VMX Progress Report

Here are some underlying questions people have been asking about Vermont Media Exchange progress.

• What has been going on and why is it taking so long?
In August 2007 VMX Alpha Test Group 1, a group of seven access centers, began some testing of computer and network functions connected to digital file-sharing with the group and we’ve been working on modifications and improvements to release what we're calling VMX 2.0. Now we have a new version of VMX code to perform all the functions described above with minimal custom settings at each Access Management Organization (AMO). All this has been time-consuming and slower than expected.

• So now what happens with VMX and digital file-sharing?
The expanded Alpha Test Group is working with the new code. Once we’ve concluded testing of VMX 2.0 we're planning to transition the code into an application that can be easily upgraded on any VMX computer. Ideally we would then be prepared to roll out to a relatively large group of AMOs. It will also be important for VAN to remain aware of national movements in this same digital file-sharing direction because that could shorten our work time if we can either find another software developed nationally to perform these same functions or get the VMX software worked out for Vermont only as a group. Metadata is the even less clean transfer side of program sharing and we really have only begun to address the challenge of moving program metadata from one system to another.

• When is this project going to be finished?
VMX is only one small network in an emerging tide of file-sharing networks, but the goal of VMX is to have all VAN members prepared to bring the technology and the content to communities throughout Vermont. The long-term vision is to have AMOs serve as active centers to keep the program-sharing local as well as global. So in some ways we will never “finish” the statewide network. We can only get all AMOs on to an effective network of file-sharing computers connected to local master control systems. It’s what gets shared that is ultimately the most important thing and the hardest part of this transition.