What are endpoint driven communication systems?

A lot of my work in the past decade has focussed on endpoint driven systems, e.g., peer-to-peer Internet telephony (P2P-SIP) [1,2] for inherent scalability/robustness, Rich Internet Applications for web video conferencing [3,4], and more recently, resource-based software architecture [5,6]. In this article, I emphasize the importance of such systems, and differentiate them from other system architectures in the context of real-time communication.

Impress.js 3D presentations on cloud, communication, WebRTC and mobile

I am really impressed by impress.js presentation framework based on CSS3. It is pretty low level, requires knowledge of HTML and CSS, and is small enough that it can stay out of your way. Others have created very impressive 3D presentations. I also did my share of 3D presentations in 2015, as various conference paper presentations, while at Avaya Labs.

click here to see all my presentations

Below, I list my presentations and associated demo videos largely based on impress.js framework. When viewing a presentation, use an HTML5 capable browser such as Chrome or Safari, and please wait for it to loads completely, and the browser's loading icon to stop spinning, before doing the slide show.

My WebRTC related papers from 2015

This post continues from the previous one and gives an overview of my ongoing research on web-based multimedia communication or WebRTC. I wrote five published co-authored research papers last year answering these questions - How do we solve some of the enterprise challenges of WebRTC using browser extensions? How do we address cloud challenges of a multi-services and apps vendor? How do we create pure web-based enterprise communication and collaboration system without depending on legacy protocols? How do we do user reachability in a multi-apps environment created by WebRTC? And, how do we do write-once-run-anywhere for WebRTC based team apps using a cross platform tool? Read on if one or more of these questions interest you...

Enterprise WebRTC powered by browser extensions

Traversing WebRTC flows created by external third-party websites across restricted enterprise firewalls is challenging. There are other challenges in adopting WebRTC in enterprises, e.g., how to integrate it seamlessly with existing communication equipments, or how to enforce enterprise policies such as call recording of WebRTC flows on third-party websites? We show how to use browser extensions to solve these problems. This systems paper is based on my implementations of two interesting projects.

“We use browser extensions to solve two important issues in adopting WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) in enterprises: how to integrate WebRTC-centric communication with existing systems such as corporate directories, communication infrastructure and intranet websites, and how to traverse media paths across enterprise firewalls. Vclick is a simple and easy to use web-based video collaboration application that enables click-to-call from other webpages. SecureEdge is a network border traversal system for policy and security enforcement, and consists of a secure media relay that sits at the network border or in the cloud. A browser extension in the enterprise user’s device transparently injects this media relay in every WebRTC media path needing to traverse the enterprise network edge to enable authenticated border traversal without help from the websites hosting the WebRTC pages. We attempt to generically support WebRTC in enterprises on a variety of application scenarios instead of creating another fragmented communication island. The challenges faced and techniques used in our proof-of-concepts are likely extensible to other enterprise WebRTC scenarios using the emerging HTML5 technologies.”

Keywords: WebRTC, enterprise communication, secure edge, browser extension, VoIP, video call, firewall traversal, media relay.

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ALICE: Avaya Labs Innovations Cloud Engagement

Although we know how to create cloud-hosted services, platforms and infrastructures, little is known about cloud hosted communication and collaboration services, especially to enable multi-tenancy and self-service. This research focuses on the challenges of hosting cloud services for customer trials, where resources are limited to make existing services cloud ready or to fit a specific platform. This is based on my work on creating a cloud portal to host research-oriented early or pre-product services on the cloud, and identifying common themes and techniques.

“We present the architecture and implementation of our enterprise cloud portal named ALICE, Avaya Labs Innovations Cloud Engagement, which provides self-service access to service developers, tenants, and users to various communication and collaboration applications. Currently ALICE is used for field testing of advanced research prototype services based on technologies such as WebRTC and HTML5. This paper describes the current portal and extensions to support multi-tenancy.

