Institution Name:	Syracuse University
Work Package Title:	ARL CY4 IC
Project Title:		Tango Interactive Focus on Advanced Collaboration
POC:			Bernholdt David E
Email:			bernhold@npac.syr.edu
Phone:			315 443 3857
Fax:			315 443 1973
CTA or PEI:		Information and Communications
Project Description:

Tango Interactive has made great progress recently throughout the PET
program.  This includes both the basic capability and robustness of
the system and also its use and acceptance within the PET community.
So far this acceptance has primarily been in the are of education and
training, consistent with a staged roll-out of the system from more
controlled environments to less.  In Year 4, we propose to provide the
basic support necessary for continued and expanded used of Tango for
education and training as well as focus on increasing collaborative
use of the system.  Through working with ARL PET staff and users, we
hope to develop Tango into "shrinkwrapped" system for remote
collaboration, much as we have done in the past for education, by
training, testing, and improving the product.

In conjunction with this effort, we propose to implement a number of
enhancements focused primarily on collaborative use of Tango while
other Centers are supporting development of advanced authoring
capabilities and integration of Tango with metacomputing (Gateway).
We propose two extensions to the system:

1. Security enhancements. This task includes the following
   enhancements of TANGO Interactive framework:
	
	- transition to SSL (secure socket layer) to provide
	encryption for all communications between TANGO
	Interactive server and the clients
	
	- adding support for SOCKS protocol to both the server
	and client to enable seamless use of the system across
	firewalls
	
	- adding SOCKS support to BuenaVista videoconferencing
	agent for the same purpose
	
	- adding a middleware agent to TANGO Interactive server
	enabling access to the ARL class registration database
	to enable seamless and automatic user authentication and
	access control to all on-line classes and training
	sessions.

2. Implementation and deployment of the "PeopleWatch" module.

	One of the basic obstacles to acceptance and widespread
	use of the desktop collaboration software is lack of
	tools to gain information about availability of other
	people to collaborate. Computer-based collaboration
	lacks reliability of the phone system. There is no
	accepted paradigm for "calling" other users, receiving
	"calls", and responding to them. Imagine a user of a
	videophone who tries to call a person only to find out,
	after several minutes of failed connection attempts,
	that the person s/he tries to reach deactivated his/her
	videoconferencing application. A few experiences of this
	kind may effectively discourage user from ever trying
	desktop collaboration, regardless of the quality of the
	actual collaborative application.
	
	We consider this sociological obstacle a major roadblock
	to a successful deployment of  desktop collaboratory
	tools. We propose implementation and deployment of a
	front-end service to TANGO Interactive handling this
	particular problem. The service would be automatically
	installed together with the TANGO Interactive client and
	would run perpetually in background at all times when
	the user is logged to the system, communicating with
        dedicated "directory server" and monitoring availability
	of the user for collaboration. Local configuration
	interface would offer options to protect users privacy.
	Directory service we propose differs from the well-known
        services such as LDAP in that it provides active "event
	reporting" to registered clients, enabling client
	notifications. "PeopleWatch" module makes use of this
	mechanism to provide real-time status  
	
	We consider implementation of such a front-end system a
	necessary prerequisite for a sucessful deployment of TANGO
	Interactive as a desktop collaboratory. 

Project Objectives:

Extend Tango's capabilities to better support small-group
collaboration, provide training and staged deployment to appropriate
groups.

Deliverables:

1) Basic support for Tango for education and training use as well as
   collaboration.
2) Continued core Tango 2 development, testing, and deployment (shared
    with other MSRCs)
3) Tutorials and trainings on Tango for collaboration and other
   applications
4) Staged deployment emphasizing collaborative uses, initially among
   PET staff, later to chosen user groups.
5) Specific Tango enhancements for security: SSL-based communications,
   support for SOCKS protocol for firewalls, support for more flexible
   authentication including link to Training Management Database
   System (6 months)
6) Implementation and deployment of the "PeopleWatch" module (6 months)


Customers/End Users:

PET staff (on and off site) and MSRC users

Benefit to Warfighter:

This work has a second-order benefit to the warfighter, by
facilitating effective remote collaboration within the DoD RDT&E
communities, thus enhancing their efforts on behalf of the warfighter.


Project Dependencies and Scope:

All four MSRCs are contributing to the core Tango development effort
and to various more advanced areas according to their interests. While
not actually interdependent, there is a high degree of leverage for
the investment of any one Center.

Risk Element:

Electronic collaboration technologies are relatively new and untried
with this userbase.  There is a risk as to wheter or not users will
accept this kind of technology.  We believe this risk can be
controlled through a careful staged deployment.

Required Funding Level
	Year X:
	Year X+1:
	Year X+2: