A Framework for Authentication and Authorization Credentials in Cloud Computing

Security is a key concern when adopting cloud technology. Cloud solutions include not only issues inherited from related technologies, such as virtualization and distributed computing, but also new concerns associated to complexity of the cloud ecosystem, composed by the cloud entities and their interactions. One of the concerns is related to authentication and authorization in the cloud in order to provide robust mechanisms to identify entities and establish their permissions and roles in the cloud, controlling resource usage and promoting accounting and isolation. This paper identifies the state of the art in terms of credential management focusing on the cloud ecosystem. It proposes a credential classification and a framework for studying and developing solutions in this context, unifying concepts related to cloud deployment models, service types, entities and lifecycle controls.

I. Introduction

Security is essential to consolidate cloud computing as a widely adopted solution and to promote the integration of services and resources throughout multiple clouds and distributed environments [1]. It is important to ensure privacy and isolation of data and resources considering various levels of granularity, features which can be addressed by employing adequate mechanisms for authentication and authorization [2], [3].