ossim - AlienVault

4.3 Distribution Architecture
OSSIM is a distribution rather than a product, meaning that integration takes precedence over
development. The OSSIM project aims at intercommunication, making these products talk to
each other.
Due to the increasing comlexity of development, so we have defined two levels:
4.3.1 The Kernel
The first level developed by the OSSIM GNU project is what a typical distribution would call the
kernel, which encompasses the following tasks:
• Define the data structure
• Provide interfaces for talking to all the different products
• Work on what was formally called post-processing
• Provide a framework in the first layer of administration for linking to all other
administrative systems
• Implement the control panel
4.3.2. Third-party Products
Here we discuss third-party products not developed by the project yet integrated in our solution.
There are two product types:
• Open source products, which may be modified and/or patched depending on the
product and will usually be included in the distribution
• For-pay products, which obviously will not be included in distributions nor will they be
patched or modified
Consult the Road Map section to see the relationship between architectures.
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