Subject: Experiment: tools for remote participation in IETF80

From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:57:38 +0200

Chairs,

after the last IETF meeting there were some discussions about how to
allow people to participate in the meetings remotely. We already have
the jabber rooms and the (outgoing) mp3 feeds but some chairs felt that
was not enough. The mp3 feeds seemed to be too slow and presentations by
remote participants (which require at least incoming audio) were a
challenge.

A few IETFers have developed a web conferencing and collaboration system
based on IETF protocols such as SIP, XMPP, BFCP, and RTP. They are
willing to make it available for WG chairs who want to try it during the
upcoming IETF in Prague. You can have a look at the system at:

http://www.meetecho.com/

Simon Pietro (who chairs the SPLICES WG) can provide you with more
information about the capabilities of the system and its requirements.
If you are interested in this, please let him know.

Thanks,

Gonzalo

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:27:37 +0100

Dear WG chairs,

as Gonzalo anticipated, Meetecho is a web conferencing and collaboration system based on protocols devised by the IETF, and as such as standard as possible.

The system provides several functionality, including:

* moderated audio and video;
* chat;
* presentation sharing
* whiteboarding
* file sharing
* desktop sharing
* polling.

Most (if not all) of these features are implemented by means of standard protocols. The audio/video functionality, for instance, is made available via SIP/RTP (and RTSP as well, if you just want to listen); moderation is achieved by means of BFCP; chat is XMPP-based; presentation and file sharing are just plain HTTP; and so on.

Besides, being the system based on standard protocols, access to the system is as heterogeneous as it can get: you can either install our dedicated client (Java based, available for all platforms) which includes all of the above-mentioned features, or, if you feel uncomfortable with installing software on your machine, just open your favourite browser and use the web interface we devised. The web interface has no embedded streaming (RTCWEB is still to come ;) ) but you can just grab any SIP softphone or RTSP player and access the media stream anyway.

Finally, waiting for SIPREC to come up with a standard solution, we also devised a SMIL-based homemade recording subsystem: this means that all sessions can be recorded and subsequently replayed using a web player, which we hope will be an appreciated improvement over mp3 recordings, jabber logs and minutes.

This makes it, in my opinion, a perfect candidate for the remote participation needs of the IETF. As a matter of fact, we already made use of Meetecho to make a remote presentation in Japan, when Lorenzo (a founding member of the Meetecho team) had to present in the MEDIACTRL WG but couldn't make it there in person, and it was quite a success.

Regards to everybody,

Simon

---

From: "Ersue, Mehmet (NSN - DE/Munich)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:46:29 +0100

Hi Gonzalo,

did you check the experiment already with the IETF 
secretary and network responsibles (e.g. Joel Jaegli)?
What are the implications of this kind of streaming 
on the IETF network?

Using tools based on IETF standards is valuable, 
however what is the technical add-on or benefit 
compared to Cisco Webex IETF secretary uses right 
now? IOW, why should they change?

Cheers, 
Mehmet 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of ext Gonzalo Camarillo
> Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 11:58 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Experiment: tools for remote participation in IETF80
> 
> Chairs,
>

---

From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:17:06 +0200

Hi,

no, this is just an unofficial experiment; it is not supported by the
secretary in any way. This type of experiment can be useful to gather
requirements and understand the needs we have for remote participation.

As I said in my original email, in the last IETF meeting, some WG chairs
thought the current tools did not meet all their requirements. Some of
them used tools such as Skype in their sessions. This is just another
alternative for chairs to choose from. Regarding the impact on the
network, the impact of a WG using this would be comparable to a WG using
any other tool such as Skype.

Cheers,

Gonzalo

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:43:01 -0800

> What are the implications of this kind of streaming 

I'm neither an obstacle to overcome or nor the arbiter of experiments.

I would suggest that you dicuss anything that you want to do at scale
with the IAD Ray Pelletier, and the IETF Chair.

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:53:16 -0500

maybe I'm missing something, but that web site has a download menu with 
no downloadable software and almost no documentation. So it is pretty 
difficult to get any sense of the applicability of such software, not 
talking about trying it out in advance of the meeting to see how it fits.

Am I missing something too obvious?

Marc.

