Achieving reproducible network environments with INSALATA

Nadine Herold, Matthias Wachs, Marko Dorfhuber, Christoph Rudolf, Stefan Liebald, Georg Carle

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Analyzing network environments for security flaws and assessing new service and infrastructure configurations in general are dangerous and error-prone when done in operational networks. Therefore, cloning such networks into a dedicated test environment is beneficial for comprehensive testing and analysis without impacting the operational network. To automate this reproduction of a network environment in a physical or virtualized testbed, several key features are required: (a) a suitable network model to describe network environments, (b) an automated acquisition process to instantiate this model for the respective network environment, and (c) an automated setup process to deploy the instance to the testbed. With this work, we present INSALATA, an automated and extensible framework to reproduce physical or virtualized network environments in network testbeds. INSALATA employs a modular approach for data acquisition and deployment, resolves interdependencies in the setup process, and supports just-in-time reproduction of network environments. INSALATA is open source and available on Github. To highlight its applicability, we present a real world case study utilizing INSALATA.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSecurity of Networks and Services in an All-Connected World - 11th IFIP WG 6.6 International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2017, Proceedings
EditorsRobert Koch, Remi Badonnel, Burkhard Stiller, Daphne Tuncer
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages30-44
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9783319607733
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017
Event11th IFIP WG 6.6 International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2017 - Zurich, Switzerland
Duration: 10 Jul 201713 Jul 2017

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10356 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference11th IFIP WG 6.6 International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2017
Country/TerritorySwitzerland
CityZurich
Period10/07/1713/07/17

Keywords

  • Automated testbed setup and configuration
  • Infrastructure information collection
  • Testbed management

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