Award Abstract # 1345294
SBIR Phase I: Declarative Platform for Software-defined Networking Applications

NSF Org: TI
Translational Impacts
Recipient:
Initial Amendment Date: November 26, 2013
Latest Amendment Date: June 27, 2014
Award Number: 1345294
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Peter Atherton
patherto@nsf.gov
 (703)292-8772
TI
 Translational Impacts
TIP
 Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships
Start Date: January 1, 2014
End Date: December 31, 2014 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $150,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $179,999.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2014 = $179,999.00
History of Investigator:
  • Boon-Thau Loo (Principal Investigator)
    boonloo@gmail.com
  • Harjot Gill (Former Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Gencore Systems LLC
3624 Market Street, Suite 300
Philadelphia
PA  US  19104-2614
(510)295-5272
Sponsor Congressional District: 03
Primary Place of Performance: Gencore Systems LLC
25 Staffordshire Road
NJ  US  08003-1977
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
01
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): DEESKFH1TMV1
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): SBIR Phase I
Primary Program Source: 01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 152E, 5371, 8032
Program Element Code(s): 537100
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.084

ABSTRACT

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop a software-based networking platform that allows computer networks to run more efficiently and to protect against cyber-attacks. The proposed declarative platform will enable network operators to rapidly create and compose new packet-processing functionality within software-based appliances, coordinate the distributed collection of network resources (e.g. routers and servers), and create rich Software-Defined Networking (SDN) applications on top of the platform to solve critical problems in network security, where real-time analytics and dynamic network reconfiguration are essential. The proposed work will result in a declarative SDN platform, and an SDN application that provides real-time threat detection and mitigation against network security attacks.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project results from the creation of an active network defense mechanism that can adapt quickly to new cyber-attacks. The proposed work addresses the next significant market for SDN technology: the development of applications that can leverage the SDN infrastructure in the telecommunications and enterprise market. The declarative platform will make it significantly easier to customize and deploy new SDN applications, and has wide applicability in network security, traffic analytics, and network traffic optimizations.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

This proposal has resulted in the development of the GencoreOS platform, a declarative platform that uses a declarative language for configuring an analytics-actuation feedback loop targeted at cloud environments. The GencoreOS platform consists of multiple software monitoring appliances deployable within a data center environment. It uses a high-performance parallel analyzer engine, and can be deployed either in-line or mirrored mode for tapping into routers (hardware or software) and cloud services. A GencoreOS manager runs a declarative networking engine, and aggregates alerts and raw statistics from multiple analyzers, and can also determine where analyzers should be placed within the data center, and decide what actions to take to optimize cloud operations or defend against attacks.

In terms of actual products, a Gencore Application-Aware Analyzer (A3) product has been launched and in pilot phases. A3 is a Software-defined Networking (SDN) compliant analyzer that can be deployed in cloud environments to gather application performance statistics, which can then be used to generate real-time dashboards and alerts. 

In terms of intellectual merit, Gencore A3 is one of the first wire data analyzer that is integrated in a SDN environment, and integrates the use of university research in declarative networking in its product. 

The broader impact of the work lies in the development of next generation application-performance monitoring (APM) tools, that can be dynamically instantiated and configured at runtime, using state-of-the-art network functions virtualization paradigm.

The commercial impact of the work lies in the development of a APM tool that provides an early warning system for performance issues, and provides mechanisms to allow cloud operators to fix these issues in real-time using automated policy configurations.


Last Modified: 01/05/2015
Modified by: Boon-Thau Loo

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