We describe challenges in creating a self-service multi-tenant SaaS (software-as-a-service) portal to host communications and collaboration applications for small to medium scale businesses. The challenges faced and the techniques used in our architecture relate to security, provisioning, management, complexity, cost savings and multi-tenancy, and are applicable and useful to other cloud deployments of diverse enterprise applications.”

Keywords: Cloud, system architecture, portal, multi-tenancy, Internet telephony, enterprise communications, web collaboration.

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Vclick: endpoint driven enterprise WebRTC

One of my earliest project at Avaya Labs was on creating a light-weight service for wide range of web communication and collaboration scenarios. Vclick is a collection of many loosely coupled apps that run the app-logic in the browser or endpoint, and mash up at the data level. It contains applications for video call, conferencing, video presence, text chat, click-to-call, screen sharing, shared notepad and whiteboard, and so on. It goes against the conventional web wisdom of thin-client, single-page-apps, or rigid GUI, and presents a new software architecture to create robust endpoint driven apps. The paper is really about how to keep the endpoints smart and network (or service) dumb in the context of collaboration applications.

“We present a robust, scalable and secure system architecture for web-based multimedia collaboration that keeps the application logic in the endpoint browser. Vclick is a simple and easy-to-use application for video interaction, collaboration and presence using HTML5 technologies including WebRTC (Web Real Time Communication), and is independent of legacy Voice-over-IP systems. Since its conception in early 2013, it has received many positive feedbacks, undergone improvements, and has been used in many enterprise communications research projects both in the cloud and on premise, on desktop as well as mobile. The techniques used and the challenges faced are useful to other emerging WebRTC applications.”

Keywords: WebRTC, enterprise communication, web video conferencing, resource-based architecture, web applications.

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User reachability in multi-apps environment

With numerous "walled-garden" services and apps emerging because of WebRTC, there is a need to identify the best way to reach your contacts, irrespective of which app or service she is on. This systems paper describes my work on implementing a mobile (and desktop) app called Strata Top9, to quickly reach your important contacts. It really is a front-end to launch other applications. Unlike existing presence based systems, we propose to iterate during call initiation. The paper presents the software architecture and design decisions along with several motivational use cases of our project. It also details the concept of dynamic contacts, and endpoint driven caller and receiver policies.

“Recent progress in web real-time communication (WebRTC) promotes multi-apps environment by creating islands of communication apps where users of one website or service cannot easily communicate with those of another. We describe the architecture and implementation of a multi-platform system to do user reachability in multiple communication services where users decide how they want to be reached on multiple apps, e.g., in an organization that has voice-over-IP, web conferencing and messaging from different vendors. Our architecture separates the user contacts from reachability apps, supports user and endpoint driven reachability policies, and has several independent and non-interoperable WebRTC-based apps for two-way and multiparty multimedia communication. Our flexible implementation can be used for enterprise or personal communications, or as a white-labeled app for consumers of a business.”

Keywords: system design; mobile app; user reachability; multiservices; VoIP; WebRTC; caller policy.

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Developing WebRTC-based team apps with a cross-platform mobile framework

Ability to write-once-run-anywhere still eludes many app developers. Luckily several cross-platform development tools exist. However, creating cross-platform communication and collaboration related apps is still challenging. This paper presents my implementation work on creating cross platform apps. In particular, four types of platforms - web app on PC and mobile, and installed app on PC and mobile - are considered, and seven different apps are covered for a wide range of enterprise use cases. Techniques and steps for creating such cross platform apps are presented along with lessons learned based on practical experience. Additionally, considerations for iOS and wearable Glass devices are presented.

“We present lessons learned in developing cross platform multi-party team applications. Our apps include a range of communication and collaboration scenarios: document and content sharing in a team space, an agent-based meeting helper, phone number dialer via a voice-over-IP (VoIP) gateway, and multi-party call in peer-to-peer or client-server mode. We use web real-time communication (WebRTC) to enable the audio and video media paths in the apps. We use frameworks such as Chrome Apps and Apache Cordova to create apps that can be accessed from a browser, or installed on a desktop, mobile device, or wearable. The challenges and techniques described in our paper related to audio, video, network, power conservation and security are important to other developers building cross-platform apps involving WebRTC, VoIP and cloud services.”

