VidMid-VC Conference Call, January 14, 2002

*VidMid-VC Conference Call*
January 14, 2002

*Attendees*

Egon Verharen (chair) - SURFnet
Ken Klingenstein - Internet2
Karen Krivaa - RADVISION
Michael Gettes - Georgetown
Ann West - Internet2
Mary Fran Yafchak - SURA
John McNair - U. Tennessee (Knoxville)
William Rhodes - U. Tennessee (Knoxville)
Jill Gemmill - ViDe/U. Alabama (Birmingham)
Mary Trauner - Georgia Tech
Steve Olshansky - Internet2
Doug Sicker - U. Colorado (Boulder)
Art Vandenberg - Georgia State
Renee Frost - Internet2
Tyler Johnson - UNC-CH
Nadim El-Khoury - UNC-CH
Samir Chatterjee - Claremont Graduate U.
Tom Barton - U. Memphis
Mark Driver (scribe) - Internet2

*Discussion*

The draft minutes from December 17th were approved. Tackling the extensive list of action items from Dec. 17th consumed the majority of the call. The discussion surrounding action items 13 and 16 are included in the discussion section due to the increased response among participants.

13. eduPerson "pre-Draft proposal" discussion: eduPerson creates neutral identities that can be used with SIP, H.323 or other protocols. Internet2 (Ken) recommends two object classes: eduPerson and eduOrg. eduPerson version 1.5 knows how a person was authenticated, distinguishing it from iNetOrgPerson. Art suggested that automatic discovery of similar object classes might be accomplished by noting relationships to superior classes. Directory discovery has a strong overlap with some of the Campus Architecture Middleware Planning (CAMP) sessions in Tempe, AZ on Feb. 1-3, 2002. Jill has constructed a mapping table for comparison of object classes, available at http://ecelx01.eng.uab.edu/~qazis88/inet2/Schema/compare.htm. Ken discussed the need for consistent middleware across federal agencies and emphasized the importance of registration and mapping of standard object classes.

16. SIP development efforts: Samir has acquired a 60 day research license from DynamicSoft that can be renewed, which includes user agents and the session management suite (SMS) comprised of property servers, location servers, web interfaces, etc. Long term licensing from DynamicSoft has not been confirmed. Funding for student development work is also still needed. Samir envisions a two-pronged approach: 1. security and middleware (directories); 2. enhanced services (group set-up, video, voice). Samir envisions that presence awareness will be maintained on a directory server. Samir also mentioned OneTouch as a possible industry partner. Doug has secured research licenses from SIPComm (binaries only), for use at the University of Colorado at Boulder, including proxy registration server , user agent, gateway, conference bridge, and multimedia mail system. He is also seeking funding for student developers. Doug and Samir offered summer as a likely target timeframe for video and voice user agent demos. Ken was interested in determining if DynamicSoft and SIPComm used the same "plumbing" (i.e. attributes, directories, etc.) in a federated model.

Ann discussed NMI dissemination initiatives and has sent a document describing VidMid involvement in the October EDUCAUSE meeting to the listserv. NMI 1.0 funding needs were discussed and coordination of grant proposals and development projects was seen as paramount. Many call participants will be at the CAMP meeting and it was agreed that this might be the best forum to coordinate efforts. William initiated discussion on NMI 2.0. John discussed a new draft regarding the implementation of end points. Nadim hoped to have a tool ready by the end of January that can search end points. Tyler mentioned the need to identify servers on which to start populating data. Also, he asked whether directories needed to be changed, or whether they should be amended to refer to other directories.

Tyler proposed the creation of a more technical subgroup to conference separately. However, initial thoughts were to keep the technical discussions within the current group to attract more participants and broaden non-techies' understanding until such a time as these tech conversations become too time consuming.

