This project is funded under the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is designed to provide an opportunity for small business, particularly the small high technology firm, to participate in NSF research. Phase I of the SBIR program serves as a filter to select promising proposals and determine if the firm can do high quality research. Phase II is the principal research project. Phase III is the conversion of the NSF-funded research into commercial applications and technological innovation supported by follow-on private venture capital or other non-federal financing. This is a Phase I project concerning applying expert systems to network management, an extremely important area of research. Networks are growing very rapidly and are becoming too complex for non-automated solutions. Enormous potential costs are attached to badly behaving systems, including delayed usage by commercial and government concerns. In Phase I, the principal investigator will select a suitable area of the problem for Phase II development. The approach is to analyze this "vertical slice", expecting to obtain insights into how to tackle the general problem while solving a particularly promising one.
