Dirk Morris, Untangle

"Trade-Offs in Building Entire Networks in Software"

Untangle, an open source software company, has developed a virtualization platform for packaging and delivering networking applications that make it easier for businesses to adopt open source software. In this presentation, Untangle's Founder/CTO, Dirk Morris, will layout a new model for deploying software at the network gateway to overcome the challenges of running multiple applications (firewall, IPS, VPN, Spam Blocker, Spyware Blocker, Web Filter, etc.) on standard x86 based hardware. Dirk will present an insider's look at the tradeoffs Untangle made when designing a virtual network and tricks learned in maintaining high performance between competing applications running on the same system.

About Dirk Morris

Dirk Morris is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Untangle and visionary behind the Untangle Gateway Platform.

Prior to Untangle, Dirk was Chief Architect at Akheron Technologies, where he invented the patent-pending High Bandwidth Transparent Vectoring used in the company's proxy firewall engine. He has also held positions as lead engineer at VerticalNet and H.L.L.C. Consulting, developing Java-based distributed monitor and intrusion detection systems.

Earlier in his career, Dirk worked on survivability simulations at CERT/CC (Computer Emergency Response Team), the renowned, federally-funded Center for Internet security operated by Carnegie Mellon University.

Dirk earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Slides

Here are the slides from the presentation (PowerPoint format, but should be usable in OpenOffice.org):

• VirtualNetworks_PenLUG_Oct25_07.ppt: