The São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp) approved the project submitted by RNP that involves software engineering techniques in programmable networks and with applications of 5G and 6G application, distributed security, and Internet of Things (IoT) as use cases. Entitled PROFISSA (Programmable Future Internet for Secure Software Architectures), the project was submitted by RNP in response to a call by FAPESP and the Internet Managing Committee in Brazil (CGI.br) for Strategic Research on the Internet.

RNP will be the hosting institution for the project, whose researcher in charge will be the associate director of Research, Development, and Innovation of the organization, Lisandro Zambenedetti Granville, in addition to the researchers from the UFABC, UFRGS, UnB, and UFRJ universities. 

FAPESP will provide R$ 2 million in funding, and the project is planned to last five years. 

What is the project?

With recent advances in technologies aimed at secure private networks, the fifth generation of telecommunication (5G), and the Internet of Things (IoT), networks have been experiencing changes in usage profiles unexpectedly, with adverse requirements, such as low latency, stream security, or high resiliency at any time.

Such changes, when applied to programmable networks, may involve changes to the software developed for the network. Software engineering techniques can be applied to improve, streamline and optimize the development of network software, particularly when there are changes in the network profile.  

In this case, the PROFISSA project is proposed to investigate, map, and advance the use of software engineering techniques applied to programmable networks in order to improve the structural, functional, and development process quality of network software. 

The project will provide a framework of modular and reusable codes for network software developed using development best practices. In addition, the network software developed by the project will be executed in real-world environments of programmable networks implemented on a testbed for the development and analysis of network software.  

In order to do that, the objective is to, among others, promote integration between RNP and the American FABRIC project to create real state-of-the-art environments of programmable networks, taking into account, for example, the use of programmability in data plans with the use of devices that support P4.

Read more about the project in the proposal submitted to Fapesp.