Computational Asset Description for Cyber Experiment Support Using OWL

Abstract

Performing repeatable and controlled cyber experiments requires the precise description of hardware, software and testbed assets used during an experiment. An experiment specifies the assets that are required to build the system under test and the experimental framework. Different assets must be specified at different levels of detail to ensure experimental coherence and repeatability. This paper describes the family of asset description ontologies that is used in the National Cyber Range (NCR). This family of ontologies is used to characterize software and hardware assets used during cyber experiments. We also describe how these ontologies are used for different aspects of defining, setting up, executing, and analyzing the results of experiments, and indicate how they can be used for more general-purpose applications.