Fall 2001 IT Staff Workshop

Bandwidth Management and Streaming Media

The November 15-18, 2001 IT/Support Workshop at the ACSTC played to a full house, with in-depth coverage of bandwidth management and streaming media. The workshop packed a great deal of information into just a few hours. Please take a look at the slide shows, if you'd like to see an outline of the main presentations:

   Bandwidth Management

   Frameworks for Video on Demand and Interactive Multimedia Systems

   A Stream Runs Through It

Abstracts:

Todd Watson
The rapid growth of the Internet and bandwidth-intensive applications in recent years has caused university IT departments to "shift gears" in the way they manage their network resources. This has been especially difficult at smaller Liberal Arts institutions where resources are more limited. At this workshop we will look at the evolution of the Internet growth and factors leading up to the need to monitor and manage bandwidth. We will look at specific applications such as video streaming which require large amounts of bandwidth, dedicated bandwidth, and peer-to-peer file sharing applications which can consume all available bandwidth. Then we will look at hardware and software solutions for monitoring and managing the traffic on networks. Though we will mention commercial products and solutions, we will be focusing on Open Source software which allows you to monitor and manage your network on a very limited budget, such as IPAudit, cflowd, NetReg, MRTG, RRDTool, and much much more.

It is our hope that you will leave this workshop with ideas that you can take back to your institution and have an immediate impact on improving the quality and ease of managing your network resources.

Pat Ramsey
Streaming audio and video. Why do it? How hard is it? What is needed? What are the unwritten points to remember and ponder? Using commercial, shareware and open source software, we will demonstrate setting up a live audio/video stream where participants will learn guidelines for setting up streams of their own. Who is the audience and what will you and your institution need to do to deliver the content to that audience. What needs to be done in other areas of the institution that lie out of your control? What equipment needs to be purchased, what software needs to be purchased? After the equipment and software are purchased and the audience is determined, what are the undocumented "tweaks" that need to be made in order to deliver professional-looking and sounding content? What settings work for a small stream? What about a large stream? What about digital vs analog inputs? What about delivering the stream on your own vs relaying it to a distributed delivery system such as Akamai? Where is the "breaking point" when it becomes better to use one method of delivery vs another?

Agenda

Thursday, November 15

PLANNING SESSION: HOW WE CAN HELP EACH OTHER--HOW ACS CAN HELP YOU

Arrive at Holiday Inn Georgetown (shuttle service provided)

4-4:30 p.m.--Arrive at ACS Tech Center for brief introductions

5 p.m.-8 p.m.--Dinner/planning meeting in McCombs Ballroom

Friday, November 16

BANDWIDTH MANAGEMENT AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

7-8--Breakfast at Holiday Inn

8:30--8:45--Welcome by Leslie Lindsey (logistics) and Jim Busby (program overview)

8:45-10--Todd Watson on bandwidth management at small liberal arts colleges

• History and evolution of bandwidth--how we got to this point
  
• Need for global authentication
  
• Bandwidth consumers (e.g., streaming audio/video, peer-to-peer activity)
  
• Monitoring and managing: hardware and software techniques and tools
  
• Case histories and open discussion

10-10:15--Break

10:15-noon--Todd Watson on bandwidth management at small liberal arts colleges

• More on monitoring and managing: hardware and software techniques and tools
  
• IPAudit, cflowd, NetReg, MRTG, RRDTool, and much, much more
  
• Case histories and open discussion

Noon-1:15--Lunch at McCombs Center

1:30-3--Todd Watson on bandwidth management at small liberal arts colleges

• Bandwidth tips and tricks
  
• Maximizing bandwidth for special projects (e.g., Southwestern University inauguration)
  
• Case histories and open discussion

3-3:15--Break

3:15-5--Todd Watson on bandwidth management at small liberal arts colleges

• Wrap-up and final discussion

5:30-8:30--Dinner meeting at Dan Rather Room of McCombs Center

• Discussion of Akamai--Can ACS colleges benefit?--Discussion led by Pat Ramsey

STREAMING MEDIA AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

Saturday, November 17

7-8--Breakfast at Holiday Inn

8:30-10--Doug Fils on Streaming Audio/Video

• Open standards and how to stream for free
  
• Comparable commercial streaming solutions
  
• MP3 audio and more
  
• Discussion

10-10:15-Break

10:15-noon--Doug Fils on Streaming Audio/Video

• Creating the stream
  
• Introduction to mpeg 1, 2, 4, 7, 21
  
• How RealServer, Apple, and MS technologies restrict future options
  
• Discussion

12-1:15--Lunch at McCombs

1:30-3--Doug Fils on Streaming Audio/Video

• How RealServer, Apple, and MS technologies restrict future options
  
• How to create content today that doesn't lock you into a solution tomorrow
  
• W3C, standards, and SMIL - RTP RTSP

3-3:15-Break

3:15-5:00--Doug Fils on Streaming Audio/Video

• Solutions for non-QOS enabled environments
  
• Discussion of codec vrs file formats

Dinner out--5:45-7:30

7:30-9--Pat Ramsey presents streaming media--ACS Technology Center

Depart Sunday, November 18

Resources

The following list of links was created by participants at the November, 2001 workshop.