Software-Defined Networking at the National Security Agency

This event is co-sponsored by CITP and the Department of Computer Science.

The IT department at the NSA is similar to many other large organizations; budgets and manpower are declining, while at the same time demands for higher reliability and additional services are increasing. Because of these factors, these IT departments must change how they do business when building their IT infrastructure. Open networking and software defined networking (SDN) are two promising technology trends that the NSA is applying to resolve these challenges in different areas of its network architecture. This talk will detail that element’s open networking and SDN initiatives in three areas: an OpenStack data center; a data center that hosts a storage cloud; and the campus area networks at branch offices. The talk will describe the motivation for each initiative, the architectures and solutions considered, and early-on lessons learned from development and deployment.

Bryan Larish is the Technical Director for Enterprise Connectivity & Specialized IT Services at the National Security Agency (NSA), and he is responsible for setting the technical direction of the development and operation of NSA’s global network infrastructure.

Prior to joining NSA, Bryan worked in the Chief Engineer’s office at the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). In that role, he was responsible for implementing engineering techniques used to manage, architect, and plan the U.S. Navy’s communications/IT systems portfolio. Bryan’s other experience includes Technical Director for Navy engineering policy and various engineering roles at SPAWAR.

Bryan holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S.E. in electrical engineering from Arizona State University.