Transitive and Scalable Federation Model for Remote Laboratories

WebLab-Deusto

Education is changing

I'm a believer in online technology in education.

I think we have learned enough about this to understand that it will be transformative. It's going to change the world, and it's going to change the way we think about education. [...] This can all ad up to big changes in how we think about a university education. Could you imagine a situation where students do some of their degree work remotely and then do some on campus, particularly the small, experiential classes that don't transfer well to online?

John L. Hennessy, President of Stanford. May 2012 at IEEE Spectrum

http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/john-l-hennessy-risk-taker

Challenges

Challenge 1: How do we make equipment available through the Internet? How do we digitalize hardware?
Challenge 2: How do we facilitate this digitalization?
Challenge 3: Once we facilitate it, how do we share it with other universities?
Challenge 4: Once we share it, how do we define a transitive and scalable federation model for it?

Shor, Bohus, Atkan. Oregon State University, 1993.

VISIR equipment

(Murray et al., 2008)

(Zackrisson et al., 2008)

(Cedazo et al., 2006)

(del Alamo et al., 2002)

(Hardison et al., 2008)

(Salzmann et al., 1998)

(Coble et al., 2010)

(Callaghan et al., 2012)

Digitalizing laboratories is possible!

Digitalizing laboratories is possible and useful!

(But that's outside the scope of this research)

Challenges

Challenge 1: How do we make equipment available through the Internet? How do we digitalize hardware?
Challenge 2: How do we facilitate this digitalization?
Challenge 3: Once we facilitate it, how do we share it with other universities?
Challenge 4: Once we share it, how do we define a transitive and scalable federation model for it?

Remote Labs & scheduling

(page 35 of the dissertation)

Remote Labs & technologies

(Gravier et al., 2008)

What do remote laboratories have in common?

What is a Remote Laboratory Management System?

Rig management system, remote laboratory framework, remote laboratory toolkit, remote laboratory infrastructures...

Common features

Authentication (who enters)
Authorization (to what has access)
Scheduling (when can access)
Load balancing (distributing users among copies)
User tracking (what did he do; analytics)
Sharing (who else can access)
Administrative tools

Remote Laboratory Management Systems

APIs provided for development
Equipment independent!
Examples:
- WebLab-Deusto
- iLab Shared Architecture
- Labshare Sahara

MIT iLabs

If you can't come to the lab... the lab will come to you!
Jesús del Álamo, MIT

Labshare Sahara

WebLab-Deusto

General concepts

Making the development much easier is possible!

Challenges

Challenge 1: How do we make equipment available through the Internet? how do we digitalize hardware?
Challenge 2: How do we facilitate this digitalization?
Challenge 3: Once we facilitate it, how do we share it with other universities?
Challenge 4: Once we share it, how do we define a transitive and scalable federation model for it?

Sharing remote laboratories

Interest increasing

European Union Commission is investing 60 million euro in research actions, projects and network of excellences in Technology- Enhanced Learning (TEL), under the call ICT-2011.8.1.

But this is not new...

iLab Shared Architecture

(Harward et al., 2008b)

Labshare Sahara

(Diponio et al., 2012)

Comparison

Challenges

Challenge 1: How do we make equipment available through the Internet? how do we digitalize hardware?
Challenge 2: How do we facilitate this digitalization?
Challenge 3: Once we facilitate it, how do we share it with other universities?
Challenge 4: Once we share it, how do we define a transitive and scalable federation model for it?

Layers

Architecture

voodoo: internal middleware

Raspberry Pi

APIs for development

Managed

Client: JavaScript, Java applets, Adobe Flash, Google Web Toolkit
Server: Python, Java, C, C++, .NET, Node.js, LabVIEW (not remote panels)

Unmanaged

HTTP-based: Existing web applications
LabVIEW Remote Panels
Virtual Machine

Managed model

Scheduling based on resources

Comparison

Authentication

Base on plug-ins: Database, based on IP address...

Mobile support

Robot lab running on Kindle

Administration

Experiment tracking

Simulator developed to take measurements

Laboratories developed in Deusto

Third party labs

Layers

Comparison

Formalization

Transitive property
Federated load balance

Comparison

Transitive federation

Comparison

Federated Load Balance

Use case

(Ignacio Angulo's Plug&Play WebLab-Box)

Laboratories CPLD and FPGA (1 copy each).
Students: 97. Max time: 200 sec. / user.
Uses: 4,541. Without queue: 2,169 (47%).
With 1 person in queue: 1,383 (30%).
Under 7 minutes (max.): 89%.
Under 14 minutes (max.): 95%

Accounting analyzed

Accounting schemes
Accounting adjustements
Abuse risks
Sharing strategies

Evaluation

Comparison

What else is all this useful for?

