We were recently awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the Defense Department to develop self-monitoring and self-protection solutions for the Linux Operating System and applications. This award builds on our successful completion of the Phase I grant effort on "dynamic kernel monitoring for attack detection and mitigation."

Our Attack Recognition and Management Architecture is the underlying technology, providing unobtrusive, real-time software measurement for the reliability and security of mission- and safety-critical systems through a combination of hardware and software modules. Phase II funding will enable my company to expand this platform into a fully functional product and technology suite capable of self-monitoring and self-protecting host systems from malicious attacks, zero-day threats and general misuse, as well as software errors in standalone or networked environments, with centralized, remote monitoring and management support.

Federal grant funds are a win-win solution. My company does not have to repay this money because it is not a loan. The government gets a problem solved.

My partner, Dr. John Munson, is a specialist in software measurement with more than 35 years of experience. I am a 20-year veteran of the engineering industry and have a background in hardware architecture and development. The two of us founded CML (www.cmlab.biz) in May 2007 to make a difference in software reliability and security by using engineering measurement techniques.

In the words of Dr. Munson, "The foundation of the work that I do in measurement is based on the notion of uncertainty. Nature is playing a game with us that we cannot directly understand. We can, however, leverage the principles of probability and statistics to get an increasingly clear picture of the game that nature is playing. This is the principle difference between our efforts and others."

Our unique approach to real-time and unobtrusive monitoring, measurement and analysis technology is CML's key differentiation from its competitors.

John and I believe my company's technology is further applicable and attractive to various markets such as automobiles, autonomous vehicles, mobile security, and infrastructure security for telecommunications and power networks with applications in the areas of testing, reliability and survivability. To increase our chances of success, CML will seek to establish partnerships with one or more Department of Defense prime contractors to assist with the testing and deployment of the technology as it matures.

There is help for other start-up companies that want to win federal grants as my company did. The Idaho Department of Commerce provides small grants just to help companies get their federal grant proposals ready. The initial funding provided by Commerce for SBIR proposal submissions was a major contributor to the establishment of CML.

In addition, the resources and educational opportunities provided by Commerce have been invaluable for our company. As part of its ongoing contributions to the community, Commerce is sponsoring the "2008 Idaho Regional SBIR/STTR Conference" Oct. 28-29 in Boise. Three federal agencies will be represented and will meet individually with companies that attend. For more information, please refer to the Idaho Department of Commerce's events calendar (www.commerce.idaho.gov).

We hope to see you there.

Rick Hoover is a co-founder of Computer Measurement Laboratories, which has offices in Boise and Moscow. Starting Up is a series published on Thursdays. The columns are coordinated by Julie Howard, of the Idaho Office of Science and Technology. E-mail: julie.howard@commerce.idaho.gov.

Article written by Rick Hoover - Special to the Idaho Statesman; Edition Date: 10/09/08