Air Force Center for Research on GIG/NCES Challenges (AF-TRUST-GNC)

TRUST, Washington, D.C. Meeting January 9–10, 2006

Air Force Center for Research on GIG/NCES Challenges (AF-TRUST-GNC)

Ken Birman

"TRUST and the Global Information Grid", Ken Birman

2TRUST, Washington, D.C. Meeting January 9–10, 2006

Context

TRUST mission includes commitment to create significant dialog with stakeholder communities (e.g. in medicine, financial community, power systems)

2005 saw substantial progress with Air Force– Dialog builds on a longer history of collaboration between Air

Force and our participants. For example, Air Force Information Assurance Institute at Cornell

– TRUST members assisted in two major studies of GIG/NCES impact on Air Force research priorities in 2005

AFRL/IF (JBI) Prometheus study Info Sharing 2010 study requested by SAF-XCX: a pair of TLAs

that includes CIO office of the Secretary of the Air Force (SAF)). AF-TRUST proposal reflects priorities identified in

these studies



Advantage: Information

“The natural formation of the country is the soldier's best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances, constitutes the test of a great general. He who knows these things, and in fighting puts his knowledge into practice, will win his battles. ”

- General Sun-Tzu Wu, 512BC

Challenge? Finding it!



The proposed NCES/GIG architecture?

Basis is Web Services standard, although CORBA is likely to be used on server clusters

Primary application platform will be Microsoft Windows

NSA and DISA are playing key roles in mapping these components to military needs



Steps to GIG/NCES

Today– AF runs three side-by-side operational networks and many

dedicated subnetworks, i.e. to control autonomous vehicles– Connects to Internet and other services through various

DISA-operated gateways. Tomorrow

– Single Dark Core: A vision of a unified network with a small high-security core and a substantial audited but medium-security region.

– XML browsers and email throughout, posing a recognized security risk but offering needed information accessibility

– Legacy/stovepipe applications ported and wrapped for accessibility within this common operating environment



Missing pieces to the story?

There are many– At a “superficial” level, just using the proposed

platform to solve the kinds of problems being posed is challenging

For example, imagine an application that needs mapping data for Falluja. Which servers have this data? Are some more up to date, or less loaded, or experiencing faults? Which one is best? What security policies should apply?

– At a more technical level, Web Services lack properties one would normally expect for mission-critical military systems

TRUST, Washington, D.C. Meeting January 9–10, 2006

The Prometheus Project

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Ken [email protected] University

Mike [email protected] Mellon University

Douglas C. [email protected] University

Real-time, Scalable, & Secure Information

Management for the GIG



Prometheus Emphasis: Meeting Demands for QoS-enabled Information Management

Key solution space challenges• Enormous accidental & inherent

complexities• Continuous technology evolution &

change• Highly diverse network, platform,

language, & tool environments

Key problem space challenges• Network-centric, dynamic, very large-

scale systems of systems (SoS)• Stringent simultaneous quality of

service (QoS) demands• e.g. real-time, scalability, security

• Demand for QoS-enabled operational & tactical Global Information Grid (GIG)



Results include a mix of prototypes, experiments, & analyses

Summary of Results from Prometheus Study

We decided to drill down on four primary questions

QoS-enabled Publish/Subscribe Technologies for Tactical Information Management

Scalable Fault- & Intrusion-Tolerance for Critical GIG Services

Scalable Enterprise Service-Oriented Architectures

Investigating a Unified Framework for Demonstrating Policy Compliance



Coordination Of Multiple UAVs

Dynamic MissionReplanning

Feedback &Control

Image Processing & Tracking

Focus Area 1: QoS-enabled Publish/Subscribe Technologies for Tactical Information Management

DARPA PCES Capstone demo, April 14, ‘05, White Sands Missile Range



Focus Area 2: Scalable Fault- & Intrusion- Tolerance for Critical GIG Services

Critical GIG services must survive failures & attacks

An intrusion-tolerant service is one that continues to operate correctly despite the corruption of some of its components

– “Intrusions” modeled as Byzantine faults (arbitrary behavior)

In this focus area, we have studied how to build fault- & intrusion-tolerant services to be fault-scalable

– i.e., service performance scales as number of faults tolerated grows

Application

ApplicationApplication

Application

Application

Pub/Sub Service

Application

Application

Application



Tactical Network

Satellite Network

Terrestrial IP Network

TerrestrialCircuit Network

Red LAN

Access FunctionsAccess Functions

Red LAN

Access FunctionsAccess Functions

Protection of Data-in-TransitProtection of

Data-in-Transit

IA Policy-based Routing

IA Policy-based Routing

COI level Connectivity, Bandwidth, Priority

Enforcement

COI level Connectivity, Bandwidth, Priority

Enforcement

SERVICE

Service Allocation & Prioritization

Service Allocation & Prioritization

GIG

Goals Enhance SOA platforms to support policy-driven enforcement of access to GIG

resources integrated across information, service, & transport Enable ability to dynamically adjust SOA resource allocation mechanisms in

response to changing mission priorities, failures, attacks, etc.

Focus Area 3: Scalable Enterprise Service-Oriented Architectures



AF-TRUST-GNC

Proposal focuses on three areas, roughly corresponding to the ones identified by Prometheus– Develop algorithms and software for scalable, real-

time and fault-tolerance QoS– Investigate issues associated with very large scale

information assurance and security policy management

– Develop new technologies for scalable and secure discovery, information architectures and mediation



Example questions

Can we bring build a new generation of time-critical web service cluster solutions that combine time-critical update algorithms with mechanisms for handling faults and load surges?

Suppose that a vast collection of firewalls and audit mechanisms are controlled from an enormous distributed database of policies. How can we administer and update the policy databases without accidental error?

Is it possible to somehow isolate legacy applications while still enjoying the benefits of universal connectivity and access available in Web Services?



Proposal?

We are proposing to create a TRUST Center focused on the needs of Air Force and other military vendors as the GIG/NCES rollout occurs

We have the breadth of talent and resources to make this work and can exploit a “dream team” that unites the top research groups in the country and focuses them on AFRL priorities. AF-TRUST-GNC includes some TRUST researchers but also some new faces

We suggest a structure parallel to that used by NSF in the basic TRUST framework



Possible goal for 2006?

One option is to explore a similar structure with Dept. of Treasury– Very likely to build on their eCavern project– Wide range of very exciting issues in areas such

as identity-theft, data mining to enforce risk-management, regulatory and security policies, data replication and associated policy enforcement

– Could exploit facilities right on Wall Street, where both Cornell and CMU have offices in shared bldg

Documents

Air Force Center for Research on GIG/NCES Challenges (AF-TRUST-GNC)