Jon Crowcroft and Roy Bennett.
The Mbone, HP 725/50 Workstation, Cameras, Mikes, etc.
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/people/jon/emma/emma.html
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice/mice-nsc/index.html
The EMMA project was intended to "enhance the
multicast software in terms of scaling, resource management and
regulation of use, and then to bring wide area multimedia communications
to the HE community. We intend to set up the UK-MBONE among HE
institutions, and to provide system and application software,
and technical support."
Multimedia communications is one of the key technologies
for the future, and can bring substantial benefits to the HE community.
However, the current multicast has to be enhanced before we can
make wide area multimedia communications available for regular
use.
The Mbone offers a low-entry-cost alternative to the circuit based (typically leased line or ISDN) mechanisms used on the SuperJANET network to support videoconferencing using legacy H.261 hardware CODECs (such as those used in the Surgery teaching project, Insurrect). In contrast, EMMA uses PC and Unix workstation-based audio, video and shared workspace tools.
The specific goals of EMMA have been the deployment and support of an infrastructure to use these tools effectively. This initially required support for multicast IP routing, and was thought to need resource reservation. It transpires that the UK academic IP network is so well engineered and provisioned at most sites that national access to medium quality video and good quality audio (e.g. for remote language teaching) is straightforward and has not need the resource reservation mechanisms yet (but will do when the technology is very widely used and threatens to swamp the network capacity - this is a year or two away yet).
There are a number of closely related research, development
and operational projects with which we have liaised to make our
work more effective:
Prior to the funding of the UK MICE-NSCs by UKERNA
in April 1995, we alone provided the support service; since then
we have worked closely with the NSCs. Details of the achievements
of the EMMA project, in advising users and demonstrating the Mbone
tools, have been given in previous annual reports and are summarised
in the Appendix.
We have not deployed a successor to DVMRP as yet,
although UCL is actively testing the Beta release of the PIM (Protocol
Independent Multicast, both Dense and Sparse Mode) as implemented
by ISI and Cisco for Sun Workstations and routers; we are also
testing the Gated version of CBT (Core Based Trees). We have also
devised a more scaleable version of the PIM routing system called
HPIM, which can offer policy control of multicast multimedia traffic,
and can be used to integrate multicast routing for IP and for
IP over ATM.
We have deployed the Mbone over ATM in some places, although this has been slower in reaching service level than hoped for. We have also deployed RSVP (the resource Reservation Protocol) on a limited testbed at UCL. This allows host computers to request guaranteed services for users (possibly for groups). It is not anticipated that IPv6, the next version of the Internet Protocol, has any bearing on the use multimedia conferencing technology in the UK (at least for some years to come), so we have not explored that angle of the project, beyond tracking the standards and very early testbed experiments in the US and France (at INRIA).
Continuing projects at UCL mean that we will be in a position, albeit at a limited level, to continue to support dissemination of this technology, and due to renewed funding or the MICE National Support Centre, we can respond to queries for help from any UK Academic or related site.