Applications

Learning Management Systems
Interoperability
Low cost deployments
Service Hosting

Federation

LMS integration

Transitivity

Applications

Learning Management Systems
Interoperability
Low cost deployments
Service Hosting

Interoperability

Interoperability with UNR and iLabs

Interoperability: outcomes

Any WebLab-Deusto laboratory can be federated with MIT iLabs
iLab Shared Architecture can benefit from the federation properties of WebLab-Deusto
UNR laboratories used by WebLab-Deusto used by MIT iLabs
Complex chains available

Complex chains

Applications

Learning Management Systems
Interoperability
Low cost deployments
Service Hosting

Applications

Learning Management Systems
Interoperability
Low cost deployments
Service Hosting

Sharing remote laboratories

Pure consumers only need to install the software.

wCloud: RLMS as a Service

https://cloud.weblab.deusto.es/

Layers

Challenges

Challenge 1: digitalize

WebLab-Deusto laboratories: FPGA, Robot...

Challenge 2: facilitate

WebLab-Deusto RLMS.

Challenge 3: share
Challenge 4: federation model

Proposed federation model.

Scientific contributions

Federation model

Scales up the number of concurrent students
Crosses through language boundaries

Pluggable scheduling system

Priority queues, Federation protocol, MIT iLabs

Generic integration of LMS in RLMSs
Interoperability with other systems

Transferring federation model properties from model to model

Technical contributions
WebLab-Deusto RLMS

Internal middleware: voodoo; supporting different types of deployments
APIs for development (including mobile development)
Authentication (DB, LDAP, OAuth 2.0, IP-based, UNED SSO)
Administration tools and experiment tracking

Technical contributions:
Additional tools

Student simulator system for measurements
VISIR measurement system
wCloud Service Hosting

Dissemination & impact

72 conference + journal articles on the field, since 2005
Coauthor of 4 JCR articles in the field (+ 4 in other fields)
Invited to talk on the Education track of the Global Grand Challenges of the Singularity University (Silicon Valley)
MIT TR35 Spain 2012
Used in 4 european projects

But, more importantly...

...this is a real thing!

At Deusto

WebLab-Deusto used with students since February 2005
Over 50,000 accesses since 2009
Laboratories developed on top: CPLD, FPGA, PIC, GPIB, Robot, Binary, Incubator, Aquarium (in addition to adapting and extending VISIR)

PILAR: Plataforma Ibérica de Laboratorios Remotos

ISEP, UNED, Deusto, sharing VISIR

Future work

Extensions: booking not supported, as well as other scheduling mechanisms
Improvements in the federation algorithm
Standardization (GOLC / IEEE P1876)
Integration in MOOC initiatives

Transitive and Scalable Federation Model for Remote Laboratories

WebLab-Deusto

(Is there a way to manage the risk?)

Transitive and Scalable Federation Model for Remote Laboratories

WebLab-Deusto

Table of contents

Table of contents

Education is changing

Table of contents

Challenges

VISIR equipment

Digitalizing laboratories is possible!

Digitalizing laboratories is possible and useful!

(But that's outside the scope of this research)

Challenges

Remote Labs & scheduling

Remote Labs & technologies

What do remote laboratories have in common?

What is a Remote Laboratory Management System?

Common features

Remote Laboratory Management Systems

MIT iLabs

Labshare Sahara

WebLab-Deusto

General concepts

Making the development much easier is possible!

Challenges

Sharing remote laboratories

Sharing remote laboratories

Interest increasing

But this is not new...

iLab Shared Architecture

Labshare Sahara

Comparison

Challenges

Table of contents

Layers

Architecture

voodoo: internal middleware

Raspberry Pi

APIs for development

Managed model

Scheduling based on resources

Comparison

Authentication

Mobile support

Robot lab running on Kindle

Administration

Experiment tracking

Simulator developed to take measurements

Laboratories developed in Deusto

Third party labs

Table of contents

Layers

Comparison

Formalization

Comparison

Transitive federation

Comparison

Federated Load Balance

Use case

(Ignacio Angulo's Plug&Play WebLab-Box)

Accounting analyzed

Evaluation

Evaluation

Comparison

Table of contents

What else is all this useful for?

Applications

Federation

LMS integration

Transitivity

Applications

Interoperability

Interoperability with UNR and iLabs

Interoperability: outcomes

Complex chains

Applications

Applications

Sharing remote laboratories

wCloud: RLMS as a Service

Table of contents

Layers

Technical contributions
WebLab-Deusto RLMS

Technical contributions:
Additional tools