Active Resource Manager (ARM)

The need for self-managing networks is readily apparent. As network systems become more vital to the organizational mission, they grow larger, faster, more complex, and more difficult to protect. However, developing a technology for effective self-management is challenging. The solution must have the ability to plan and carry out transitions from actual to desired state of the network within a complex, fluid environment. The proposed Active Resource Manager (ARM) will monitor and integrate data from an extensible set of network management resources, cyber-defense sensors, and executable policies. An Event Synthesis Agent will use fast graph comparison algorithms for consolidation and classification of network events. The consolidated events will be used by ARM Reasoning Agents for generation of Response Specifications. These Response Specifications will be used by the SNMP Interface Agent to define the executable commands for altering the network state. Agent marshalling will provide an evolvable problem solving process by means of intelligent selection of ARM Reasoning Agents, whose capabilities may be nominally redundant but whose relative strengths and weakness may vary. In the Phase I SBIR, Sentar will develop a detailed system design for self-managed networks and provide a demonstration of the response generation process in a lab environment.