The objective of the VITAL project is to demonstrate and validate the development, deployment, management, and use of complex heterogeneous service features on an Open Distributed Telecommunication Architecture (ODTA) defined in terms of reusable components. The VITAL ODTA uses as main input the Telecommunication Information Networking Architecture (TINA). The ODTA has been decomposed in several subsystems. The ODTA subsystems contain ODTA components which can be service components (SC) or computational objects (CO). The ODTA components consist of a set of interfaces with the corresponding operations. Communication between them is succeeded via the Common Request Brocker Architecture (CORBA). NTUA is involved in VITAL because it has allocated its effort to actually implement and validate the novel technology in TINA systems, distributed environments and ATM networks.

In total, 3 phases were planned in VITAL, each phase lasting a year. VITALv3 has included new features, new subsystems, new reference points, new components and modifications to the VITALv1/VITALv2 components. VITALv3 is composed of the Access Session Control Subsystem, Service Session Control Subsystem, Subscription Management Subsystem, Discrete Terminal Mobility Subsystem, Connection Management Subsystem, Resource Configuration Management Subsystem, Fault Management Subsystem.

Media Lab of NTUA has been involved in VITALv3 phase of the project. Its effort in WP1 of Vitalv3 is dealing with the specification and implementation of the Access Session Control Subsystem Chat and the Shared Whiteboard Application for the Teletraining Service. More specifically, the role of Media Lab in this work package, is to contribute to the enhancement of the existing software and hardware and the development of new software and Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for the chat and teletraining applications, in order to support teleconference facilities inside the university campus.

In WP2 of VITALv3 Media Lab has contributed to the description of the Fault Management System including the information models, the computational models and the interface specification of the Fault Management components. Fault Management Subsystem is part of the TINA Network Resource Architecture and provide means to detect, locate and correct abnormal behaviour of the components in the TINA connection management (LNC-ATM, NML-CP, EML-CP and RA). It is composed of the Testing/Diagnostic Server (TDS), the Alarm Manager (AlarmM) and Fault Co-ordinator (FC). This subsystem use the DPE service Notification Server to handle the alarms. NTUA is specifically interested in studying and applying the TINA supporting technologies in the detection, localization and correction of abnormal behaviour of telecommunication networks and their environments.