The Software Assurance Marketplace (SWAMP) brings together the people, software, and hardware needed to build, operate, and develop secure and reliable cyberinfrastructure. The team collaborates to provide leadership in software assurance research and practice.
The SWAMP builds on the design, software, and experience of the successful Build and Test Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, powered by a continuous integration framework with the capacity to perform more than 400 workflow analyses on 30 different platforms daily, giving reliable and repeatable continuous integration services to more than 100 open-source software packages.
The SWAMP augments this framework with state-of-the-art software assurance capabilities offered by UW–Madison's Middleware Security and Testing project. Identity management and access control capabilities come from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, while operational monitoring services and cybersecurity expertise come from Indiana University. These project team members are recognized leaders in their respective areas, with demonstrated track records of collaboration and success in developing and operating widely adopted cyberinfrastructure for the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and others.
The Software Assurance Marketplace is hosted and operated by the Morgridge Institute for Research at the Discovery Building on the UW–Madison campus. Built on dedicated hardware, system capabilities include analysis of more than 275 million lines of code per day. The system is also integrated with external high performance and high throughput computing capacity to ensure opportunities for expansion and scalability.
The Middleware Security and Testing project works to: develop techniques, tools, and procedures for vulnerability assessment for grid middleware; apply these techniques to production software; improve the security of this software; and educate developers about best practices for secure coding and new techniques in vulnerability assessment. A major accomplishment is the development of the first principles vulnerability assessment methodology, characterized by identifying key assets in a system and finding the paths of vulnerability to these assets. This approach differs from those centered on identifying vulnerabilities based on known threats.
The Center for High Throughput Computing provides distributed, high throughput computing resources to advance scientific research for UW–Madison researchers and collaborators. High throughput computing involves the shared utilization of autonomous resources toward a common goal, with all of the elements optimized for maximum computational throughput. The center is a global pioneer and leader in high throughput computing including software, hardware and human resources.
The Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR) was established by Indiana University in 2003 to provide the nation with leadership in applied cybersecurity technology, education, and policy guidance. Fundamental to the center's mission is to properly balance public needs, homeland security concerns, and individual privacy rights. The center has been named a National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security National Center of Academic Excellence in both Information Assurance Education and Information Assurance Research. The Center integrates technical and policy expertise and draws on Indiana University's wide range of scholarly expertise in computer science, informatics, accounting and information systems, criminal justice, law, organizational behavior, public policy, and other disciplines, as well as extensive practical experience in cybersecurity for its operational units.
The Cybersecurity Directorate at the NCSA is composed of researchers, developers, and network security specialists who work to advance the state of the art of cybersecurity. The group applies these advances to key science, engineering, government, and law enforcement user communities and protects the national center's networks and substantial computing resources. The group's mission includes: designing, developing, and applying unique, trustworthy cyberinfrastructure to meet real world needs in science, engineering, law enforcement, and critical infrastructure; researching and developing security solutions to meet community requirements; and developing a balance between security and usability tailored to the needs of various user communities.
The Morgridge Institute for Research is a private, nonprofit interdisciplinary biomedical research organization dedicated to accelerating science from the laboratories of researchers to public use around the world as treatments and cures. It is associated with and located on the UW–Madison campus, consistently among the top research universities in the world. The SWAMP is hosted by the Morgridge Institute for Research and is located inside the Discovery building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.