(cyber-DEfense Technology Experimental Research laboratory Testbed)

The DETERlab testbed is a general-purpose experimental infrastructure that supports research and development on next-generation cyber security technologies. The testbed allows repeatable medium-scale Internet emulation experiments for a broad range of network security projects, including experiments with malicious code.

The DETERlab testbed uses the Emulab cluster testbed software developed by the University of Utah. This software controls a pool of PC experimental nodes that can be assigned, interconnected with high-speed links in nearly-arbitrary topologies, loaded, and monitored remotely, to meet the requirements of each experiment. Experimenters use the DETERlab web interface to define, load, control, and monitor their experiments remotely.

DETERlab is composed of two linked clusters: one at USC ISI and the other at UC Berkeley, with a total of about 300 experimental nodes.

Funding for DETERlab has been provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). DETERlab supports a collaborative community of academic, government, and industrial researchers, allowing them to safely run reproducible experiments on system and network attacks and countermeasures. The underlying purpose of DETERlab is to advance the science and art of computer security. In addition to building, operating, and maintaining the experimental infrastruct, the DETERlab project also performs R&D on security testbed design.

See: "Using DETERlab" for more information.