Agenda topics for the next call were discussed:
-Options on implementation/extension to schema
-Documentation on different implementations
a. case studies of initial testbed sites
b. inclusion of pseudo-sites using unique methods
-Creation of a VidMid-LDAP cookbook

*14 January 2002 Conference Call Action Items*

1. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Egon will write a summary of the VidMid-VC session at the VIMM.
2. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Samir will send the list a short summary of approaches to coping with NATs and firewalls.
3. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Egon will contact OpenH323 about participating in VidMid-VC. (In Progress)
4. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Tyler will look into Siemens' involvement in videoconferencing-related technologies, especially SIP. Tyler will send Siemens contact info to Steve. William has videoconferencing contact at Siemens in Boca Raton and will pursue that avenue.
5. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Steve will follow up with Michael Gettes re: Sun contact interested in VidMid-VC with potentially available resources: Programming help? SW licenses? HW?
6. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Egon will contact France Telecom to invite them to participate in Vidmid-VC
7. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Pierre will send RadVision object classes to VC list.
8. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Egon will post Michael and Keith's description of client authentication on archive page.
9. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Mary Fran, Bob, Keith, Michael, Pierre, and Tyler will look at H.235 Annex D and Annex E to see what is viable near/mid-term to use in our work, and what is viable for the April release.
10. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Mary Fran will look into whether it would be useful to get an AccessGrid representative involved in our efforts, and if so, who? (In Progress)
11. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Egon will recruit a multicast person to look at our multipoint scenario and recast it using those tools. Philippe (VRVS) will comment on multicast and multipoint scenarios.
12. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Keith will send to VC list a proposal on using eduPersonExtension and eduPersonEntitlement for video groups in enterprise directory.
13. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Steve will follow up with details of IMTC (International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium) - a vendor-centric group focusing on vidmid issues. Egon contacted Paul Jones who is trying to establish an H.323 Forum under the auspices of the IMTC. IMTC wants to get universities involved. Tyler mentioned Anatoli at Radvision also wanted vidmid and IMTC to link up.
14. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Mike and Keith will investigate potential benefit of leveraging Grid MDS v.2 (Meta-computing Directory Services) work on directory of directories (meta-directories). Grid MDS work happening over weekend of Jan. 19-20. Jill discussed coordination with Globus toolkit workshop at end of January.
15. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Samir and Doug will pursue development of SIP user agents capable of voice and video.
16. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Steve and AB will follow up: NIH spending $40m on Middleware in next few years. Synergy?
17. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Tyler and Orit Levin will follow up: H.323 Study Group 16 hasn't looked at LDAP yet, so they might be open to looking at it. Tyler is finishing latest revision before submitting.
18. [AI] 14 Jan 02 Nadim, Tyler, Albert, Mike, and Keith will go through schema point by point with an I2 scribe in a conference call or two. Brief mention of Internet2 identity and zone attributes. Consideration needed re: Radvision implementation of these attributes vs. other vendors' implementations.

Remaining action items deferred until future call:

19. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Mary Fran, Art and Egon will markup/revise scenarios to make them less H.323 centric (Final Version 1.0)
20. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Tyler, Egon, and Jill will overlay scenarios onto Tyler’s Visio reference model diagram (including scheduling)
21. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Samir will develop scenario: interoperability between H.323 and SIP
22. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Steve and Tim Poe will follow up with vendors not already represented in VidMid-VC: Tandberg, VCon, Polycom, MS, Sony(?), PictureTel (?), Cisco(?) [VRVS and Access Grid?] identify and contact key individuals
23. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Steve, Jill and Ann West will follow up: UNC-Chapel Hill & GaTech funded to do documentation for the Commons; maybe part of this could go to the VideoCookbook
24. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Jill and Steve will investigate the benefits/viability of planning an April 02 meeting where we could get end users together with endpoint vendors.
25. [AI] 18 Jan 02 Jill, Mike and Keith will collaborate on the VideoDoD/Globus investigations
26. [AI] 25 Jan 02 Samir will find a SIP vendor willing to implement user authentication.
27. [AI] 25 Jan 02 Steve will report on the degree to which SunONE infrastructure parallels/aligns with NMI
28. [AI] 8 Feb 02 Mary Fran and Jill will develop (or oversee) a survey of end users to get data for endpoint functionality
29. [AI] TBD Tyler, Steve and Jill will investigate other potential funding sources; develop grant proposals to assist in funding some of our efforts.
30. [AI] TBD Jill and Samir will investigate viability of setting up a SIP testbed
31. [AI] TBD Jill and Samir will conduct an Active Directory investigation

*Next call: Monday, 28-January-2002, 11:00 a.m. EST*
Ken Klingenstein will be acting chair.