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Modern Principles,

Practices, and Algorithms

for Cloud Security

Brij B. Gupta
National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

A volume in the Advances in Information Security,

Privacy, and Ethics (AISPE) Book Series
Published in the United States of America by
IGI Global
Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
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Names: Gupta, Brij, 1982- editor.

Title: Modern principles, practices, and algorithms for cloud security /
edited by Brij B. Gupta.
Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book examines the
principles, algorithms, applications, and practices of security in cloud
computing”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019024172 (print) | LCCN 2019024173 (ebook) | ISBN
9781799810827 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781799810834 (paperback) | ISBN
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Subjects: LCSH: Cloud computing--Security measures.
Classification: LCC QA76.585 .M6434 2019 (print) | LCC QA76.585 (ebook) |
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This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Information Security, Privacy, and Ethics (AISPE) (ISSN:
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Advances in Information
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State University of New York, USA
ISSN:1948-9730
EISSN:1948-9749
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Titles in this Series
For a list of additional titles in this series, please visit: www.igi-global.com/book-series

Security, Privacy, and Forensics Issues in Big Data

Ramesh C. Joshi (Graphic Era University, Dehradun, India) and Brij B. Gupta (National Institute of Technology,
Kurukshetra, India)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2020 • 456pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522597421) • US $235.00 (our price)

Handbook of Research on Machine and Deep Learning Applications for Cyber Security
Padmavathi Ganapathi (Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, India) and
D. Shanmugapriya (Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, India)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2020 • 482pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522596110) • US $295.00 (our price)

Advanced Digital Image Steganography Using LSB, PVD, and EMD Emerging Research and Opportunities
Gandharba Swain (Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, India)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 201pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522575160) • US $165.00 (our price)

Developments in Information Security and Cybernetic Wars

Muhammad Sarfraz (Kuwait University, Kuwait)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 351pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522583042) • US $225.00 (our price)

Cybersecurity Education for Awareness and Compliance

Ismini Vasileiou (University of Plymouth, UK) and Steven Furnell (University of Plymouth, UK)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 306pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522578475) • US $195.00 (our price)

Detection and Mitigation of Insider Attacks in a Cloud Infrastructure Emerging Research and Opportunities
T. Gunasekhar (Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, India) K. Thirupathi Rao (Koneru Lakshmaiah Educa-
tion Foundation, India) P. Sai Kiran (Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, India) V. Krishna Reddy (Koneru
Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, India) and B. Thirumala Rao (Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, India)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 113pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522579243) • US $165.00 (our price)

Network Security and Its Impact on Business Strategy

Ionica Oncioiu (European Academy of the Regions, Belgium)
Business Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 289pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522584551) • US $225.00 (our price)

Exploring Security in Software Architecture and Design

Michael Felderer (University of Innsbruck, Austria) and Riccardo Scandariato (Chalmers University of Technol-
ogy, Sweden & University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
Information Science Reference • copyright 2019 • 349pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781522563136) • US $215.00 (our price)

701 East Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, PA 17033, USA

Tel: 717-533-8845 x100 • Fax: 717-533-8661
E-Mail: [email protected] • www.igi-global.com
Dedicated to my wife, Varsha, and daughter, Prisha, for their constant support during the course of this
book
B. B. Gupta

Editorial Advisory Board
Dharma P. Agrawal, University of Cincinnati, USA
Nalin A. G. Arachchilage, University of New South Wales, Australia
Mohd Anuaruddin Bin Ahmadon, Yamaguchi University, Japan
Jin Li, Guangzhou University, China
Kuan-Ching Li, Providence University, Taiwan
Ahmad Manasrah, Yarmouk University, Jordan
Gregorio Martinez Perez, University of Murcia, Spain
Nadia Nedjah, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
T. Perumal, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia
Konstantinos Psannis, University of Macedonia, Greece
Seungmin Rho, Sungkyul University, South Korea
Michael Sheng, Macquarie University, Australia
Shingo Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi University, Japan

Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xvi

Acknowledgment................................................................................................................................ xvii

Chapter 1
Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility: An Extensive Review ...........1
Sayani Sen, Sarojini Naidu College for Women, Dumdum, West Bengal, India
Sathi Roy, Asian International School, Howrah, West Bengal, India
Suparna Biswas, Maulana Abul kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal, India
Chandreyee Chowdhury, Jadavpur University, India

Chapter 2
Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security and Management Challenges ...21
Christos Stergiou, University of Macedonia, Greece
Kostas E. Psannis, University of Macedonia, Greece

Chapter 3
Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing ..........................................................44
Pramod P Pillai, VTU Extension Centre, UTL Technologies Ltd,, India
Venkataratnam P., VTU Extension Centre, UTL Technologies Ltd., India
Siva Yellampalli, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, SRM University AP -
Amarvati, India

Chapter 4
Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diﬃe-Hellman for Cloud Data
Management ..........................................................................................................................................79
Dharavath Ramesh, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, India
Rahul Mishra, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, India
Damodar Reddy Edla, National Institute of Technology, Goa, India
Madhu Sake, Guru Nanak Institutions Technical Campus, Hyderabad, India

