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`Instant Messaging and Presence
`Technologies tor College Campuses
`
`Samir Chatterjee, Tarun Abhichandani, Haiqing Li, and Bengisu Tulu
`Claremont Graduate University
`Jongbok Byun, Point Loma Nazarene University
`
`
`Abstract
`Instant messaging is an application that enables networked users to send and
`receive short messages. Presence provides information aboutusers’ reachability
`and willingness to accept/reject a brief chat session. Various proprietary IM and
`presence (IM&P) solutions are currently on the market, and standards are emerg-
`ing. There are interoperability problems between the two dominant standards (SIM-
`PLE and XMPP); asaresult, this important application is finding difficulty in
`widespread deployment within college campuses and businesses. We describe a
`brief history of the development of IM&P technology, discuss the current standard-
`ization work being done within IETF, and present an overall architecture of emerg-
`ing standards. We provide a comparison between the SIP/SIMPLE and
`Jabber/XMPPstandards. Wealso Present data andits analysis from a survey of
`campus organizations that shedslig t into the main issues of deploying, managing
`and provisioning of IM&P services on college campus.
`
`
`nstant messaging (IM) is an application that enables
`short message exchanges between online users. It enables
`these exchangesin real time independentoflocale [1].
`This feature of real-time differentiates IM from email
`systems. IM systems, with the ability of providing presence
`information, enables a user to know the availability of other
`users. By using presence information, an IM system enables us
`to search for a specific user, check the user’s status, and send
`short messages. Popular IM applications include AOL™
`Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ™ (“I Seek You”), MSN™ or
`WindowsXP™ Messenger, and Yahoo™ Messenger[2].
`Instant messaging, by making us able to know theavailabili-
`ty of our peers, provides us with improved communication
`comparedto other technologies. We can send an email mes-
`sage at any time andget a reply at the recipient’s conve-
`nience. But there are times when we may need aninstant
`response from oneofa group ofusers. It takes a while just to
`find one of the users in that group, who mightbe available or
`not. In IM applications, if we have that group of users on our
`“buddylist,” we can tell at a glance if any of them are logged
`onto the network, and whether they have been active recently.
`Weare also aware,in this case, whetheror not the useris
`open to communicating at this time. If they are, we can send a
`quick IM and communicate further. Although IM started as a
`consumer-grade technology, it was quickly adopted by many
`businesses that saw its advantages in enabling quick communi-
`cations and providing presence information [3]. This new phe-
`nomenonis now impacting schools and college campuses.
`However,this emerging phenomenonandits potential value
`as a campustechnology is not well understood. How can high-
`er education and campusesdevelop strategies and policies to
`1 This acronym hasbeen adoptedfrom
`deploy, manage, and support IM programs?
`http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/simple-charter.html
`Atthis time, a large numberof IM systemsexist in various
`
`Internet communities, illustrated in Table 1. Every system, in
`Table 1, has unique features and separate user communities.
`After AOLrolled out their service, Yahoo and MSNintro-
`duced their own products that enabled users to communicate
`with AIM servers. However, AOL soon managed to shut them
`out, and the result for the past several years has beena plural-
`ity of competing products that cannot interoperate with each
`other[3]. Similarly, in standard organizationslike the Internet
`Engineering Task Force (IETF) there have been alternative
`standards that present a hindranceto interoperability and
`homogeneity.
`The goals of this article are threefold. First, we want to
`clearly explain how this technology works especially with
`respect to the emerging standards. There are several Internet-
`drafts (I-Ds) and requests for comments (RFCs), which is
`overwhelming for anyone not part of the standardsactivities.
