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# 2. Overview

This section gives an overview of the features provided by the Vortex OpenSplice Secure Networking Service.

## 2.1. Vortex OpenSplice Secure Networking Service

Vortex OpenSplice is a suite of software products for the creation of a secure, performant, and predictable information backbone for distributed systems and systems-of-systems, comprised of a high-performance, low-overhead run-time environment, development tools for modelling information and applications, and run-time tools for monitoring system performance.

The objective of the OpenSplice suite is to reduce complexity, shorten time-to-market, raise quality, and ensure standards compliance and code correctness; all in a single integrated suite of tools and runtime components from a proven and trusted vendor. Fast and predictable networking between the nodes of the information backbone is an essential part of the OpenSplice solution, as is the importance of addressing Information Assurance.

The OpenSplice Secure Networking Service is an optional pluggable service to the OpenSplice Core infrastructure. The Secure Networking Service complements the advanced real-time networking features of the OpenSplice Core module by offering a dedicated crypto-channel per network partition.

The OpenSplice Networking service provides essential features for achieving both scalability as well as real-time determinism in mission-critical systems where important high-priority data must ‘pre-empt’ less-important data. The Networking service’s architecture supports multiple runtime-configured network channels each representing a pre-emptive priority band which allows for traffic-shaping and data-urgency (`Latency-Budget` QoS) driven network-packing. The proper network channel is automatically chosen based upon the actual importance (`Transport_Priority` QoS) of published data. The channel-specific traffic-shaping and bandwidth limitation effectively prevent faulty and/or misbehaving applications from monopolizing the network resources.

The Secure Networking Service extends this real-time ‘network scheduler’ with configurable cryptographic protection implementing transport security with the following properties:

- Information exchanged between nodes of the OpenSplice-based information backbone over unsecure networks cannot be eavesdropped or modified without detection while in transit (data integrity and confidentiality).
- Complete, reliable, and readily-evaluatable separation between the area in which the information is processed in unencrypted form (RED, on the node) and the area to which critical (classified) information is not permitted to flow in unencrypted form (BLACK, network), is achieved by means of concentration and restriction of network connectivity to exactly one client on each node.
- Authenticity of all information exchanged between nodes.

In addition to transport security, the Secure Networking Service offers pluggable access control. Different modules may be used to enforce access control (for example modules implementing mandatory access control or role-based access control, etc.). Currently, OpenSplice supports Mandatory Access Control (MAC). Other modules will be available in a future release. The Mandatory Access Control Module is characterized by the following features:

- Information received via the network can only be retrieved on nodes that
  - are accredited for the security level of this information, and
  - host applications that have a need-to-know for the information.
- Information of different classifications can be cryptographically separated while in transit between different nodes, resulting in stronger separation than only labelling, and performing no infiltration or exfiltration between different classifications while in transit.

This infrastructure security solution ensures Information Assurance (IA) for all DDS-based co-operation and information exchange between the DDS nodes over untrusted communication infrastructures. The Secure Networking Service allows the reliable separation of applications with different clearances deployed on different nodes in a way that ensures transparency to the applications, thus supporting full portability.

The OpenSplice Secure Networking Service is the first building block for a complete QoS-enabled IA solution offering end-to-end security between all applications (distributed or co-located), including mandatory access control for all data flowing between applications and detailed security audit of application interactions.

## 2.2. Getting Started

The Vortex OpenSplice Secure Networking Service is provided along with the OpenSplice commercial edition RTS and HDE product installers.

To activate the Secure Networking Service an OpenSplice licence including the OPENSPLICE_SECURE_NETWORKING feature is required. Please be sure to read the Release Notes for the latest information.

To install OpenSplice, please follow the instructions and configuration example given in the Vortex OpenSplice Getting Started Guide. For an in-depth description of the available configuration settings you may also want to read the Vortex OpenSplice Deployment Guide and the Vortex OpenSplice Configuration Guide.

If you wish to try out the Secure Networking Tutorial you will need to set up at least two networked hosts with OpenSplice. You will also need to build and run the Chat Tutorial application which is described in the DCPS C Tutorial Guide.

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