Subject: [OPS-NM] Configuration Validation Workshop at LISA-2006

From: Sanjai Narain <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 22:20:18 -0500

Proposals are invited for presentation and panel discussion at a new 
Configuration Validation Session at the Configuration Workshop at USENIX 
LISA-2006. LISA is Large Installation System Administration and is the 
premiere conference in this area. The workshop is in Washington D.C., 
Monday, December 4. Our objective is to raise awareness of the need for 
end-to-end configuration validation at and across multiple layers. 
Please let me know if you would like to present and/or attend. The 
workshop pointer is 
http://homepages.informatics.ed.ac.uk/group/lssconf/config2006/index.html 
and a pointer to LISA is http://www.usenix.org/event/lisa06/

NOTE: Workshop registration is complementary for presenters. More 
information is as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Proposals are invited for presentation and panel discussion on the topic 
of Configuration Validation. Proposers are requested to address the 
following questions:

What classes of end-to-end infrastructure requirements are realized? 
Example classes are security,  functionality, reliability and performance.

What business motivations are there for configuration validation, i.e., 
checking whether component configurations comply to these requirements? 
Examples are the cost of down time, cost of cyber attacks and the need 
to comply with government audit regulations. Subsidiary questions are:

 * If end-to-end requirements are violated, what fraction of root causes 
are configuration errors?
 * How many components are there in the infrastructure you manage?
 * What are sizes of configuration files for each component?
 * What is the cost (person hours) to set up infrastructure? What 
fraction of this cost is troubleshooting configuration errors?
 * What is the cost (person hours) of accomodating change such as 
addition of a component or a new site? What fraction of this cost is 
troubleshooting  configuration errors?
 * How is the transition to a new configuration managed without 
compromising business continuity or security?

What are current systematic procedures, including manual ones, for 
validating configurations?

What new procedures need to be developed, especially to tackle 
complexities of dependencies across multiple components and protocols?

How feasible is it to automate these procedures?

-- 
Sanjai Narain, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
Information Assurance and Security Department
Telcordia Technologies, Inc. 
1 Telcordia Drive, Room 1N-375
Piscataway, NJ 08854
732 699 2806 (T)
908 337 3636 (M)
[email-masked]

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