`We discuss the state of standardization work doneto date
`within IETF and comparethe two alternative protocols. How-
`ever, it is important to also note that as yet no definitive stan-
`dard has emerged across the industry. Second,weidentify
`motivations for IM and presence (IM&P') usage, survey the
`higher education community regarding the use of IM&P, and
`present preliminary results of the data analysis. Third, we dis-
`cuss implications for using IM&P technology and services
`based on our preliminary data interpretation. This could be
`very helpful to information technology (IT) managersas well
`as researchers who wish to implement IM&P on their campus
`or create new IM&Psystems.
`Therest of the article is structured as follows. Westart
`
`2
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`0890-8044/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
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`IM solutions
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`Characteristics
`
`Vendor examples
`
`
`
`AOLInstant Messenger™, MSN Messenger™, Yahoo!
`Available to anybody; often free; use a central-
`Public services
`Messenger™
`ized third-party server to relay messages
`
`
`IM systems designed for enterprise and corpo-
`AOLEnterprise AIM™, Yahoo MessengerEnterprise™,
`Private services
`rate use; secure IM, message logging, enterprise-
`Microsoft Messenger Connectfor Enterprise™, IBM
`
`Lotus Sametime™
`class service, corporate control
`
`
`IBM Lotus Sametime™, Groove NetworkInc's Groove
`These collaborative systems include presence
`Collaboration tools
`
`
`technology
`Workspace™, Microsoft's Window Server 2003™
`
`
`Bantu Inc, ComverseInc,. DynamicSoft Inc., FaceTime
`Convergence products that are now IM&P-
`Carrier/network services
`Communications, Invertix Corp., NotePageInc., Pres-
`enabled
`
`enceWorks Inc., VayusphereInc.
`
`
`
`Opensourcetools
`Based on open source XMPPstandard
`JabberInc., Jabber.Org
`Mi Table 1. Instant messaging systems.
`
`with a brief history followed by a generic model and architec-
`ture of IM&P. Wealso explain the two emerging standards
`(SIMPLE and XMPP) and compare them. We then discuss
`motivations of implementing IM&P within campuses. Wepre-
`sent results of our initial survey. We discuss implications for
`practitioners and researchers. Finally, we concludethis article.
`
`project wasinitiated to build an IM client and server that
`could interact with the various proprietary systems by using a
`supersetofall of the major consumer IM systems[6]. As with
`any other open source software (OSS), Jabber was born as a
`result of a programmer, Jeremy Miller, scratching a personal
`itch of a programmer.
`To overcomethelack of interoperability and other con-
`Presence andInstant Messaging Services
`cerns in im, such as security, authentication, scalability and
`integration with other business applications, IETF formed two
`A Brief History?
`working groups focusing on instant messaging and presence at
`different points in time. Following sections will examine the
`The early usage of IM&P started with the introduction of the
`generic modelas well as the standards prescribed by the SIP
`UNIXoperating system. Users wereable to get the limited
`presence information and send instant messages using “FIN-
`for IM&P Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE)and Extensible
`Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) working groups.
`GER”and “TALK” commandsrespectively in the UNIX
`There is another emerging IM&P standard knownas the
`environment. The presence information was limited to the last
`time a user accessed the account and the location. The instant
`wireless village initiative. Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia have
`recognized the need for an industry standard for mobile
`messaging capabilities were limited to plain text messaging. In
`IM&Pservices (IMPS). The wireless village service has four
`UNIXsystems, users were able to managethe information
`components: presence, IM, groups, and shared content. We
`they wished to share as response to a “FINGER” query. They
`do notdiscussthis initiative in detail here but instead point
`also had the control over accepting or rejecting a talk request
`the readerto [7] for further information.
`[4].
`Internet relay chat (IRC) was introduced to the online
`Generic Modelfor Presence andInstant Messaging
`community in 1988 in order to provide real time, conversa-
`In an effort to develop a standard architecture for IM&P
`tional capability among users who were connected to a public
`network anywhere in the world [5]. IRC offered an environ-
`applications, the IETF IM&P Protocol (IMPP) Working
`Group proposed a generic model for providing a common
`ment where multiple users can join and leave a chat room at
`anytime. It also eliminated the basic restriction of being on
`vocabulary for future work [8]. Figure 1 illustrates the generic
`model and the proposedentities.
