Using the eR&D Approach to Pilot Deployment and Assessment in DHS
AJ Risko, Luanne Burns Goldrich, Nykia Jackson, Robert Gatlin, Brian Gattoni, Richard C. Linger · 2016
This paper describes the success of the Hyperion Tool's pilot deployment and assessment in a Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) cyber center using the embedded research and development (eR&D) methodology/approach detailed in [1]. The eR&D methodology ensures the eR&D Team is tightly coupled with operational stakeholders to seamlessly and continuously identify operational requirements from stakeholders, discover R&D projects that may apply to the requirements, filter the R&D projects to select the applicable R&D technologies, then integrate the selected technology into the operational environment. This pilot deployment and assessment served as a "proof of concept" of the eR&D approach by demonstrating a stakeholder's articulated requirements could be matched with newly developed technologies. Specifically, a DHS cyber center identified the need for a malware analysis tool that would automatically identify malware with little to no malware analyst interaction. The eR&D Team then took this requirement and discovered and filtered the Hyperion Tool as developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a newly developed technology that could address this need and proposed a pilot deployment and assessment for integration into the DHS cyber center's workspaces. The eR&D process helped to close an operational gap by connecting the research and operational communities.