An Application Service Provider Infrastructure for Shared
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An Application Service Provider Infrastructure for Shared Workspaces in Internet-Based Collaborative, D e sign By Jaime Solari Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Architecture in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Master of Science at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE Massachusetts Institute of Technology OF TECHNOLOGY June 2000 JUN 1 2 2000 Copyright @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2000. All Rights Reserved. LIBRARIES Author epartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering/Department of Architecture 18, 2000 Certified by William L. Porter Professor of Architecture Thesis Supervisor Certified by . -1 F, niky Peia-Mora Associate Professor of Civil and Enviro ental Engineering esis Supervisor Accepted by o Toy Strickland Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Students Department of Architecture Accepted by Daniele Veneziano Chairman, Department Committee on Graduate Studies Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis Supervisor: Feniosky Pefia-Mora Title: Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis Supervisor: William L. Porter Title: Professor of Architecture Thesis Reader: Jerome J. Connor Title: Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis Reader Daniel J. Greenwood Title: Lecturer of Architecture An Application Service Provider Infrastructure for Shared Workspaces in Internet-Based Collaborative Design By Jaime Solari Submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Architecture June 2000 In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degrees of Master of Science and Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering Abstract For architectural, engineering and construction projects involving transient 'virtual organizations' composed of non-collocated team-members, the adoption of concurrent design principles is seen as vital. An important aspect of concurrent design is the need for an effective communications infrastructure between team members. Traditionally, such communication has been handled through person-to-person meetings, however the complexity of modern projects has grown and as a result, reliance on new information and communications technologies is becoming increasingly necessary. Hence, within a concurrent design setting, there is the need for an integrated information and collaboration environment that will create a persistent shared workspace to support interaction between project personnel throughout all phases of the project. This research explores computer-supported mechanisms for enhancing distributed design collaboration. The goal of this thesis is to develop a set of requirements, system architecture and an early system prototype to facilitate computer-supported collaboration among distributed teams. The prototype will consist of a persistent shared workspace system built from the integration of complementary collaborative applications. These applications are the CAIRO system, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the VNC system developed at the Olivetti Research Laboratory. Thesis Supervisor: Feniosky Pefia-Mora Title: Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Thesis Supervisor: William L. Porter Title: Professor of Architecture ACKNOWLEDGMENT May 24, 2000 I would like to thank Nancy Jones, who has made it possible for me to be here and to Feniosky Pefia-Mora, who has made it possible for me to stay. Thanks to the faculty members involved in this thesis: William Porter, Jerome Connor and Daniel Greenwood. Special thanks to all the members of the team in its various incarnations from DISEL to 888 and beyond: Kiran Choudary, Gyanesh Dwivedi, Chang Kuang, Justin Mills, Sen Sugata, Sanjeev Vadhavkar and Padmanabha Vedam without whom this project would not have been half as much fun. Acknowledgements for the people that have provided open source code and helped avoid 're-inventing the wheel'; John Wilson and the VNC project deserve special mention. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their non-collocated support over the past years. ParaLela y Dario -4- Contents 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9 1.1 M otivation .................................................................................................... 11 1.2 Objectives.................................................................................................... 12 1.3 H ypothesis .................................................................................................... 12 1.4 Benefits of This Research ............................................................................. 13 2 Application Service Provider ...................................................................................... 14 2.1 The ASP Model: A Brief History of Outsourcing................... 15 2.2 W hat Is an A SP 9.................................................. ........................................ 16 2.3 ASP Outsourcing Benefits and Drawbacks .... ....... .................. 16 2.4 A SP Technology Requirem ents ................................................................. 17 2.5 A SP Applications ......................................................................................... 18 2.6 Sum m ary ...................................................................................................... 21 3 Requirem ents..................................................................................................................22 3.1 Scenario...................................................................................................... 22 3.2 Requirem ents................................................................................................ 27 3.2.1 Com m unication Support ............................................................... 29 3.2.2 Cooperation Support .................................................................... 30 3.2.3 Coordination Support .................................................................... 30 3.2.4 A rchitecture and IT-platform ...................................................... 31 3.2.5 G roup D ynam ics-A w are Conferencing......................................... 32 3.3 Sum m ary ...................................................................................................... 34 4 Shared W orkspaces for CSCW .................................................................................. 35 4.1 Shared A pplications .................................................................................... 36 4.1.1 Shared W hiteboard...................................................................... 37 5 M ethodology .................................................................................................................. 39 5.1 "H igh Level" Solution................................................................................ 40 5.1.1 M ulti-user Extension .................................................................... 40 5.2 "G eneral" Solution ...................................................................................... 43 5.2.1 Shared X ....................................................................................... 44 5.2. 1.1 SharedX Switch: XMX.......................45 5.2.1.2 SCO Tarantella............................................................. 48 5.2.1.3 JCraft W iredX ............................................................... 49 5.2 Conclusion................................................................................................... 50 6 Integration Perspectives ............................................................................................. 51 6.1 The CA IR O System .................................................................................... 52 6.1.1 The Architecture........................................................................... 53 6.1.1.1 Collaboration M anager.................................................. 53 -5- 6.1.1.1.1 M edia Drivers.....................................................54 6.1.1.1.2 M essage Server ............................................... 54 6.1.1.2 Forum Server.....................................................................55 6.1.1.2.1 Chairman M eeting........................................... 56 6.1.1.2.2 Freestyle M eeting ........................................... 56 6.1.1.2.3 Lecture M eeting ............................................. 56 6.1.1.3 Nam e Server .................................................................. 56 6.1.2 The Features .................................................................................. 57 6.1.2.1 The Interface ................................................................. 57 6.1.2.2 The Agenda Tool........................................................... 60 6.1.2.4 Side-Talk ...................................................................... 61 6.1.2.3 The Agent....................................................................... 61 6.1.2.4 The Social Agent ........................................................... 62 6.1.2.4.1 Expressions.................................................... 63 6.1.2.4.2 Casual Contact................................................ 63 6.1.2.4.3 Awareness Driver ........................................... 64 6.1.2.4.3.1 Affective Bar ...............................................