`the same network to chat whilestill offering the meansto ini-
`A presenceservice accepts, stores, and distributes presence
`tiate a private communication between twousers.
`information. It communicates through two distinct clients: pre-
`ICQ (“I Seek You”) beta version was released in Novem-
`ber 1996 by Mirabilis. ICQ utilized peer-to-peer communica-
`sentities and watchers. Presentities provide presence informa-
`tion to be stored and distributed, whereas watchers receive
`tion clients and enabled users to chat simultaneously over the
`presence information from the service. Watchers can befetch-
`Internet without joining a chat room. By January 1997, ICQ
`ers or subscribers. Fetchers pull the value of presence informa-
`had 27,000 users with a growth rate of 100 percent per week.
`tion for a specific presentity from the presenceservice. If a
`Meanwhile, America Online’s (AOL) Instant Messenger
`fetcher is fetching information onaregularbasis, it is called a
`(AIM)increased its subscribers to ten million users. In mid
`1998, America Online (AOL) acquired ICQ, which had
`poller. Subscribers, on the other hand, subscribe to presentity
`achieved more than ten million users by that time. Microsoft
`information on the presence service. The presence service
`MSNMessenger and Yahoo Messengerwere both released
`transmits information to the subscriber via notifications when
`within a year after that acquisition. With the introduction of
`a change occurs in the presence information of the subscribed
`AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger IM
`presentity.
`Presence information is composed of one or more presence
`becamea field where large corporations were developing pro-
`prietary code, which were not interoperable. In 1998, Jabber
`tuples. Each presence tuple consists of one mandatoryele-
`ment, Status, and two optional elements, Communication
`Address and Other Presence Markup. The Status field is
`2 Peter Saint Andre ofJabberprovided aninteresting thread to this on the
`defined to have at least two states: open and closed. In the
`Internet 2 Working Group Integrated Infrastructure for Instant Messaging
`formerstate, IMswill be accepted, andin the latter state they
`(I2IM) mailinglist.
`will not. Other possible values for Status may be busy, away,
`
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`user agent
`
`
`
`Presentity
`
`Watcher
`
`Presence
`
`id
`
`Presence
`service
`
`Watcher
`user agent
`
`Fetcher
`(roller)
`
`:
`
`Notification
`
`
`
`Instant
`message
`service
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`‘Jooby01daauasalg|
`information,
` Presence
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`jue}su|Resereee|ettaerate ernrnente
`
`bulbessaw
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Principal
`(user)
`
`Sender
`user agent
`
`Inbox
`user agent
`
`Instant
`inbox
`
`Instant messaging and presenceclient
`
`
`
`li Figure 1. A generic modelforpresence andinstant messaging.
`
`and Application Exchange (APEX). Working groups for these
`do not disturb, and so on (these statuses are further extended
`alternative standards follow different principles for imple-
`in SIMPLE and XMPP). The Communication Addressele-
`menting IM&P services. SIMPLEbuilds on the SIP infras-
`ment is composed of Communication Means and Contact
`tructures, APEX implements the service as store-and forward
`Addressfields, enabling a userto utilize various types of com-
`or email, and PRIM builds protocols over TCP. XMPP came
`munication means. The presence information adheres to a
`standard prescribed by IETF, “Presence Information Data
`to the IETF quite late (July 2002). The main reasonfor creat-
`ing an XMPP WGwasthat it was open source and hada big
`Format (PIDF)”[9].
`community of developers. Due to commonality of platform
`The IM service is responsible for accepting and delivering
`(XML), APEXcan be considered asa first incarnation of
`IMsto other entities (Fig. 1). It communicates through two
`distinct clients, senders and instant inboxes. The sender is
`XMPPin some sense. Subsequent content in this section
`examines the standards prescribed by the SIMPLE and XMPP
`responsible for sending IMs to the IM service, whichis
`working groups.
