NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education

Global Video AllianceAn overview of the GVA Service

Model – a work in progress

Presented to the Internet2 Spring Member meetingApril 25, 2012

Washington, DC US

Jerry SobieskiDirector, International Research Initiatives

NORDUnet

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education What is GVA?

• “Global Video Alliance”• Objective: A global, high-quality, video-conferencing service– High quality, multi-party, “tele-presence” (human

interaction) capabilities– An intuitive user interaction with the service– Reliable, consistent, dependable, scalable, secure,

manageable– Global reach – Global shared resources– Global interoperability– Open framework and standards based

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Why is this necessary?

• We need a common scalable Service Model.– Existing technical video standards do not address a shared

global Service Model • resource integration and federated authorization mechanisms,

advanced scheduling, accounting, common user model, and other non-video but essential service issues.

– Existing technical standards compete, overlap, conflict… We need a cannonical video service architecture

• The R&E community is key:– We have the global network and IT infrastructure– We have a culture of collaborating – finding common ground,

essential to global adoption – We have substantial video assets and local, regional services

already in operation. – We have an immediate and urgent requirement : Collaboration.

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education The Global Video Alliance

• The Global Video Alliance mission is to develop that common global video services model.– An Open (but managed) process to define the service specification and

underlying mechanisms to realize it… – Standards track – making the service model technology and vendor

independent.

• And THE GVA will promote and coordinate the activities necessary to field and mature such a global service:– Develop a formal service architecture specification– Sharing developmental tasks– Fostering the common/federated policy that is required among participants – Identifying operational service processes: support, problem resolution,

management, accounting, etc.– Engineering of the [global] video infrastructure to enable high quality

ubiquitous video services– Feedback operational experience into standards

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education

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The User Interface Model

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People

Venues

User Interface Web Portals

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Instuctional classrooms and lecture hallsConference rooms

Theater and auditorium

Internet2 RedClara JAnet

NORDUnet

Meeting

Presentation/Performance

Class/Lecture

User creates meeting

User includes attendees

User also includes a conference room

User creates a recurring class

User includes Lecturer

User includes a conference room also

User includes a venue that only has a video source capability

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User includes two venue that that will only see the broadcast stream

Global UI Directory Objects…

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Start with User Service Model

• The basic GVI User Service Model adopts a commonly understood “Meeting” paradigm

• The Meeting object includes attributes:– “attendees” (individual participants)– “venue(s)” conference rooms (group participants)– Scheduling parameters – date/time, duration,…– Features such as capture or streaming, privacy, etc.

• The user can easily manage the meeting: – Schedule the meeting, – Choose a meeting format (Interactive Class? Group meeting? Conf

call? Concert?) – Notify/invite attendees; or otherwise announce the meeting… – Reserve appropriate meeting venue(s) – Record or stream/broadcast the meeting,– Live mgmt: Convene, recess/adjourn, and/or conclude the meeting…

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Backend Service Processes

Local Video Resource Planner

Meeting

Meeting IDTime/DurationAttendees/EndpointsVenues/EndpointsMCUTranscoding req’tGateway dialing req’t…

Live meeting mgmtinterface

User interface

The Life Cycle of a video conference – a single domain service capability.

Local ResourceDB MCUs… Codecs… Transcoders… capture… streaming… locations…

Directory Users Names, video end point, location, features, dialing scheme(?) Venues Name, video end point, location, features, …

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education

RB

Control and Mgmt Processes

Multiple Providers -With local RDBs and local User/Venue directories

The Life Cycle of a video conference – a multi user multi-domain service capability.

RB

RB

This needs our attention

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & EducationThe Provider Service Interface

• The Provider service interface allows automated agents to locate and reserve the resources required for a meeting from a globally distributed resource pool.

• The User does not see or deal with the technical aspects of the global multi-party video provisioning.

• Operational agents and GUIs may be developed using the basic PSI that can allow service providers or other agents to interact with the service infrastructure, to monitor and manipulate the state of their resources.

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Resources

• As seen by the user:– Directory- sites and people– Schedule– Virtual Meetings

• Behind the scenes:– Universal dialing translation– MCUs, transcoders, etc– Capacity between sites– Resource brokers

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education

GVI Basic Service Processes

• User Interface (UI)– This is a basic component of the GVI framework, but it

interacts with the GVI “service” via a set of standardized interface primitives and service concepts

– Thus every local organization may have a unique User Interface, but all will support the GVA framework and Basic User Service Elements

– This allows organizations to tailor the UI to their specific constituents’ needs, and software developers to implement innovative and differentiating value-added features• … while maintaining compatibility with the global service

model.

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Technical Issues TBD

• For a globally distributed system to interoperate, the “coin of the relm” is the Video Meeting Identifier. The VMID consists of two parts: – A globally unique “Video Service Provider” identifier that identifies

the provider that is compiling the resources– And a local identifier that uniquely identifies the meeting within the

Provider’s scheduling system/domain.• Thus, by inspecting the VMID, a remote agent can determine

which service provider is responsible for organizing the meeting.

• The primary Video Service Provider is responsible for acquiring/negotiating all the resources necessary to realize the video conference.

• The resources may be assembled from many service providers, and all such resources are linked to the VSP’s VMID.

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Other GVA Processes

• Resource Manager • Responsible for allocating local video assets to

meeting requests • The resource manager is responsible for announcing

local resources that are available to support multi-domain meeting provisioning.

• Resource Broker• Responsible for locating and reserving physical

resources required for a GVA meeting. It is assumed these resources may be drawn from any participating domain - under appropriate authorization policies.

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education Roadmap

• Short Term– Develop a wire-frame UI proof of concept – Apply the wireframe service to a few urgent activities – Begin the formal process of defining the service requirements

• Mid term– Initial spec for common service concept (CY2012-Q4 ?)

• Includes mapping existing standards into the service architecture.

– Software design/prototypes for key backend and user processes – in parallel with Service framework: End of 2013-Q1.

• Long Term Objective:– Broad based adioption on GVA Service Model – A set of standards documents that describe an architecture/framework for a

globally scalable, secure, and interoperable video conferencing service– Drive multi-vendor implementations and demonstrate global

interoperability – Continuing process to incrementally enhance the GVA Service Model

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education

GVA 30,000 Foot View

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Designated Core GVI Service Node

Designated Core GVI Service Nodes

LON

NYC

SIN

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x

1 23 4

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1 23 4

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HD Video/telepresence/… End Sites

1 23 4

x1 23 4

x

Global GVA Performance EngineeredNetwork Resources

Local/regional GVA conformant Service Domains

NORDUnetNordic infrastructure for Research & Education The End

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