About Brief Overview
About The Firewall Rule Optimization Project
The Firewall Optimization Group (FROG) for George Mason University took on the task of optimizing the firewall rule set configuration for GMU’s Network Engineering Department.
Managing a firewall rule set is incredibly important since a firewall governs what traffic goes into and out from a network. Rule sets can often become unwieldy and difficult to manage as rule sets grow in size. Rule anomalies often arise over time in bloated rule sets.
The FROG team was assembled by GMU to analyze the current firewall rule set to identify any inefficiencies that may exist. Throughout the course of the project, the FROG team analyzed GMU NET’s large rule set while attempting to pick out anomalies and identify strategies for rule set optimization and consolidation. Ultimately, FROG helped to develop a relational database in order to identify relationships between rules and their attributes. From there, FROG developed scripts to process the data and run pairwise comparisons to identify rule anomalies and relationships. The end results of the project can be found on the deliverables page.
Our Team
Alex Anvari
Data Quality Assurance Tester
Alex is accomplished in cost analysis. He is an expert in SQL and VBA with analytics experience in Cyber/CDM. His background is in project management, with management experience on software development teams including requirements management.
Jon Honey
Mechanical Engineer
Received Mechanical Engineering BS from Old Dominion University in 2013, with a concentration in Aerospace Engineering. Currently working toward Systems Engineering MS. Working as an Engineer for a Naval contractor in support of the DDG 51 Destroyer Program.
Tim Lanahan
Systems Engineer
Tim is a Systems Engineer in Northern Virginia. His expertise is in developing software and conducting data analysis. Tim focuses his work on database development and the various aspects of the Python language. He will graduate with an M.S. in Systems Engineering.
Joey Wilson
Lead Scientist
Joey Wilson is currently a lead scientist at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren VA. Joey graduated from University of Mary Washington in 2004 with a B.S. in Computer Science. Joey will graduate from GMU with an M.S. in Systems Engineering.
Our Customers
We support George Mason University Network Engineering and Technology Department (NET). GMU NET maintains the network infrastructure at GMU. They ensure safe network traffic by enabling powerful firewalls to block unwanted traffic from entering the GMU network. FROG analyzed GMU NET’s current firewall rule set to augment its performance and increase the security measures already in place by GMU NET. Check out our deliverables section to learn more.