`responsible for delivering them to the instant inbox with the
`corresponding instant inbox address.
`Baseline SIP [10] provides mechanismsfor session-oriented
`communication but not for presence and IMs. The SIMPLE
`Understanding SIMPLE and XMPP Open Standards
`working group (henceforth referred to as SIMPLE) has been
`chartered to provide extensions for SIP that can be used for
`Within IETF, IMPP wasthe first working group formed to
`implementing IM&Pservices. The standardsprescribed by
`define protocols and data formats so that disparate applica-
`SIMPLEuseSIP as a signaling protocol and describe the
`tions can interoperate across the Internet. In addition, there
`usage of SIP for subscription and notifications for presence.It
`were various standards that provided alternative solutions for
`supports various models for IM&P applications [3, 11] and
`IM&P — SIMPLE,Presence and Instant Messaging (PRIM),
`
`
`
`
`Presence subsystem
`
`*Collocation
`*Register method
`¢Update documents
`
`Presence user agent
`(PUA)
`
`Presence agent(PA)
`(proxy/registrar)
`
`Subscribe
`
`Instant messaging subsystem
`
`
`lessage/opensession Upload presence
`
`li Figure 2. SIMPLE components.
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`Jabber
`
`server 2 Jabber
`
`server 3
`
`
`
`SIMPLE
`SIMPLE
`
`
`client
`client
`
`
`client
` Resolver
`
`Jabberserver 1
`
`Server-to-server
`
`Client-to-server
`
`Foreign IM
`ateway
`Jabberto SIP)
`
`Session
`manager
`
`Jabber
`client
`
`Jabber
`
`Mi Figure 3. Jabberarchitecture.
`
`adheres to standards such as CommonProfile for Instant
`Messaging (CPIM)[12], CommonProfile for Presence (CPP)
`[13], and PIDF [9]. By introducing SIP extensions, MES-
`SAGE, SUBSCRIBE, and NOTIFY methods[11], SIP can
`deliver presence information and IMs.Interaction of different
`components for SIMPLEisillustrated in Fig. 2.
`A presence user agent (PUA)provides presence informa-
`tion for a presentity. There can be multiple PUAsfora pre-
`sentity, using many devices [14]. A presence agent (PA)
`responds to SUBSCRIBErequests received and generates
`notifications for presence state of a presentity. Watchers, as
`explained before, are parties interested in knowing presence
`information of other presentities. Each of these SIMPLE
`components registers with the SIMPLEprovider to send and
`receive messages. According to Fig. 2, the PUA uploads the
`presence information to the PA. Presence information can be
`exchangedin three ways [14]: collocating PA with PUA,using
`the REGISTER methodof SIP, or updating documents for
`presence. Whenusers addcontactsto theirlist, they subscribe
`to these contacts’ presence information. In this case, a watch-
`er sends a SUBSCRIBErequest to a PA. Oncethe subscrip-
`tion has been made, any changeto the contact’s presence
`information is conveyed to the user who added the contact.
`This is done by transferring a NOTIFY message using SIP
`from PAto watcher [15]. A user can send a MESSAGEto a
`user in the contact list once he/she finds him/heronline. In
`SIMPLE,the network packet with message Hello! sent from
`Alice@foobar.com to Bob@foobar.com is represented in Box
`1.
`
`an IM system focused on privacy, security, ease of use, access
`from anywhere using any device, and Web-basedservices. It
`uses XML,a universal format for structured documents and
`data on the Web. Jabber, throughits architecture (Fig. 3),
`uses a distributed network utilizing many interconnected
`servers. Jabber technologies offer several key advantages such
`as open standards, decentralized architecture, a secured
`infrastructure, and extensibility of application, flexibility, and
`diverse services.