Universities | 6 | 27 | 6 | 4 | 43 | |||
Other Higher Education | 2 | 3 | 5 | |||||
Schools | 2 | 2 | ||||||
Research | 9 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 19 | |||
Government | 2 | 6 | 8 | |||||
Commercial | 3 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 29 | ||
Media | 7 | 1 | 8 | |||||
Other | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |||
Total | 14 | 77 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 13 | 121 |
Universities | 3 | 22 | 5 | 3 | 33 | |||
Other Higher Education | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||||
Schools | 1 | 1 | ||||||
Research | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 12 | |||
Government | 2 | 2 | 4 | |||||
Commercial | 3 | 14 | 1 | 4 | 22 | |||
Media | 7 | 1 | 8 | |||||
Other | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | ||||
Total | 10 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 1 | 10 | 88 |
IE Initial Enquiry | SR Software Request | CR Consultancy Request |
IR Information Request | BR Bug report | PR Progress Report |
O Other |
09/02/95 Richard Taylor Department of Physics & Astronomy, UCL
14/07/95 Theo Theoharis, University of Athens, Greece
17/11/94 Prof. Roy L. Gordon, M.D., San Francisco, USA
26/01/96 Y.Patel, Imperial College, UK
27/10/94 Avril Smith / Geoff Tag, Oxford Brookes University, UK
29/05/96 Djamel Sadok, di.ufpe.br, Brazil
01/05/95 George Neisser, Manchester Computing Centre, UK
01/12/95 Amanda Stone, Nottingham Trent Valley, UK
03/04/95 Matthew Rhodes, University of Cambridge, UK
03/07/95 Tan, Electronics Research group, University of Aberdeen, UK
05/10/95 KF Md Hatah, Malaysia
06/04/95 Warwick Smith, Dept of Phonetics, UCL, UK
08/05/95 Palak Shah, University of Bradford, UK
09/04/95 A Sadka, University of Surrey, UK
11/10/95 Piers Messum, Language Centre, UCL, UK
12/06/95 F. Ribeiro Gouveia, NIAR, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
16/02/95 Ian Clark, Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre, Birmingham, UK
16/03/95 Lars Holowko, University of Stuttgart, Germany
17/08/95 Simon H. Bennett, Liverpool John Moores, UK
17/10/94 Kevin J Dalton PhD FRCOG, University of Cambridge, UK
19/06/95 Ian Harley, Photogrammetry & Surveying Dept, UCL, UK
20/02/95 Paul Davies, Aston Business School, UK
21/04/95 Ana Paula Amorim, TecMinho, Portugal
22/08/95 Silvester A Namuye, University of Lancaster, UK
23/01/95 M A Kimber, Anglia University, UK
24/10/95 Randa, University of Lancaster, UK
25/05/95 Dorothy Morgan, University of Westminster, UK
26/04/96 Andrew Marriot, University of Central Lancashire, UK
26/06/95 David Cartwright, University of the West of England, UK
27/03/95 P.M. Record, University of Keele, UK
27/07/95 Fergal McCaffery, University of Ulster, UK
28/06/95 Chris Davis-Pipe, University of Bristol, UK
30/05/95 Francois Petit, Mons, Belgium
01/04/95 Jan-Peter Muller, Dept Photogrammetry & Surveying, UCL, UK
10/08/95 George Neisser, Manchester Computing Centre, UK
11/12/95 Edson Moreira University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
13/01/95 Julie Plumb, The Nottingham Trent University, UK
15/06/95 Prof. Jan-Peter Muller, Dept Photogrammetry & Surveying, UCL, UK
16/05/95 George Neisser, Manchester Computing Centre, UK
05/03/96 Andy Walker, School of Computer Studies, Leeds UK
22/08/95 Michael Benson, University of Lancaster, UK
23/02/95 David Boor, MIT Media Lab, USA
24/04/96 Nathan Jeffery, CMS Research Centre, Leicester, UK
14/01/96 Anja Flender, MA Medizinische Fakultat der RWTH Aachen, Germany
27/10/94 Beryl Howard, Northern College of Nursing, UK
23/04/96 Alex Maclean, Royal College of Art, UK
27/10/94 Jack Goulding, Nene College, UK