Keywords: HTML5, Apache Cordova, Chrome Apps, WebRTC, Mobile, Cloud, Wearable.

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My WebRTC related papers from 2013

This post gives an overview of my past and ongoing research on web-based multimedia communication. I wrote four published co-authored research papers last year answering these questions - How does WebRTC interoperate with existing SIP/VoIP systems and how does SIP in JavaScript compare with other approaches? What challenges lie ahead of enterprises in adopting WebRTC and what can they do? How can developers take advantage of WebRTC and HTML5 in creating rich internet applications in the cloud? How does emerging HTML5 technology allow better enterprise collaboration using rich application mash-ups? Read on if one or more of these questions interest you...

A Case for SIP in JavaScript

WebRTC (Web Real Time Communications) promises easy interaction with others using just your web browser on a website. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the backbone of Internet communications interconnecting many devices, servers and systems you use daily for your call. Connecting WebRTC with SIP/RTP raises more questions than what we already know, e.g., does interoperability really work? what changes do you need in the existing devices and systems? does the conversion happen at the server or in the browser? what are the trade-offs of doing the translation? what are the risks if you go full throttle with WebRTC in the browser? and many more. There is a need for a fair comparison to evaluate not only what is theoretically possible but also practically achievable with existing systems.

"This paper presents the challenges and compares the alternatives to interoperate between the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based systems and the emerging standards for the Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC). We argue for an end-point and web-focused architecture, and present both sides of the SIP in JavaScript approach. Until WebRTC has ubiquitous cross-browser availability, we suggest a fall back strategy for web developers — detect and use HTML5 if available, otherwise fall back to a browser plugin."

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Taking on WebRTC in an enterprise

On one hand WebRTC enables the end-users to communicate with others directly from their browsers, on the other it opens a can of worms a door to many novel communicating applications that scares your enterprise IT guy. Existing enterprise policies and tools are designed to work with existing communication systems such as emails and VoIP, and employ bunch of edge devices such as firewalls, reverse proxies, email filters and SBCs (session border controllers) to protect the enterprise data and interaction from the outside world. Unfortunately, session-less WebRTC media flows and, more importantly, end-to-end encrypted data channels, pose the same threat to enterprise security that peer-to-peer applications did. The first reaction from your IT guy will likely be to block all such peer-to-peer flows in the firewall. There is a need to systematically understand the risk and propose potential solutions so that the pearls of WebRTC can co-exist with the chains-and-locks of enterprise security.

 "WebRTC will have a major impact on enterprise communications, as well as consumer communications and their interactions with enterprises. This article illustrates and discusses a number of issues that are specific to WebRTC enterprise usage. Some of these relate to security: firewall traversal, access control, and peer-to-peer data flows. Others relate to compliance: recording, logging, and enforcing enterprise policies. Additional enterprise considerations relate to integration and interoperation with existing communication infrastructure and session-centric telephony systems."

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Building communicating web applications leveraging endpoints and cloud resource service

One problem with the growth of SIP was that there were not many applications that demonstrated its capabilities beyond replacing a telephone call. This resulted in telephony mindset dominating the evolution in both standards and deployments. At the core of it, WebRTC essentially does most of what SIP aims for - peer-to-peer media flows and control in the end-points. Unfortunately, telephony influence in existing SIP devices, servers and providers have hidden that benefit from the end-user. There is a need to avoid such dominating telephony influence on WebRTC by demonstrating how easy it is to build communicating web applications, without relying on existing (and expensive) VoIP infrastructure. 

Secondly, the open web is threatened by closed social websites that tend to lock the user data in their ecosystem, and force the user to only use what they build, go where they exist and talk to who they allow. This developer focused research is an attempt to go against them, by showing a rich internet application architecture focused on application logic in the end-point and application mash-ups at the data-level. It shows my 15+ crucial web widgets written in few hundred lines of code each, covering wide rand of use cases from video click-to-call to automatic-call-distribution, call-queue and shared white-boards, and my web applications such as multiparty video collaboration, instant messaging/communicator, video presence and personal social wall, all written using HTML5 without depending on "the others" (imagine tune from lost played here) - the others are the existing SIP, XMPP or Flash Player based systems.