`XMPP,a core protocol for Jabber IM&P technology, is an
`XML-basedprotocol for exchanging IM&P information in
`real time. Most XMPP-based IM&Papplications are imple-
`mented via a client-server architecture that requires a client to
`establish a session on a server in order to engage in the
`expected IM&Pactivities [17]. The architecture, presented in
`Fig. 3, depicts three different components in a cohesive net-
`work of IM&P: Jabberservers, Jabber clients, and non-Jabber
`servers. Furthermore,theillustration details an internal work-
`ing of a Jabber server labeled Jabber server 1. The routeris
`the central componentin a Jabber server. All the components
`communicate with the router to resolve the paths to be adopt-
`ed for exchange of XMLstreams.
`A Jabber infrastructure includes three entities: Jabber
`clients, Jabber servers, and a gateway that translates between
`Jabber and other protocols, like SIP, used on a non-Jabber
`messaging network. Clients connect to a server over TCP and
`use XMPPthat contains XMLstreamsto access services
`offered by a server. A Jabber server, apart from storing
`clients’ information and their contact list, routes XML streams
`The network packet was captured on the source machine
`between authorized clients, servers, and other entities [17]. In
`Jabber architecture, features such as streams, stream authenti-
`— here, for example, on Alice’s machine using Ethereal Net-
`cation, and encryption provide building blocks for many types
`work Protocol Analyzer available at http:/Avww.ethereal.com.
`The packetis not an exactillustration ofall the details. It just
`of near-real-time applications [17]. XML streams, between
`gives an overview of how the information is stored and trans-
`two entities (clients or servers), involve creating a persistent
`ferred on the network.
`connection for exchanging XML data elements or XML stan-
`However,thereis no facility for offline messaging in SIP.
`zas. An XMLstanza,as defined in [17], is an unambiguous
`Since SIP UAs exchangeIMsdirectly without the help of a
`unit of structured information that hasastart (e.g., <conver-
`SIP server, SIMPLE could provide scalability for IM services.
`sation>) and an end (e.g., <conversation/>). There are three
`However,it is difficult to monitor the message exchanges and
`predefined XML stanzas in XMPP: message, used for
`apply security policies to protect the transmission of confiden-
`exchanging instant messages betweenclients through one or
`tial information.
`more servers; presence, used for notifying clients about the
`Prior to IETF’sinitiation of solving issues such as interop-
`status of a client; and iq (Info/Query), used for request-
`
`erability, Jabber came into existence [16]. Jabber technology is response interaction between entities. All of these stanzas
`
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`—e—
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`Frame — Timeof packetarrival, total size in bytes (446 bytes).
`
`Internet Protocol
`(20 bytes) — Ver-
`sion ofIP, type of
`protocol
`
`User Datagram
`Protocol(8
`bytes) — Source
`port, destination
`
`port, checksum SessionInitiation Protocol (404 bytes) —
`
`Request-Line:
`MESSAGE sip:10.1.1.2:5060; transport=udp SIP/2.0
`Message Header:
`From: <sip: Alice@foobar.com>
`To: <sip: Bob@foobar.com>
`Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
`MessageBody:
`Line-based text data: text/plain
`Hello!
`(If this messageis prefixed with "emoticon"of smile it will be represented
`as - ":-) Hello" and the total numberof bytes will increase by 3.)
`
`Ethernet (14
`bytes) — MAC
`addresses of the
`Destination and
`Source
`
`Box 1.
`
`
`
` Frame — Timeof packet arrival, total size in bytes (311 bytes).
