The traffic generation was made for the categories scavenger, best effort and premium.

VoIP WG - demonstration of IP telephony service during the 4^th WRNP2

The Voice over IP WG (VoIP) assembled, specially for the 4^th WRNP2, an IP telephony pilot which permitted making phone calls between UFRJ's Computer Science Unit (Núcleo de Computação) and Pirâmide Hotel, where the event was taking place, using RNP's network. During the presentation, Paulo Henrique Aguiar Rodrigues, the group coordinator, used the speakerphone of an ordinary telephone so that everybody could follow a demonstration of VoIP. People in institutions using RNP, in any place in Brazil, could register to receive a dialing number. This way, they would be able to make or receive phone calls through the same system, from their computers. 440 calls were made, totaling 21 hours of conversation.

Directories WG - middleware that makes applications viable

Two pilots were assembled. In the first one, a multi-institutional experiment was made with the model EduPerson (a single directory with data of researchers and professors). In the second, assembled upon request of the Digital Video WG, a directory was created for the Digital Video Portal. For this purpose, the group devised an information scheme, whose specification was made by the Digital Video WG. The Directories WG implemented the service and developed the reference application. Noemi de La Rocque Rodriguez, from PUC-RJ, who coordinates the Directories WG, reported the lack of documentation observed during the work of the WG. In addition to the pilots, she presented as results: the experience of integrated work with the Digital Video WG; the understanding and documentation of the Open LDAP; and the identification of other projects in the area.

Digital Video WG - portal and network infrastructure for digital video

The group divided its pilot project into two branches: the Digital Video Portal and the Digital Video Network. The aim of the portal is to make available: videos on demand, a list of projects and experiments related to digital video, an updated calendar of events in the area, documents, norms and related applications. The Digital Video Network was planned to make available a network, servers and equipment infrastructure to support experiments involving the capture, recovery and transmission of video on demand. The pilots are ready; all there is to do is register people and new videos. In the site of this WG there is a page to list the national R&D projects on digital video.

Educational Applications WG - qualification for videoconference

This WG started from the observation that, in many institutions, there are people willing to use videoconference, but not qualified personnel to give them support related to applications of this kind. The pilot presented is a course to qualify administrators of videoconference rooms. In the format prepared for the workshop, it lasted 10 hours. The methodology used joined theory and a lot of practice. The work of this WG can serve to support the project of creation of an IP videoconference service for RNP's users, which is already in its final stage of development.

[RNP, 06.17.2003]