[AG-TECH] AG 2.0 - easier operation

[Brian Corrie]

Hello all,

> Can I pick up on a point made on the first day of Ivan's
> presentations - about ease of access to auxiliary materials
> (e.g. .ppt files).  I asked whether information about these
> resources (master name, file location, suggested application)
> could be included as part of the session's description.  In his
> reply, Ivan indicated that the general feeling was that was this
> sort of facility was beside, or beyond, what AG 2.0 was addressing.

Is this what Ivan said (I don't remember the comment directly)? Is this what
Ivan meant?

I see distributed powerpoint as being a service (which someone would have to
create and provide for the AG community of course) that one could add to a
venue. The service would have details on the master host/port, file location,
client application, etc.). When one enters the room, the service downloads
the file to the local disk, runs the client application, connecting it to the
master as appropirate. Seems like the perfect candidate for service to me???

> What interests me is that the idea of an agenda with the
> resources included is exactly what is happening at present, in
> an unformalized way.  The meeting notice for the sessions had
> a URL to a web page that was an agenda that contained URLs
> which were the .ppt files, and a note of the master location!

I agree...

> I'm past my days as a programmer, but it seems to me that an
> interface that, instead of going to a virtual venue, goes to
> a meeting, is not a radical change (in terms of implementation!)
> In going to a meeting (and the associated virtual venue becoming
> 'where you are' as a result) it is also not difficult for the
> agenda/resource files also to be displayed and the master server
> location set.  By clicking on each resource as each agenda item
> comes up, it shouldn't be difficult for the appropriate application
> to be launched, should it?

An interesting idea. How about this for a thought... 8-) Lets create an
agenda service, which has links to appropriate other services for each agenda
item.

Introduction (shared powerpoint)
Project budget (shared excel)
Project plans (shared powerpoint)
Project results (shared visualization)
Discussion

powerpoint, excel, and visualization are services. Agenda is a meta-service
(ouch) that invokes the other services as appropriate. There is an agenda
server that controls the agenda services at each remote site. Someone
controls the agenda just like someone controls powerpoint and moves the
agenda from one item to the next. As agenda items are invoked the appropraite
service is started and therefore the appropriate collaborative application
would run.

> By this means, the majority of small meetings could be run by the
> participants, without the mandatory use of an operator who is the
> only one who knows the magic runes required to invoke DPPT!

I think I could see how this migth work in the AG 2.0 architecture. Am I
totally off base here? This sounds like a very powerful model to me and I
like that. Is this beyond what the Argonne folks are imagining or is this
exactly what they are imagining (assuming someone comes up with all these
services of course???).

> I'm a passionate advocate of AG, and the three things that are
> preventing its wider acceptance are:
> 
> 	cost - this is being addressed by any number of initiatives
> 
> 	network bandwidth - most UK academic institutions don't
> 		have (= can't afford) anything above 2 Mb/sec);
> 		many of those with better links (100 Mb or above)
> 		have or are building AG nodes
> 
> 	operator (running) costs
> 
> I feel that the above idea would ENORMOUSLY reassure potential
> users that they are not creating a new sink for manpower (=money).
> naturally it would also make life about 10 times easier for
> operators as well!
> 
> Whether this is considered as part of AG 2.0 or is an initiative
> implemented in parallel and released together with (or even
> before!) AG 2.0, I don't mind, but I do feel it is important.

I agree, but I hope the AG 2.0 architecture can support this directly.

Cheers,

	Brian