SITIS Topic Details |
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| Proposals Accepted: | |
| Program: | SBIR |
| Topic Number: | AF103-048 (AirForce) |
| Title: | Network Virtualization | Research & Technical Areas: | Information Systems |
| Objective: | Research and develop virtualization technologies to provide innovative approaches for infinite horizontal network scalability via cloning, replication, expansion, as well as extra “spike-capacity”.
| Description: | Network virtualization aims to split up available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent of the others, and each of which can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular network resource, server, or device in real time. The goal of this project is to develop new virtualization technologies that would enable dynamic scaling of a virtualized network channel by combining it with other network channels on-the-fly. A single Ethernet port could support multiple virtual connections from multiple Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and networks, but they are virtually segmented using VLAN ("Virtual LAN") tags. Every virtual IP connection over the one physical port is independent and unaware of the existence of other connections, but this research would provide a way to be aware of each unique connection and manage/combine each one independently. This research would also provide dynamic virtual routing to add spike capacity using virtual routing tables. Typically, a routing table and an IP network port share a 1:1 relationship, even though that single port may host multiple virtual interfaces (such as VLANs or the "eth0:1" virtual network adapters supported by Linux). The single routing table will contain multiple routes for each virtual connection, but they are still managed in a single table. Virtual routing tables would change that paradigm into a one:many relationship, where any single physical interface can maintain multiple routing tables, each with multiple entries. This provides the interface with the ability to bring up (and tear down) routing services on-the-fly for one network without interrupting other services and routing tables on that same interface.
Network virtualization is intended to optimize network throughput, reliability, flexibility, scalability, and security. Its goal is to provide every application exactly the bandwidth, security level, and availability it needs. Previously, network virtualization has consisted of deploying network services (VLAN, Virtual Private Network (VPN), etc) and today its scope has expanded to include deployment of multiple distinct networks over the same physical infrastructure. Network virtualization techniques allow network resource instances to actually migrate across different intranet and internet configurations to address different Quality of Service (QoS) and Information Assurance requirements. Different virtual networks may provide alternate end-to-end packet delivery systems and may use different protocols and packet formats. Each network instance requires a level of isolation from the other instances.
Research areas for this topic include development of new infrastructure virtualization architectures; new resource allocation algorithms to adapt to virtual network instances; strategies for resilient and reliable migration to virtualized network architectures; identifying/defining qualitative and quantitative metrics for evaluating scalability, performance, and security of proposed approaches; and network management techniques for managing and configuring the dynamic virtual networks.
Research topics also include characterizing types of virtualization with isolation levels; evaluating the tradeoffs between performance (latency and bandwidth) and security (isolation); and applicability of network virtualization for wireless Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs), especially at the Tactical Edge.
| PHASE I: Develop innovative and creative virtualization technologies that would enable dynamic scaling of virtualized network channels to satisfy bandwidth, security level, and availability requirements on the fly. Define metrics to evaluate efficacy. Document results in a written report.
| PHASE II: Construct a working prototype, and model and simulation, of your proposed approach and evaluate effectiveness using metrics defined in Phase I. Provide a capability for network management and configuration of the virtual networks.
| PHASE III | DUAL USE COMMERCIALIZATION:
Military Application: Improved performance and security of intranets and internets, including Tactical Airborne Networks. Dynamic reallocation of bandwidth and network resources to meet mission critical needs.
Commercial Application: Improving performance and security of enterprise networks. Providing dynamic bandwidth reallocation and individualized QoS per user. Setting the groundwork for the future internet and cloud computing.
| References: | 1. http://networkvirtualization.com/state-of-the-art. 2. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns856/ns872/virtualization_C11-521100-0Forrester.pdf. 3. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jrex/virtual.html. |
| Keywords: | mission assurance, network virtualization |
Questions and Answers: |
No questions posed on this topic at this time |
As of midnight September 1, questions for solicitations SBIR 10.3 and STTR 10.B will no longer be accepted.
To read the solicitation for full proposal preparation and submission details click here. |