Access Grid Users Escape the Tyranny of the Desktop

Argonne computer scientists are using the “Access Grid” to change the way people interact—for research, for business and for learning.

The Access Grid is a group-to-group interaction system aimed at bringing several groups together simultaneously for large-scale scientific and technical collaborations. Applications for the Access Grid also include distributed meetings, collaborative teamwork sessions, seminars, lectures and training.

“These virtual collaboration spaces can help users escape the tyranny of the desktop,” said Rick Stevens, Mathematics and Computer Science Division director. Stevens has a lead role in the Access Grid project.

The current configuration of the Access Grid comprises a large-format multimedia display system about 18 feet by 6 feet; four video streams (for example, a wide audience shot, a close-up shot of the presenter, a wide area shot of the display screen and a roving camera) projected onto the display; microphones and speakers; and several computers for audio, video, control and display.

“This is much more than videoconferencing,” Stevens said. “We want to drive group-to-group collaborative environments with a focus on quality of experience.”

Severely limited by bandwidth, videoconferencing systems are like telephone calls: one-to-one interactions. The Access Grid is more like a visual Internet chat room, giving a large number of people the opportunity to interact and exchange ideas with each other through video and voice. Bandwidth, the amount of data that can move through an electronic transmission system, will be measured in billions of bits per second as the Internet of the future moves to fiber-optic cable systems.

“The Access Grid does for people what the computational grid does for machines,” Stevens said. The computational grid is a concept for next-generation Internet technology in which computer power is available to users much as electric power is available today to consumers. It should eventually enable computer users to receive exactly the information they want from anywhere in the world within seconds—without having to go through a search process. Argonne has a lead role in computational grid design and research.

Mathematics and Computer Science Division scientists are exploring the complex mix of hardware and software needed at each “node” in the rapidly expanding Access Grid project, and helping researchers set up additional nodes at their own institutions. Nodes are designed spaces—custom-built for the purpose—that support the high-end audio/video technology needed to allow three to 20 people per site to interact with those at other sites. Each node has a large-format multimedia display, presentation and interaction software, interfaces to the grid software and interfaces to remote visualization environments.

Though still in its infancy, the Access Grid has been used by hundreds throughout the United States and as far away as Moscow to participate in long-distance lectures or workshops. These meetings covered issues ranging from high-performance computing in the arts to experiments in remote instrument control using an electron microscope at Argonne. The Access Grid was also featured prominently in SC99, the world’s largest international supercomputing conference.

Collaborating in Argonne’s Access Grid project are researchers from the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Utah.

During the next two years, scientists and engineers will build and test different configurations for Access Grid nodes. They will use these prototypes to conduct remote meetings, site visits, training sessions and educational events.

For more information please contact Dave Jacque at 630-252-5582

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