`
`Ethernet (14 Internet Protocol|Transmission Jabber XML Messaging (257 bytes) —
`
`
`
`
`bytes) — MAC (20 bytes) — Ver-|Control Proto- <message type='chat' to= 'bob@foobar.com'> <x
`addresses of the
`sion ofIP, type of
`col (20 bytes)
`xmlns='jabber:x:event'> <composing/></x> <body>
`destination and
`— Sourceport,
`protocol
`Hello! </body> <html xmIns='http://jabber.org/protocol/xhtml-
`source
`destination port,
`im'> <body xmIns='http://www.w3.org/ 1999/xhtml'>Hello! </body>
`windowsize,
`</html> </message>
`checksum
`(If this messageis prefixed with "emoticon" of smile it will be represented
`as - ":-) Hello" and the total numberof bytes will increase by 3.)
`
`Box 2.
`
`the campus. Most students do not have office space but usual-
`share a set of common attributes: to, from, id, type, and
`ly carry a cell phone or laptop computer. Wireless Internet
`xml:lang. Accordingly, network packet containing message
`“Hello!” from Alice@foobar.com to Bob@foobar.com will be
`access on campusesis on the rise and students use their lap-
`as shown in Box 2.
`tops to work on projects, assignments and exams.If all stu-
`dents, staff, and faculty are connected to the IM&Pservice,
`According to [17], Jabber provides chat, error, groupchat,
`we can distribute various information including emergency
`headline, and normalas types of message for IM, and unavail-
`able, subscribe, subscribed, unsubscribe, unsubscribed, probe,
`news, campus events, and other important announcements.
`
`anderror as various statuses for presence. For IMaclient Students and faculty can engage in real-time discussions that
`requests a session with a server, and a server respondsbycre-
`can take learning out of a classroom setting. With voice over
`ating that session. After the session has been created,entities
`IP (VoIP) and IM&Pservices widely deployed, everybody on
`exchange messages and presence information using XML
`campuswill be reachable through these new technologies.
`stanzas. As mentionedbefore, a server is responsible for deliv-
`IM&Pservice is more media-rich than traditional applica-
`ering the messagesto the recipient’s server or the client. A
`tions such as mail, phone, and email. By using IM&P, we can
`contactlist for an entity or a “buddy list,” as it is popularly
`deliver voice, video, and data together to various endpoints.
`known,is called a roster. A contact in the roster item indicates
`Wecan integrate the delivered messages with existing systems
`that the user has subscribed to the contact’s presence informa-
`andinfrastructure. For example, we can share presentation
`tion. There are various types of subscription services described
`files during videoconferencing sessions. We can search for
`images from our database and transmit them through IM&P
`in [17, 18].
`SIP/SIMPLEand Jabber/XMPParevery different tech-
`services. This feature will save both time and money for cam-
`puses.
`nologies and are currently in different stages of development.
`Table 2 comparesthe characteristics of these two open stan-
`IM&P also enables online social networking. It can be used
`dards. SIMPLEhas more promising features than XMPP
`to create communities for different purposes. Students can
`since SIMPLEcan be connected to other services through
`form study groups; faculty can utilize this technology for
`SIP. However, there have been fewer deployable IM solutions
`research collaboration with students and/or other faculty
`than in Jabber/XMPP. This might change gradually as collab-
`members. Current IM&Pservices provide functionality that
`oration between various industry participants increase, as evi-
`can help users in managing different buddylists for different
`projects, and storing, processing, and archiving shared com-
`dent in recent initiatives (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/
`press/2004/jul04/0715EnterpriseIMConnectivityPR.asp)
`munication as a knowledge repository for later use. IM&P
`between Microsoft™, Yahoo™ and AOL™. XMPParchitec-
`services can improve decision making quality by reducing
`ture is more stable now and widely deployed through Jabber.
`response time and providing instant decisions. It can be inte-
`However,it has limited capability to connect various devices
`grated with other middlewareservices such as calendaring and
`as compared to SIMPLE.
`project management, which can help to improvethe entire
`decision making process. Other interesting applications would
`include campussecurity, disaster and emergencycontrol,
`Motivations for Implementing Instant
`career services, online community, social clubs, volunteering,
`distance learning, and cyber classrooms. However, this emerg-
`Messaging System on Campus
`ing phenomenonof IM within college campusesis not yet
`
`IM&P can provide a point of connection for each student on fully understood.
