Online Collaboration with Web Servers
- 1. Online Collaboration with Web Servers Persony's smartclient technology turns a standard Web server into a sophisticated Web conferencing server Persony, Inc. www.persony.com May 11, 2005 © Copyright 2005, Persony, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
- 2. Online collaboration models Online collaboration refers to two or more people collaborating or meeting remotely using a computer to share documents, desktop applications, presentation slides, messages or multimedia data. In order to share information remotely, the computer needs to communicate directly with each other or indirectly via another computer. When computers are linked directly to each other, the communication model is termed "PeertoPeer" (P2P). Conversely, when one computer makes a request to the other computer indirectly via a server computer, the model is termed "ClientServer" (CS). Persony's "smartclient" technology is a novel clientserver model that deploys generalpurpose Web servers vs. proprietary application servers as in most CS systems. The new model leverages the existing Web hosting infrastructures and eliminates the high costs of installing and operating proprietary application servers. P2P is neither firewall friendly nor scalable The P2P communication model, adopted in collaboration products such as Microsoft NetMeeting or AT&T Virtual Network Computing (VNC), is often limited to computers on the same network as they are not firewall friendly. For security reasons, a network firewall usually does not allow a computer behind it to be connected directly to another computer. Moreover, P2P requires at least one of the peer computers to have a public IP address, an address publicly registered with the Network Information Center (NIC) that can be accessed by other computer over the Internet. Many corporate and home computers do not have public IP addresses since these addresses are in limited supply. In addition, the computer usually needs to open a "port" to listen to incoming connections, which is also difficult for computers behind a firewall or using NAT (Network Address Translation). P2P is limited to a small number of people collaborating as each computer needs to be connected to all the others. The number of connections grows exponentially to the number of people collaborating. The peertopeer (P2P) communication model Proprietary clientserver is costly to install and operate The clientserver model requires the installation, operation and maintenance of a proprietary application server. The server is responsible for routing and responding to client computers' requests. The clientserver model can scale to large numbers of users since each client computer only needs to connect to the server. It also addresses the firewall and IP address problems as only the server needs to be outside of a firewall and have a public IP address. The server typically needs to be connected to a highspeed network and operated by IT specialists at high costs. The industry average annual cost of operating an enterprise server is 3 to 6 times the cost of buying the server. Many users end up using hosted services provided by applicationservice providers (ASP) and pay a monthly management fee. The management fees can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars a month, depending on usage and offering options. © Copyright 2005, Persony, Inc. All rights reserved. 2
- 3. The proprietary clientserver communication model Persony's smartclient leverages Web servers to reduce costs Persony's smartclient is a novel clientserver model that preserves the advantages of client server but dramatically reduces the costs associated with operating such servers. Instead of installing and operating proprietary application servers, the smartclient model deploys general purpose servers, such as HTTP and FTP servers, to route and transmit information to each client. The client computer is responsible for converting applicationspecific data, such as documents, messages or applications being shared, into HTTP and FTP protocols understood by the general purpose servers. Because of the ubiquity of Web servers and internet service providers, Persony can be deployed anywhere with little or no additional operating costs. With Persony, any ISP can provide the service of an ASP without applicationspecific hosting expertise. The smartclient communication model Smartclient vs. ThinClient Most clientserver systems deploys a thinclient model where the server handles most application functions and the client usually needs just a Web browser (or a plugin to the browser). Persony's smartclient model handles most application functions on the client side and the Web server simply handles the data upload, storage and retrieval. Online meetings usually have one host and multiple attendees. Only the meeting host needs to have the smart client. The attendees only need to have a Web browser (and Macromedia Flash) to join a meeting. © Copyright 2005, Persony, Inc. All rights reserved. 3