Extensible Network Configuration and Communication Framework

Abstract. The effort to manage network security systems has increased in complexity over the past years. Network security for a company, university, or government agency can no longer be provided using a single Internet firewall or Intrusion Prevention System (IPS). Today, network administrators must deploy multiple intrusion detection and prevention nodes, traffic shapers, and firewalls in order to effectively protect their network. As the number of devices increases, maintaining a secure environment becomes difficult. This paper presents an infrastructure for control, configuration, and communication between heterogeneous network devices. The approach presented uses a Publish/Subscribe model built on top of a peer-to-peer overlay network in order to distribute information between network intrusion detection and prevention devices.