`
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`Criteria
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`Working Group
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`SIP/SIMPLE
`
`SIP/SIMPLE(IETF)
`
`Md
`
`Jabber/XMPP(IETF)
`
`
`
`SignalingBase technology Data transport (roots in open source community)
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Instant messaging method
`
`Peer-to-peer
`
`Client/server
`
`Text-based negotiable formats for IM, XML for
`XML
`Messageformat
`presence attributes
`
`
`In operation since 1999
`Under development
`Technical development
`
`* Provide converged and unified messaging
`* Text-based protocol and easy to develop
`applications
`* Clients can be integrated with other applications
`* Smart clients and simple core
`* Connects seamlessly to SIP and VoIP telephony
`world
`* Support of Microsoft (built in function of
`WindowsXP)
`
`* Not matured yet
`* Complex architecture with various servers
`* Difficult to apply security policies due to the lack
`of server capability to check the message contents
`
`Extensible to other media types such as telephony,
`video
`
`* Stable technology
`* Small message size compare to SIMPLE
`¢ Standardized documentation technology (XML)
`can be combined with other technologies
`¢ Transparent message exchange(able to appl
`security policies)
`
`¢ Asynchronously transports of XML content
`¢ Need to develop various client devices for
`XMPP.
`¢ Server may overload with the presence and
`instant messaging (implementation dependent)
`
`Use XML streaming technologyfor data
`exchange, integration to applications and sys-
`tems
`
`Advantage
`
`Disadvantage
`
`Media support
`
`NAT/firewall issues
`
`Asa signaling technology, SIP passes IP addresses
`The application layer does not need to be ana-
`which are a problem for NATs. Also Firewalls have
`lyzed in XMPP. Addressing in XMPP/Jabberis
`to allow ports for media passing. These ports tend
`alwayslogical and not physical. XMPP requires
`to be dynamic whichis a problem in SIP. (MIDCOM
`the opening of twoports in firewalls (5222 for
`and Interactive Connectivity Establishment[ICE] are
`client-server and 5269for server-server).
`emerging solutions.)
`
`Feature completeness:
`Yes
`re rogress?
`On/off presence
`Yes
`Yee gress:
`Extended presence
`Yes
`Yes
`Teferoaress
`Single message
`ven 9
`Chat sessions
`Yes
`Contactlists
`Yes
`In progress
`
`Group chat
`
`eo
`
`Pledged support from Microsoft, IBM, Sun, 3GPP,
`Open Mobile Alliance
`
`Investments and support from HP,Intel, Sony,
`Hitachi, Oracle
`
`Mi Table 2. Comparisons of SIP/SIMPLE and Jabber/XMPP.
`
`Survey, Data, and Analysis
`
`The total numberofvalid responses received from the sam-
`ple was 111. Of those, 51.4 percent were students, 5.4 percent
`were faculty, 23.4 percent were IT staff, and the rest were
`In an attempt to better understand the higher education com-
`managers or administrative staff. As illustrated in Table 3,
`munity in relation to IM&P, we designed a Web-based survey
`there was a nearly even distribution of full-time students and
`to gather responses from users. This Web-based survey was
`full-time working individuals. 45.9 percent of the respondents
`conducted from July to September 2004. The sample was
`were from universities with more than 5000 students, 28.7 per-
`made upof students from an undergraduate college and a
`cent from universities with between 1000 and 2500 students.
`graduate university, and from two mailing lists with members
`from around the world whoareactive in the area of IM&P
`16.7 percent from universities with less than 1000 students,
`and 9.3 percent from universities with 2500-5000 students.
`and VoIP. The questions were segregated into three different
`groups: overview information relating to the occupation of the
`Most of the respondents (91.6 percent) were from universities
`with averageclass size of less than 50 students. Most of the
`respondentandthe field in which they are involved, current
`usage of IM&P, and future use and role of IM&P.
