Phantom: Virtualized COI Information Systems

Communities of interest (COIs) are often established in response to emerging situations; the participants and their needs are fluid, and not completely known at the outset. Frequently, they include participants from different organizations, whose information systems are not integrated. Whether a COI is stood up to deal with an emergency or an on-going task, this process needs to be quick and flexible. How can powerful, net-centric information services – a fully featured enterprise network – be provided for such fast-evolving, heterogeneous, and diverse COIs? ATC-NY, in collaboration with Architecture Technology Corporation, will create Phantom. Phantom will allow a secure, virtual network hosting a COI to be quickly and easily established. As participants join and leave the COI and as the COI mission changes, Phantom will seamlessly modify the network topology and associated security mechanisms accordingly. Using Phantom, the creation of COI information systems will not require tedious set-up of dedicated servers and firewalls. Instead, Phantom will marshal the available (real) network resources to efficiently achieve the desired Quality of Service for these virtual networks.