A Set of Information Management Clients

IBM Almaden

Harvey Mudd College

Computer Science Clinic

1997-1998

Higher GroundHigher Ground

IBM Almaden

• Located in San Jose, California

• Second largest IBM Research laboratory

• Research foci:– Storage systems– Cyberspace

development

XML Repository

Grand Central Station

HTTP

FTP Server

POP Server

CICS Server Collector

Data Collection Data Distribution

(High Ground)

Profile Engine

Channel MasterAdmin Server

Plugboard

Gatherer

ProfileEngine

Pushing Forward

• Push vs Pull

• Persistent Queries

• Well Organized Data

General Solutions

• Multiple Environments

• Portable Data

• Information Clients

Extensible Markup Language

• Similar to HTML– Tags

• More Powerful– User defined tags

• Higher Ground Communication Format

<CalendarEntry> <Date> 3/3/98 </Date> <Event> Clinic Presentation </Event></CalendarEntry>

A Lotus Notes Calendar Entry

Channels

• Define categories of information

• Use push technology

• Becoming widely used– PointCast– Netscape Netcaster– Internet Explorer

Channel Definition Format

• Proposed Open Standard

• Specifies Channels and their Properties– Title– Refresh Interval– Items

<Channel HREF=“http://almaden.ibm.com/username.cdf”>

<Schedule><IntervalTime DAY=1 /></Schedule>

<Item HREF=“http://almaden.ibm.com/articles/xml1.html”> <LastMod VALUE=“1998.3.05T11:00” /> <Title VALUE=“IBM Buys Microsoft” /> <Author VALUE=“IBM 97 Clinic Team” /> </Item>

</Channel>

Channel Definition Format

• Example

Higher Ground Overview

XML Repository

LotusNotes

EmailClient

PalmPilot

AdminServer

CDF Updated

WebServer

Get CDF File

Get XML List

XML Entry

PlugboardChannel 1Channel 2Channel 3Channel 4

Get XML Entry

Login

Plugboard

• Graphical User Interface

• Client Manager– Specify available clients– Specify channels for clients– Launches clients

• Communicates with the Admin Server and the Web Server

Plugboard

AdminServer

WebServer

Plugboard

Channel 1

Channel 2

Channel 3

Channel 4

• Logs into Admin Server

• Admin Server Signals Plugboard

• Plugboard gets CDF file from the web server

• Plugboard parses CDF file to get a list of XML documents for each channel from the web server

• Plugboard gets new XML documents for each channel from the web server

• Plugboard pushes new XML documents to the clients

Client

CDF File<Channel>…<href=List1...

XML List<href=XML1...<href=XML2...

XML<Subject>...<Abstract>...

Email Client

• Receives XML from Plugboard

• Emails XML to specified users

Lotus Notes Client

• Receives XML from the Plugboard

• Parses XML into database items

• Creates new Lotus Notes documents

Pilot Proxy Server

• PilotClient – processes XML from Plugboard– pushes XML into T Space

• PilotProxy– retrieves XML from T Space– Communicates with Pilot over TCP/IP

PilotGround Client

• USR PalmPilot based client

• Communicates with Pilot Proxy over TCP/IP

• Retrieves data events from P Space

• Sends data events to P Space

• Graphical Interface for viewing XML documents

Team Members

• Kevin Eustice - CS ’99 (Team Leader)• James Holloway - CS ’99• Damon Lundin - CS/Math ’98• Michael Rodriguez - CS ’99

• Dr. Joshua Hodas - Faculty Advisor

• Dr. Toby Lehman - GCS Liaison (IBM)

• Dr. Dan Ford - GCS Project Leader (IBM)