Scalable Collaboratory Servers

The Java-based Collaboratory Servers provide a means for collaboration on the web. Multiple parties can co-exist on the servers simultaneously, each providing the collaborating clients functions for web foil presentations, shared distributed whiteboards and chat channels, Virtual Malls and games. The servers provide a general framework for building synchronous collaboratory applications. The individual servers can be synchronized using a Conference Bus, and can trigger back-end transactions using a Transaction Manager. All events during a collaborative session are archived and may optionally be requested by any of the collaborators at any time.

Java-Based Collaboratory Server Architecture

Foil Servers: In the Foil Server application collaborative clients connect to a foil server, and can thereafter navigate through a given presentation. Any client, or possibly a master client, uses a control panel to navigate through foils in the presentation; the same foils appear on all clients' browsers.
White Board Servers: The distributed Whiteboard allows clients to share graphics information. Clients may use text or choose from a range of graphics operations. This can be used as a stand-alone application or serve as a powerful aid to annotation of a presentation using the Foil Server.
Chat Servers: Allow collaborating clients to communicate via the servers using an Internet Relay Chat model.

___________________________________________

Vishal Mehra <vishal@watson.ibm.com>

___________________________________________

[ IBM Research home page ]