[AG-TECH] Access Grid 3.0 beta1 available !

[R. P. Channing ["Rick"] Rodgers]

I would like to add my support for Zsolt's cogent remarks.  The single biggest
obstacle I've encountered in actually implementing AG, both here at NLM and
at UCSF, has been this issue of opening ports.  We've got to come up with a
simple strategy to deal with the concerns of the IT departments that
increasingly control our network access.

Best Regards, Rick Rodgers

> Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] Access Grid 3.0 beta1 available !
> Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:19:17 -0600
> From: "Nagykaldi, Zsolt F. (HSC)" <Zsolt-Nagykaldi at ouhsc.edu>
> To: "ag-tech" <ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov>
> 
>  
> It seems that most practical problems during implementation come from firewall 
issues. Are you guys planning to (at least) narrow the UDP port range for VIC 
and RAT, or maybe (in my dreams) tunnel all audio/video traffic through a few 
number of ports that are usually open? I have been networking with a lot of 
people who are desperate to set up their nodes and they hit a brick wall every 
time it comes to push changes through their IT departments, who are freaking out 
about the idea of opening ports in such a wide range. More and more people would 
like to use the system via PIGs and not necessarily big institutional nodes that 
require weeks, if not months of negotiations and arm-twisting each time a new 
client is added at a new location. (The AG Connector would be really helpful, 
except it causes an ominous looping drop of all audio-video connections, as it 
has been reported before, and it is very unreliable). Extra features in v3.0 are 
nice, but I truly believe that the firewall/ports issue is the most significant 
barrier to wider adoption of the Toolkit.
>  
>  
> Zsolt
>  
> _ _ _
>  
> Zsolt Nagykaldi, PhD
> Research Associate, Clinical IT Specialist
> University Of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
> Department Of Family And Preventive Medicine
> Oklahoma Center For Family Medicine Research
>  
> 900 NE 10th Street
> Oklahoma City, OK 73104
> Phone: (405) 271-8000 Ext.:1-32212
> Fax:     (405) 271-1682

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D. * rodgers at nlm.nih.gov * (301)435-3267 (voice, fax)
OHPCC, LHNCBC, U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH
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http://lhc.nlm.nih.gov/staff/rodgers/rodgers.html