PET
Bringing Collaborative Technologies into the HPC Community
By Ric Kositzke
The $500 piece of equipment that rests on Jennifer Moses' desk is her gateway to communication with colleagues from East Carolina University in North Carolina. Moses, who works for High Performance Technologies, Inc., uses the Polycom ViaVideo camera several times a week to interact - like float ideas, discuss project status, etc. - with her Programming Environment and Training (PET) Collaborative and Distance Learning (CDLT) counterparts.
"It's more effective than a phone because you can see each other," said Moses, who began using the camera in March. "We keep each other updated on what we all are doing, discuss what the next step is on a project, and collaborate together on documents."
The camera and its software, which PET CDLT wants to have in use at each of the four MSRC sites and other DoD HPC user sites in the United States by next year, allows users to not only videoconference, but also share documents, transfer files and, of course, collaborate on ideas. Said Moses, "This is a way to bring training and collaboration to the desktop so fewer and fewer people have to travel."
CDLT Days
In the summer of 2001, the PET program was revamped and the CDLT functional area was created to provide not only the ability to conduct meetings without involving travel (virtual meetings), but also to develop technology for on-line training, on-line consultation, information, and tutorials. In time, CDLT plans to provide the CDLT Environment, or CDLTE, an essential portal for researchers and scientists to interact and share ideas.
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| Moses uses the Polycom ViaVideo to communicate with colleagues from North Carolina. |
But in the beginning, the team first had to build the program from the ground up. "In the first two years of CDLT, we laid the foundation of what we hoped would someday be a successful and resourceful tool to HPC users," said Moses. "We used those two years to figure out what users' needs were, what technologies are currently available to meet those needs, and what security/network policies we need to consider."
To do so, the CDLT team created CDLT Days, which gave team members the chance to visit the MSRC sites and Distributed Centers (DCs) to meet with local management, PET personnel, and HPC users. During the 2002-2003 contract year, all four MSRCs and two DCs, the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, were visited.
The day began with a seminar by either an invited speaker or CDLT team member followed by open discussion with seminar attendees. A series of meetings then followed with management, PET personnel, various HPC users, and networking staff. Topics of discussion included distance collaboration and learning needs, what technologies CDLT was looking at, and what security/network policies and infrastructure are for a given site.
"We reached out to our users because they are the ones who will use the technology every day," said Moses.
For example, while PET training courses and seminars are regularly conducted, they are generally held in the PET training classrooms at the MSRC sites. It is frequently difficult for an HPC user to attend a training event held at another location or to even attend all the classes of interest held at their location. Therefore, the CDLT team, with assistance from the PET technologists, has created the "Distance Learning Via Webcasting, Video Archiving, and Indexing" and "H.323 Deployment (Polycom ViaVideo)" initiatives. The first will enable PET training events to be webcasted from the training classrooms. A recording of the webcast video will be archived and indexed on a video server accessible through the Online Knowledge Center (OKC) PET portal at https://okc.erdc.hpc.mil/index.jsp.
Webcasting, Video Archiving, and Indexing
The importance of distance learning via webcasting cannot be overstated. According to Moses, PET training facilities only have the capability to perform basic archiving techniques, such as with a video recorder. Therefore, very few PET training events are recorded.
Having the necessary equipment and software to readily provide live webcasts of all training events and having a place to archive the recordings for quick and easy access by HPC users will allow users to participate in training events right from their desktop in real time and/or view the archived recording at their leisure.
The indexing capability will enable users to search for a particular topic or section of a training event without having to "fast forward" through an entire recording to find the specific topic they are looking for. This initiative will therefore save time, money, and travel for countless users and enable all users, regardless of location, to take advantage of the wide array of PET training that is offered.
At the High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office (HPCMPO), located in Arlington, Va., PET CDLT plans to implement a videoconferencing bridge that will allow HPC users from across the country with Polycom ViaVideo cameras and/or Polycom ViewStations to interact with each other.
While many DoD sites have Polycom ViewStations or similar videoconferencing tools available, only a few of them seem to have bridges that enable three or more sites to connect. By providing a central bridge to all HPC users that they can use regardless of their location, users can collaborate with remote colleagues and project team members right from the desktop.
The ViaVideo cameras work with a standard PC desktop machine and allow people to videoconference, share applications, chat, and share a whiteboard. They are compatible with both Polycom ViewStations and bridges, so through the bridge, multiple sites with ViewStations and/or ViaVideos can connect to each other.
"We want to get the bridge in place in the next few months and then get several test sites by the end of April 2004. Then by the end of next year, we hope it will become more mainstream among users," said Moses.