Viplat - Virtualization Platform for Security Software

Virtualization technology promises new opportunities for independent software vendors and data center operations. However, for these opportunities to be realized there is need for a standardized consistent secure virtualization base that can also be deployed, extended and managed easily in complex setups.

Virtualization offers significant benefits in overall security and simplified design of applications. Many European software vendors feel obliged to follow this trend in computing. However, some problems related to configuration management are still unresolved. ViPlat will aim to solve these problems and establish a common open source infrastructure so that duplication of efforts among European software vendors can be avoided.

• Independent software vendors will use ViPlat results to configure existing virtualization setups so that integrating configurations related to independent applications will not pose a problem.
• Systems administrators will use ViPlat results to manage a large number of virtualization setups, probably from different vendors (e.g. Xen, OpenVZ) on both their clients and their servers.
  

Note that ViPlat is not a datacenter-only project, all outputs can be used to manage clients and home computers. Thus ViPlat will enhance security and usability of home computers and increase competitiveness of European ISV's, particularly SME's in the field of virtualized products and services.

virtualization,
data center operations modelling,
security,
dependability,
manageability,
migratability,
trusted computing,
enforced policies,
common information model,
web based enterprise management,
resource sharing and provisioning model,

Any person who has developed / integrated software on a virtualization base will understand the value of ViPlat. However, for a successfull project, we need a balance of virtualization providers, software developers, users and academia. Also law firms can contribute to resolving complicated licensing issues in virtualized deployments.

Thus ViPlat seeks contribution specifically from

• Universities and research organizations to contribute in requirements gathering, formal modelling, verification and validations
  
• Virtualization tool developers to contribute by enhancing their virtualization tools
• European software vendors in software targeted to individual use as well as corporate use, i.e. virus scanners, content filters, firewalls, to participate in prototypes
  
• European software vendors in software targeted to server and network setups, i.e. remote management software, backup solutions, to participate in prototypes
• Users, including European service firms and datacenter operators (both government and commercial) to develop requirements of datacenter scenarios.
• Standardization related organizations to validate compliancy with current standards and to champion contribution to future standards and revisions.
• Law firms to assist in licensing issues of virtualized setups of mixed open source and commercial software
• ICT associations and organizations to effectively disseminate the results

Please note that

• Open source projects in these subjects are more than welcome
• All partners are welcome in software development
• ViPlat itself will be open source

All ViPlat partners should be pro-active:

• Contribution to project proposal preparation is mandatory.
  
• The consortium agreement will be drafted at early stages.
• Commercial exploitation plans will also be given necessary importance.

The project will initially gather requirements from both software vendors and data center operations. ViPlat will also benefit from scenarios of home and public use of computers. Once modelling is complete the project will construct the virtualization management infrastructure for a number of prototypes, each showing one selected critical scenario.

• We expect to iteratively release one prototype every 6-12 months
• Each prototype will test one unique feature of the platform, building upon the previous prototypes
• The prototypes should cover as many business domains as possible. However security domain will most immediately benefit.

ViPlat will be very active in dissemination, standardisation and commercial exploitation.

• Participation with a number of open source projects, including major Linux distributions is foreseen
• Open source events and scientific conferences in both EU and US will be covered
• A project portal will be utilized to communicate with users and developers through forums.
• A number of blogs and a planet will be established so that ViPlat dissemination can make use of Web 2.0
• Commercial exploitation plans and reports will be periodically updated

• Universities and research centers
• Virtualization tool developers
• Regulation and standardization bodies
• European software vendors / Open source projects
• ICT associations
• Users
• Law firms

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