Visible to the public Active Dependency Mapping: A Data-Driven Approach to Mapping Dependencies in Distributed Systems

TitleActive Dependency Mapping: A Data-Driven Approach to Mapping Dependencies in Distributed Systems
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsSchulz, A., Kotson, M., Meiners, C., Meunier, T., O’Gwynn, D., Trepagnier, P., Weller-Fahy, D.
Conference Name2017 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI)
Date Publishedaug
KeywordsActive dependency mapping, artificial degradation, Automated Dependency Mapping, computer security, Conferences, Cyber Dependencies, cyber physical systems, Cyber-physical systems, Data-driven approach, Degradation, dependency analysis, dependency relations, distributed processing, Distributed Systems, Ecosystems, enterprise networks, Information Reuse, interrelated software services, Mission Assurance, network environment, network performance, pubcrawl, quantitative assessment, resilience, Resilience and Robustness, Resiliency, Robustness, security, Software
Abstract

We introduce Active Dependency Mapping (ADM), a method for establishing dependency relations among a set of interdependent services. The approach is to artificially degrade network performance to infer which assets on the network support a particular process. Artificial degradation of the network environment could be transparent to users; run continuously it could identify dependencies that are rare or occur only at certain timescales. A useful byproduct of this dependency analysis is a quantitative assessment of the resilience and robustness of the system. This technique is intriguing for hardening both enterprise networks and cyber physical systems. We present a proof-of-concept experiment executed on a real-world set of interrelated software services. We assess the efficacy of the approach, discuss current limitations, and suggest options for future development of ADM.

URLhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8102923/
DOI10.1109/IRI.2017.85
Citation Keyschulz_active_2017