Interoperable PKI Data Distribution in Computational Grids

Abstract

One of the most successful working examples of virtual organizations, computational grids need authentication mechanisms that interParticipants in VOs need to share resources, including data storage, computational power and network bandwidth. Because these resources are valuable, access is usually limited, based on the requested resource and the requesting user's identity. In order to enforce these limits, each grid has to provide secure authentication of users and applications.Erroneously granting access to unauthorized or even malicious parties can be dangerous even within a single organization---and is unacceptable in such large VOs.Moreover, the dynamic nature of grid VOs requires the authentication mechanisms to be flexible enough to easily allow administrators to manage trust and quickly re-arrange resourcesharing permissions. Indeed, VOs are usually born from the aggregation of already existing organizations and constitute an umbrella that groups the participating organizations rather than