-- 
=========
IPv6 book: Migrating to IPv6, Wiley. http://www.ipv6book.ca
Stun/Turn server for VoIP NAT-FW traversal: http://numb.viagenie.ca
DTN Implementation: http://postellation.viagenie.ca
NAT64-DNS64 Opensource: http://ecdysis.viagenie.ca

---

From: Adam Roach <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:33:33 -0600

On 1/21/11 7:53 AM, Marc Blanchet wrote:
> maybe I'm missing something, but that web site has a download menu 
> with no downloadable software and almost no documentation.

I suspect that the thing you're missing is this statement on the 
download page: "You have to login to download our client," followed by 
links to register a new 
account.<http://www.meetecho.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers&Itemid=66&lang=en>

/a

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:34:42 +0100

Hi Marc,

you actually need to register in order to access the download section. I 
apologize if it is not enough in evidence on the web site. You will find 
there all versions (Windows, Linux and MAC) of our desktop client, which 
is integrated in the well known XMPP client called Spark (btw, people 
who are used to join the usual IETF conference rooms will be able to 
log-in both on 'jabber.ietf.org' and on our conference server from the 
same app). If someone is interested in giving a try to the mobile 
versions of the client app (Android and  Blackberry, since we cannot 
release our I-Phone and Symbian apps as yet), just drop an e-mail to 
[email-masked]. We ask people to send an e-mail to such address in 
order to be enabled and test the platform.
This said, I once again stress the point that if you are not willing to 
install any dedicated client, you can still access most of the provided 
functionality through your browser, plus any standard (VoIP or PSTN) 
phone (for the audio/video streams).
We do appreciate feedback from all of you guys; being capable to deal 
with potential issues/requests in advance will be fundamental for us. 
Our main objective at the upcoming IETF will be to seize the unique 
opportunity of gathering as much input as possible from the community in 
order to improve our platform. So, please don't hesitate even if you 
have to be harsh ;-)!

Cheers,

Simon

Il 21/01/2011 14:53, Marc Blanchet ha scritto:
> with no downloadable software and almost no documentation. So it is 
> pretty difficult to get any sense of the applicability of such 
> software, not talking about trying it out in advance of the meeting to 
> see how it fits.
>

-- 
                             _\\|//_
                             ( O-O )
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o00~~(_)~~00o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                     Simon Pietro Romano
               Universita' di Napoli Federico II
                  Computer Science Department
         Phone: +39 081 7683823 -- Fax: +39 081 7684219
                 e-mail: [email-masked]
           http://www.comics.unina.it/simonpietro.romano

     <<Molti mi dicono che lo scoraggiamento è l'alibi degli
    idioti. Ci rifletto un istante; e mi scoraggio>>. Magritte.
                          oooO
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(   )~~ Oooo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                           \ (    (   )
                            \_)    ) /
                                  (_/

---

From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:05:06 +0200

Hi Simon Pietro,

I have received a few (off-list) emails from WG chairs who would like to
evaluate the system in order to decide whether to use it in their
sessions. Most pointed out that having this type of information
available on a web page would make their testing much easier.

Thanks,

Gonzalo

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:22:40 +0100

Hi Gonzalo,

I'll put on the web site a section specifically devoted to IETFfers, with a tutorial on how to download, install and test the system. We are also available for on-line demo sessions with interested people. I'll send a mail on the list as soon as this new section is ready. OK?

Simon

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:18:36 +0100

Dear Gonzalo and all,

sorry for delaying my response to your request. We worked these days in 
order to make available to all IETFfers a (hopefully) complete 
information kit related to Meetecho and the way it can be used. We just 
published such information, which is available at the following URL: 
http://conf.meetecho.com/. If you go to our site www.meetecho.com, you 
can still reach the mentioned information from the news section, where 
we announced our 'unofficial' experiment. We tried to make the 
information kit as complete as possible and we'll keep on updating it as 
long as we receive your suggestions for improvements and modifications.

If some of you are interested in giving Meetecho a try, please drop an 
e-mail to the following address: [email-masked]. We'll set up 
dedicated conference demos upon request. Let me thank in advance all of 
you for your feedbacks and comments.

Cheers,

Simon

---

From: Enrico Marocco <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:29:57 +0100

From what I understand from the website, the tool's multiparty video
mixing and recording capabilities would be quite well suited for a
plugfest / demo show the ALTO WG will hold presumably during a lunch
break. Are such features going to be available in the experiment?

Enrico

---

From: Simon Pietro Romano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:02:31 +0100

Hi Enrico,

all of the features of our platform will be available in the experiment. 
We'll be glad to help you guys set up remote participation in the ALTO 
demo show, if needed.

Cheers,

Simon