© 2005 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved. A Client-Side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive...

© 2005 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved.

A Client-Side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive Enterprise

Communications

A Client-Side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive Enterprise

Communications

Amogh Kavimandan†, Reinhard Klemm‡, Ajita John‡, Doree Seligmann‡, Aniruddha Gokhale†

† Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN‡ Avaya Labs Research, Basking Ridge NJ

2© 2005 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved.

Hermes: Pervasive, Context-Aware Enterprise Communications Middleware

Hermes Enterprise Communications Middleware

Business processes need to communicate with people and connect people with each otherHermes automates people communications by enabling design and execution of communications applicationsIntegration with business processesHermes communications applications connect the right people, at the right time, via the right communication media

Communications Application

Business Process



Bob

Alice Cary

ConferencingSystems

CommunicationServers

MessagingSystems

VoiceSwitches


launches

Expert Finder Application

Example of Hermes Communications Application

ConferenceBridge

ManagerConference

Hermes

Alice in her home office

Browser

HermesUser Portal

logs into

bridges in

sends dialog

popsup

returns filled dialog

transmits user context

Client-SideAgent

Pervasive, context-aware enterprise communications middleware requires client-side support

– Specific to communication endpoints, media

fills out dialog


Client-Side Challenges for Pervasive, Context-Aware Enterprise Communications (1/3)

Pervasive, context-aware communications applications make decisions about who, when, how to contact/connect people

Effective decision-making requires efficient collection of user context:

– User presence: which communication endpoint(s) is user connected to?

– User communication activity: what communication activities has user engaged in during last x time units? With whom/what is user communicating right now?



– User interruptibility: can user be interrupted with request for feedback?

• Computed from user presence, communication activity, nature of request, enterprise and personal rules/policies

– User availability: can user participate in new communication session? If not now, how soon?

• Computed from user feedback, for specific communication session

– Communication device characteristics: can user participate in/continue with new/ongoing communication using current communication endpoint?

• Static and dynamic characteristics



– Support for application-user dialogs: dialogs for collecting user availability feedback either outside or during ongoing communication session

• Notifying user of pending dialogs or barge-in

• Rendering (multiple) dialogs

• Collecting user responses

• Dialog presence

– Session management: users may be engaged in several communications sessions simultaneously and need to receive dialogs in the right session(s)

– Transparency: user should not perceive difference in performing various communication tasks despite ongoing user context collection


Argus: A Client-side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive Enterprise Communications (1/2)

Argus complements enterprise communications middleware on the client-side for supporting pervasive, context-aware communications applications

Negotiation between users and communications applications through Argus agents

Enterprise Communications Middleware

Endpoint 1 Endpoint 2 Endpoint 3 Endpoint 4

Argus Agent Argus Agent Argus AgentArgus Agent

SessionMgmt.

Device Monitor

SessionMgmt.

Device Monitor

SessionMgmt.

Device Monitor

SessionMgmt.

Device Monitor


Argus: A Client-side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive Enterprise Communications (2/2)

Argus agents are deployed with user communication endpoints

Agents provide context gathering, propagation, dialog presentation functionalities

Device monitor tracks and reports device properties of interest – e.g. battery remaining, interaction capabilities etc.

Session management associates session information with individual communication endpoints


Web Browsers as Communication Endpoints

Web-based user context data collection is meaningful since employees spend a lot of time interacting with enterprise Web portals that expose a variety of enterprise applications

Web browsers are universally deployed, programmable client software of choice for many user activities

Can render multimedia contents easily

Already provide infrastructure support for uploading information, rendering interaction (through forms) and returning user feedback

Firefox Web browser extension mechanism for implementing data collection functionality

Other communication endpoints to follow…


Argus Architecture Argus consists of two main components:

– Communication Agent: Tightly coupled with endpoint (here: browser). Responsible for user context gathering, dialog presentation, feedback collection

– Machine Agent: Mediates between user and middleware. Maintains session information, sends device characteristics to middleware

One Communication Agent per communication endpoint, but only one Machine Agent per client machine

Web Services Client

Proxy Server

Device Agent

Per endpoint instance

Machine Agent Per device

User Device

Enterprise Communication Middleware

Web ServicesClient

ProxyServer

DeviceAgent

Communication AgentAJAX

Components

User ResponseUI

ElementsActivityMonitor


Communication Agent Communication Agent monitors user activity and manages dialogs

– Activity Monitor

• Context data may be the current page being presented, time spent on the page, what Web application is being used etc.

• Periodically packages observed context data and sends package to Machine Agent

– User Response Component

• Makes upcalls into the AJAX components to forward the context data

• Receives dialogs to be rendered as forms to the user

– AJAX Components

• Asynchronous components

• Create server requests from JavaScript calls, return control back to extension event loop


Machine Agent

Single instance of Machine Agent per device provides session management for all active sessions

– Proxy Server

• Single point of contact for Communication Agents to send user context information to

• Maintains session information, dialog graphs

– Device Agent

• Currently implemented for Windows XP but can be easily ported to other operating systems

• Collects, reports static/dynamic device capabilities (device context)

• Device context helps enterprise communications middleware to adapt dialog design


Dialog Rendering and Injection Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), designed for describing and rendering interactive multimedia presentations, is used for dialogs

– Standardized development tools

– Rendering supported in Web browsers

Dialogs are associated with session ID of target browser session

Machine Agent detects and receives (through Java/Web Services calls) list of pending dialogs for active session from middleware

Communication Agent retrieves dialogs (as SMIL scripts) through HTTP requests and renders them through User Response component in Firefox extension

Web Services Client

Proxy Server

Device Agent

Machine Agent

User Device

Enterprise Communication Middleware

Web ServicesClient

ProxyServer

DeviceAgent

Communication AgentAJAX

Components

User ResponseUI

ElementsActivityMonitor

JS Calls HTML

HTTP

XML

Java Method Calls

Web Services Calls


User Perspective (1/2) Communication Agent implemented as Firefox extension:

– Context gathering is transparent – no perceivable change in browsing experience

– User can turn on/off context gathering at any point

Dialogs are rendered in the form of a pop-up window which the user can fill in

– May contain audio, video


User Perspective (2/2)

Pro

xy s

erve

r

Com

munication A

gent

Dialogs may be presented piecemeal, where each dialog depends on the outcome of the previous user response

Can be seen as a graph maintained at Machine Agent


Conclusion and Future Work

We presented the client-side architecture Argus for supporting pervasive, context-aware enterprise communications

Argus gathers user context information, propagates it to enterprise communications middleware, and supports multimodal dialogs, thereby accelerating decision-making in enterprise communications applications

We plan to do several user studies for quantifying usability and measure accuracy of user context data provided by Argus

Argus has been extended to work with Thunderbird email client; we are also looking at extending it to a range of communication endpoints

© 2005 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved. A Client-Side Architecture for Supporting Pervasive...

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