The Spectro-Microscopy Collaboratory

a Prototype Virtual Laboratory

Participants:

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Deb Agarwal, Mike Blaufuss, Fukiko Hidano,

Sonia Sachs, and Keith Beattie

University of Wisconsin

Brian Tonner, Eli Rotenberg,

Jonathan Denlinger, and Jian Zhang

• Remote access to expensive, hard-to-duplicate laboratory equipment
• Collaboration between researchers (international)
• Efficient utilization of the equipment
• Reduce required travel
• Teaching tool
• Location independent access to equipment
• Study the technical and social aspects remote collaboration

• Four projects, beginning in early 1995 and running for about
  two years, will build and operate testbeds for "collaboratories."
  • Electron microscopy, physics, and object-oriented virtual
    reality: Argonne National Laboratory.
  • Remote control for fusion experiments: Livermore, Princeton,
    Oak Ridge, and General Atomics.
  • Remote collaboration for environmental molecular sciences:
    Pacific Northwest Laboratories.
  • Remote SpectroMicroscopy at the Advanced Light Source:
    University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Lawrence Berkeley
    Laboratory

• Remote experiment monitoring and control
• On-line laboratory notebook
• Tele-presence
• Safety and security
• Multicast communication between researchers/sites
• Cross-platform compatibility (PC, Mac, Sun)
• Maintainability
• Integrated user interface and login
• Control transfer coordination
• Access from industrial sites

• Experiment control - LabView
  • instrument monitoring and control
  • client/server model
• Tele-presence - vic, vat, wb, robotic cameras
• On-line experiment notebook - private and shared

• Safety architecture
  • safety mechanisms built into server control software
  • recovery routines on experiment server
• Security architecture
  • local security server at each site
  • DCE/Kerberos
  • Data encryption mechanisms

• Videoconferencing
  • video data
  • audio data
• Experiment control parameters
• Experiment results
• Collaboratory control information
• Security information
• Notebook updates and transactions

• Building four levels of message multicast service
  • Unreliable unordered
  • Unreliable ordered
  • Reliable unordered
  • Reliable ordered
• Unreliable multicast based on M-Bone multicast mechanisms
• Reliable multicast based on Totem protocol

• Sharing of experiment information
  • on-line notebook
  • experiment results
  • analysis results
• Cross-platform compatibility

• Software development testbed
  • no security or safety concerns
  • excellent availability
  • computer controlled
• Tool portability demonstration
• Scientist interested in using the collaboration tools

• Coherent user interface with integrated login
• Tele-presence of researchers
• Experiment monitoring and control capabilities
  • arbitrated sharing of control
  • unicast or multicast connection
• On-line notetaking during experiments in shared notebook
• Integrated security and safety
• Distributed file system
• Toolbox for building other remote collaboratories