`students or faculty belonged to arts and humanities, business
`
`IEEE Network ¢ May/June 2005
`
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`

`CHATTERJEE LAYOUT 4/20/05
`
`4:38 PM Page 8
`
`
`
`
`
`Whatalternate technology do you use?
`
`MSN
`Messenger
`AOLIM
`Yahi
`MessengerOther
`Jabberclient
`XP Messenger
`M Latus
`ametime
`roove
`worttesce
`
`Whichfeaturesof IM client do you mainly use?
`
`Where do you use IM for school purposes?
`
`82
`
`On campus
`
`On the move
`
`
`Campuspolicy dictated WhichIM clients do you use?
`
`
`
`Email
`
`Telephone
`
`Face-to-face
`
`Cell phone
`
`Snail mail
`
`File transfer
`
`For what purpose do you use IM on campus?
`
`Whydid you choosethe particular client(s)?
`
`Chatw friends
`
`coieagues
`Share notes
`Other
`Research
`Cc
`pronase
`Prepare for exams
`
`0
`
`Friends useit
`
`client
`| find this is the pest
`Other
`
`| cong esethatehdnt
`
`li Figure 4. Overview information gatheredfrom respondents.
`
`Respondents chose text as the most used feature in messaging
`management, IT, politics and economics, or science and engi-
`followedbyfile transfer. Most of the users utilized IM for
`neering as a major.
`exchanging IMswith friends or colleagues; few of them used
`Out of 111 respondents, only 74.8 percent were currently
`it for communicating with professors or preparing for exams.
`using IM technologies. Among these current IM users, 63.1
`Most of the respondents used IM at home,but using IM in an
`percent had three or more years of experience in using IM,
`office or on campus did not seem unusual. Respondents used
`27.4 percent between one and threeyears, and 9.5 percent
`a particular IM application since it was being used by their
`less than one year. 76.8 percent of current IM users made use
`peersor friends.
`of one to three different IM clients, 15.9 percent used three to
`Referring to Table 4, among the responses from IT man-
`six different clients, and only 7.3 percent used more than six
`agers, 88.4 percent indicated that their university did not
`clients. Furthermore, referring to Table 3, 84.8 percent of the
`implement any policy for IM usage on campus. 92.7 percent
`respondents did not receive an IM accountuponregistration
`indicated lack of budget for IM infrastructure. Also, more
`with the college, indicating lack of IM infrastructure in the
`than half indicated that the existing systems should not be
`colleges. 31.3 percent of the respondents used IM for formal
`integrated with IM services.
`communication. This falls far short of IM usage for informal
`Table 5 enumerates the responsesreceived in relation to
`communication, which was 100 percent. 43.2 percent of the
`future use and role of IM&P. Interpretations from these
`respondents were somehowinvolved in the IT decision mak-
`responses follow. Using IM increasesefficiency and productiv-
`ing process.
`Asillustrated in Fig. 4, users who did not use IM, 28 of the
`ity if it is ubiquitous(i.e., available on the cell phone and used
`extensively on campus, but not part of every class). However,
`total 111 respondents, used email as their most preferred
`all kinds of communication need not be through IM.It need
`alternate technology. However, it was not the dominantalter-
`not be the primary tool for collaboration activities like
`native. Other methods involved using telephones, face-to-face
`research or replace existing technologies such as email. Users
`meetings, or cell phones. Among IM clients, MSN Messen-
`like being informed about campus and college or university
`ger™ was the dominant technology for IM followed by AIM™
`correspondence through other channels, which could betradi-
`and then Yahoo Messenger™. Furthermore, there were cer-
`
`tain other messaging technologies indicated by respondents. tional or innovative. Although IM is appropriate for providing
`
`IEEE Network * May/June 2005
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