Enhancing Data Security under Multi-Tenancy within Open Stack

Abstract

Many businesses all over the world are turning their IT solutions through the use of Cloud computing systems hosted by third-party service providers using pay by use concept. However, businesses have to implement their IT systems fitting into the way the infrastructure used dictated by the cloud computing system, and there is either little or none provision for architecting the infrastructure as per the requirements of the business solutions. Open Source Software like OpenStack effectively used for building customized Cloud computing systems. But this kind of platform suffers from acute security threats due to the existence of several vulnerabilities. Data security, as such, is left to the users. Open Stack at best implemented a certain level of security enforcement in terms of user authentication and access control.Data security was the primary concern when Multi-tenancy implemented through the provision of access to multiple users; the Applications installed on VM's or access provision is made for the same applications installed on VMs to Multiple users. In this paper, an enhancement to OpenStack architecture presented through the addition of a new component for securing the data emanating from the user and stored within the cloud. Three data isolation techniques presented, which proved that even brute force methods could not reveal the secrecy when the data isolations techniques implemented within the open stack.