27/11/95 Johan Veldkamp, Hogeschool's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
12/04/95 David Brettell Overseas Children's School, Sri Lanka
14/11/94 David Lauckner, Northumberland, UK
02/03/95 John Kelleher, The Tavistock Institute, UK
10/02/95 Laurence Bradley, BT Laboratories, UK
14/12/95 Kaye Ferguson, Eisai London Research Laboratories Ltd, UK
16/05/95 Au Thien Wan, Brunei
22/03/95 Dirk-M. Harmsen, Fraunhofer Institute, Germany
22/05/95 Dr D J Coe, Philips Research Laboratories, UK
25/05/95 Markus Benkel, FH-Koeln, Institut fuer Informatik, Germany
26/06/95 Dr Rita Puzmanova, Phare PMU for Telecommunications, Czech Republic
27/03/95 Neil Macdonald, BT Labs, UK
12/05/95 Steve M Fisher, Rutherford Appleton Lab, UK
13/04/95 Steve M Fisher, Rutherford Appleton Lab, UK
14/06/95 Jose Manuel Barrutia, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
18/04/95 Gwyllym Thomas Jones, BBSRC, UK
24/10/95 David S. Rajah BBSRC Computing Division, UK
26/03/96 Dr N.S.Crowcroft, Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Belgium
26/04/95 S G Gillies, Shell Research Ltd, UK
23/08/95 Gwyllym Thomas Jones, BBSRC, UK
18/10/94 Bill Manning, ISI, USA
22/04/96 David Rajah, BBSRC, BITS, UK
05/01/95 Lynn Coleman, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, UK
12/12/94 Martyn Bond, UK Office, European Parliament, UK
03/05/95 Francisco Querol, Gobierno de Aragon, Belgium
04/09/95 Ing. Nono Carballo Escalona, CIGCT, Cuba
05/04/95 Robert Reno, Incirlik, Turkey
12/03/96 Dr. F.P.Tudor, Science & Technology Committee, House of Lords, UK
13/12/94 Jukka Behm, Industrial Attache, Embassy of Finland, UK
16/01/95 Simon Holland, C.E.C., Belgium
07/11/94 Ken David, Mission Dynamics, Hitchin, UK
09/04/96 Claire Griffith, Look Multimedia Ltd, UK
12/12/94 James Roper, IMRG Limited, UK
02/07/96 Stuart Anderton, Interconnect Communications Ltd, UK
03/03/95 Steven Evans, Andersens, UK
04/09/95 Johnny Boyle, MARI, Belfast, UK
05/06/95 Richard Swann, FTP Software Worldwide Inc, UK
06/04/95 Mark Bebbington, European Gas Turbines, Leics, UK
10/07/95 Dr T D Wilson, Philips Telecom, Cambridge, UK
10/07/95 George Zarkadakis DEUCALION S.A., Athens, Greece
14/04/95 David Fung, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong
15/09/95 Warren Knight, Knight & Co., USA
18/05/95 Cameron Heydari, BRT SNI, UK
20/03/95 Alex Tonnet, RCP, UK
21/03/95 P Taylor, Imagecom, Maidenhead, UK
23/06/95 Philip Buckley, Sema Group, UK
25/05/95 Pascal DETERVILLE, Belgacom, Belgium
26/10/94 Dr Tony Law, SmithKline Beecham, UK
27/07/95 Warren Knight, USA
28/03/95 Ken Tough, ibmPCUG, UK
29/03/95 Gary Moore, Micrognosis, UK
31/03/95 Richard Bailey, Boldon-James Ltd, UK
26/05/95 Luc Vancraen, Periphere, Belgium
20/05/96 Pat Baker, Hewlett Packard Laboratories, UK
01/02/96 Sara Wheeler, Secretary, Reuters, UK
10/05/96 SGI/A.Sasse, SGI, UK
12/12/94 Dr David Souter, National Communications Union, UK
15/04/96 Anna Ingibergsdottir, Iceland
26/04/96 Stuart Gillies, Manager, Shell Research, UK
08/12/94 Richard Sarson, Chief Editor, EDI Analysis, UK
09/11/94 Dr Jim Wright, IoP Publishing, Bristol, UK
14/01/95 Roger Dettmer, IEE Review, Stevenage, UK
17/01/95 Dennis Moralee, Scientific Computing World, UK
20/04/95 Joe Clark, UK
20/11/94 Geoff Spick, Internet & Comms Today, Bournemouth, UK
25/04/95 Channel 4 TV, UK
12/12/94 Lindsay Nicolle, Freelance journalist, UK
15/12/94 David Fry, Royal College of Physicians, UK
20/10/95 Aad van der Zande, SHAPE Technical Centre, Netherlands
20/11/94 Dr.M.Palat, South Yorkshire, UK
22/03/95 C.H. Booth, Oxford, UK
28/04/95 Beverly Harris, Bristol, UK
29/05/96 Aad van der Zande, SHAPE Technical Centre, Netherlands
26/04/95 Martin Hughes, UK