DeciSym and Sylabs join forces to create a virtual data fabric for enhanced DoD cyber testing
DeciSym, the cyber security solution company, and Sylabs, provider of professional tools and services for high performance container runtime technology, have both been awarded an investment tender issued by the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) Test & Evaluation/Science & Technology (T&E/S&T) Program Office, in collaboration with the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO). A result of seeking improvements to the Department of Defense (DoD) cyber testing, DeciSym and Sylabs will now be developing a virtual data fabric to enhance cyber testing operational effectiveness.
Current cyber testing is ultimately ill-equipped to maximize the value of knowledge gained through test events; conducted as independent events, tests do not progressively build upon past testing, increasing repeated testing and in turn, increases costs, inefficiency, and inadequacy of testing. This leaves an extraordinary gap in cyber testing technology and a massive cyber vulnerability for the DoD, according to the vendors.
To overcome this challenge, the Measure and Share (Me&S) Storage Virtual Fabric, the aforementioned virtual data fabric being developed by DeciSym in partnership with Sylabs, reduces data integration complexity while improving the efficacy and collaboration of cyber testing. Targeted toward improving DoD cyber testing practices and procedures, the Me&S Storage Virtual Fabric will embrace highly cooperative cyber testing operations across organizational and classification enclaves.
The collaborating companies emphasize the virtual fabric’s leveraging of software container engine technology—including Sylabs SingularityPRO and Singularity Enterprise—as critical in its efficacy. Acting as the core infrastructure, the capabilities of Sylabs SingularityPRO and Singularity Enterprise allow the virtual fabric to package and share data in tiered compartments with credentialed analysts throughout organizations. Data packages will be reproducible for Test and Evaluation (T&E) tools, processes, and visualization interfaces of domain-specific perspectives, according to the vendors.
“One of the key challenges in the successful utilization of artificial intelligence and machine learning exists around the staging and prepping of data to make it scientifically reproducible,” said Don Pellegrino, CEO and founder of DeciSym. “Containerization provides a critical tool for scientific reproducibility by giving us a way to pre-package the data being used in the AI-training pipeline. Using Sylabs SingularityPRO and Singularity Enterprise, we can create a platform to provide sophisticated control data with trusted provenance—all while maintaining security protocols such as encryption and identity verification. Our partnership with Sylabs ensures that we have the stability and reliability, as well as long term-support and customized functionality necessary for sensitive applications where national security is a priority.”
The Measure and Share (Me&S) Storage Virtual Fabric will consist of a myriad of mechanisms that supply integrations with observed activities, quantifiable efficacy, readiness, and ROI, as well as promulgation capabilities for increased DoD community synergy and test vector reusability. All of these functions aid in delivering actionable knowledge and insights to prevent cyber risks and ensure security for the DoD.
To learn more about the partnered cyber testing project and its associated container technologies, please visit https://sylabs.io/ or https://www.decisym.ai/.