"We describe a resource-based architecture to quickly and easily build communicating web applications. Resources are structured and hierarchical data stored in the server but accessed by the endpoint via the application logic running in the browser. The architecture enables deployments that are fully cloud based, fully on-premise or hybrid of the two. Unlike a single web application controlling the user's social data, this model allows any application to access the authenticated user's resources promoting application mash-ups. For example, user contacts are created by one application but used by another based on the permission from the user instead of the first application."

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Private overlay of enterprise social data and interactions in the public web context

Continuing the previous research theme, this research focuses on enterprise collaboration and enterprise social interactions. The goal is to define a few architectural principles to facilitate rich user interactions, both real-time and offline in the form of digital trail, in an enterprise environment. In particular, my proof-of-concept project described in the paper shows how to do web annotations, virtual presence, co-browsing, click-to-call from corporate directory, and internal context sensitive personal wall. The basic idea is to separate the application logic from the user data, keep the user data protected within the enterprise network, use public web as a context for storing the user interactions and build a generic web application framework running the browser.

"We describe our project, living-content, that creates a private overlay of enterprise social data and interactions on public websites via a browser extension and HTML5. It enables starting collaboration from and storing private interactions in the context of web pages. It addresses issues such as lack of adoption, privacy concerns and fragmented collaboration seen in enterprise social networks. In a data-centric approach, we show application scenarios for virtual presence, web annotations, interactions and mash-ups such as showing a user's presence on linked-in pages or embedding a social wall in corporate directory without help from those websites. The project enables new group interactions not found in existing social networks."

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Systems Software Research

A very interesting talk by Rob Pike on Systems Software Research is Irrelevant".

Some quotes from the slides (by Rob Pike):

"We see a thriving software industry that largely ignored research, and a research community that writes papers rather than software".

"Java is to C++ as Windows is to Machintosh: an industrial response to an interesting but technically flawed piece of systems software."

"Linux's cleverness is not in the software, but in the development model, hardly a triumph of academic CS (software engineering) by any measure."

"It (systems research) is just a lot of measurement: a misinterpretation and misapplication of the scientific method. Invention has been replaced by observation."

"If it didn't run on a PC, it didn't matter because the average, mean, median, and mode computer was a PC."

"To be a viable computer system, one must honor a huge list of large, and often changing, standards: TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, XML, CORBA, Unicode, POSIX, NFS, SMB, MIME, POP, IMAP, X, ... With so many externally imposed structure, there is little left for novelty."

"Commercial companies that 'own' standards deliberately make standards hard to comply with, to frustrate competition. Academic is a casualty."

"New employees in our lab now bring their world (Unix, X, Emacs, Tex) with them, or expect it to be there when they arrive... Narrowness of experience leads to narrowness of imagination."

"In science, we reserve our highest honors for those who prove we were wrong. But in computer science..."

"How can operating systems research be relevant when the resulting operating systems are all indistinguishable? (Unix is) a victim of its own success: portability led to ubiquity. That meant architecture didn't matter, so there's only one."

"Government funded and corporate research is directed at very fast 'return on investment'... The metric of merit is wrong."

"Measure success by ideas, not just papers and money. Make the industry want your work."

"The future is distributed computation, but the language community has done very little to address that possibility."

My take on the lessons learned, again in the form of quotes:

"Keep the ideas flowing, even if the implementation is not feasible (using existing systems)."

"When thinking of distributed systems -- think beyond web, Browser and Flash Player"

"Something is popular, does not mean it is correct or best way to do that thing."

"Do not publish papers that fake measurement as research."

"Do not take a job that you are not truly motivated about."

"Writing software in Java is like writing detailed machine instructions. Learn Python instead."