John Rees 
Third Marker’s Observations on Nabil Ouzahra’s MSc Dissertation “Evaluation and Analysis of Open Sources IDS Deployed as Docker and Virtual Machine”
26th May, 2021

Specific Comments
1.	There is a basic misunderstanding of VM technology, equating VM to type 1 hypervisors only while implying that working above the kernel is “Docker” technology – whereas it is standard for type 2 hypervisor systems. (p.11 – 12)
2.	The Literature Survey is far too limited (only three papers).  They are well selected and relevant, but this doesn’t give a good underpinning for the work, in that the approaches taken are not really justified against alternatives.  This is not characteristic of the attributes of a “pass” grade dissertation (or better).
3.	Clearly the original project could not proceed under lockdown.
4.	The major content of Chapter 7 would form the elements needed for a high quality literature survey when added to the Literature Survey presented.
Overall Comments
1.	The dissertation is generally well written and appropriately presented.  I have no reservations over the candidate’s ability to present work in a suitable manner.
2.	The dissertation is fundamentally now a desk research activity.  Taken in the round, it forms a decent literature survey on the topic of VM, Docker and IDS.  It would fit better as a Review project, but the work is presented as a Development project and therefore doesn’t support assessment in this way.
3.	Where it is lacking in the depth of analysis.  The comparison between sources is relatively limited and uncritical.  It does not attempt to draw conclusions in respect of the dissertation’s stated aims and objectives from the work presented.  It may be that the failing is in not amending the aims and objectives to ensure the feasibility of the revised approach.  As these were presented, there is a problem in that the work doesn’t deliver outcomes in line with them.
4.	The major challenge in the original project was (as the candidate indicated) the problems of coding to enable containerisation or virtualisation of the chosen intrusion detection systems.  Without this, the work needs refocusing to offer a real level of challenge suitable for Master’s study.  The delivered dissertation lacks presence as a result.
Grade
As a development project, using the criterion given in the mark sheet, I assessed it as 36%.
However, with revision of the aims and objectives and the methodology to reflect what was actually done, and with the bench research consolidated into one section, it would deliver a basic pass grade dissertation as a Review-type project.  