Chapter 5
Cloud Computing Adoption: A Scale Development Approach ..........................................................107
Pragati Priyadarshinee, CBIT, India

Chapter 6
A Computational Approach for Secure Cloud Computing Environments ..........................................129
Mouna Jouini, SMART Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management, Tunis University,
Tunisia
Latifa Ben Arfa Rabai, SMART Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management, Tunis
University, Tunisia & College of Business, University of Buraimi, Oman

Chapter 7
Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing.................................................145
Anupama Mishra, Gurukul Kangri Viswavidyalaya, India
Neena Gupta, Gurukul Kangri Viswavidyalaya, India
Brij B. Gupta, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

Chapter 8
A Framework Strategy to Overcome Trust Issues on Cloud Computing Adoption in Higher
Education ............................................................................................................................................162
Mohammed Banu Ali, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester,
UK
Trevor Wood-Harper, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester,
UK
Ronald Ramlogan, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK

Chapter 9
A Proposal of Improvement for Transmission Channels in Cloud Environments Using the CBEDE
Methodology .......................................................................................................................................184
Reinaldo Padilha França, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Yuzo Iano, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Ana Carolina Borges Monteiro, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Rangel Arthur, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

Chapter 10
Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Eﬃcient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud
Computing...........................................................................................................................................203
Rojalina Priyadarshini, C. V. Raman College of Engineering, India
Rabindra Kumar Barik, KIIT Deemed to be University, India
Brojo Kishore Mishra, GIET University, India

Chapter 11
Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network
on Cloud ..............................................................................................................................................223
Phuc Do, University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh
City, Vietnam

Chapter 12
A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model...................................................250
Cyrus Nourani, AFWMTS, Germany & TU Berlin AI, Germany

Chapter 13
Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture ......262
Yassine Rhazali, ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay
Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco
Asma El Hachimi, MISC Laboratory, Ibn Tofail University, Morocco
Idriss Chana, ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay Ismail
University of Meknes, Morocco
Mohammed Lahmer, ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay
Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco
Abdallah Rhattoy, ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay
Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco

Compilation of References ...............................................................................................................284

Related References ............................................................................................................................315

About the Contributors ....................................................................................................................335

Index ...................................................................................................................................................342
Detailed Table of Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................................................. xvi

Acknowledgment................................................................................................................................ xvii

Today’s computational model has been undergoing a huge paradigm shift from personalized, local
processing using local processing unit (LPU) to remote processing at cloud servers located globally.
Advances in sensor-based smart applications such as smart home, smart health, smart transport, smart
environment monitoring, etc. are generating huge data which needs to stored, pre-processed, analyzed
using machine learning and deep learning techniques, which are resource-hungry, to generate results to
be saved for future reference, and all these need to be done in real time, with scalability support satisfying
user data privacy and security that may vary from application to application. In smart application like
remote health monitoring and support, patient data needs utmost privacy besides conﬁdentiality, integrity,
and availability.

Mobile cloud computing provides an opportunity to restrict the usage of huge hardware infrastructure
and to provide access to data, applications, and computational power from every place and in any time
with the use of a mobile device. Furthermore, MCC offers a number of possibilities but additionally
creates several challenges and issues that need to be addressed as well. Through this work, the authors
try to define the most important issues and challenges in the field of MCC technology by illustrating the
most significant works related to MCC during recent years. Regarding the huge benefits offered by the
MCC technology, the authors try to achieve a more safe and trusted environment for MCC users in order
to operate the functions and transfer, edit, and manage data and applications, proposing a new method
based on the existing AES encryption algorithm, which is, according to the study, the most relevant
encryption algorithm to a cloud environment. Concluding, the authors suggest as a future plan to focus
on finding new ways to achieve a better integration MCC with other technologies.

Cloud computing is becoming a de facto standard for most of the emerging technology solutions. In
a typical cloud environment, various tenants purchase the compute, storage resource, and would be
sharing the resource with other tenants. Sharing of the resources among various tenants is not popular
due to the security concerns. There are few solutions that try to solve the security problem of resource
sharing among tenants. Having a trusted mediator between multiple tenants is one of the methods. Few
research papers have been written, and this chapter attempts to enhance one of the published solutions:
Cross-tenant access control model for cloud computing. Most of the existing research papers explore the
theoretical way to solve the problem. This project develops a working prototype and proves how resource
sharing can be achieved. This research develops the concept of resource sharing activation, where the
resource can be shared with multiple cloud tenant and the deactivation where the shared resources can
be removed from the shared resource pool.

This chapter explains a secure smart cloud framework based on identity-based proxy signature (IDBPS)
scheme on Computational Diﬃe-Hellman (CD-H) assumption and AckIBE for data management. The
objective of this chapter is to construct a secure hierarchical structure of homogeneous and heterogeneous
cloud centers. This structure gives various types of computing services in the support of data analysis
and information management. In this, the authors also introduce a security-related solution based on
acknowledgment identity-based encryption (AckIBE), an IDBPS on computational Diﬃe-Hellman
assumption, and identity-based proxy re-encryption to face critical security issues of the proposed
framework.

Chapter 5
Cloud Computing Adoption: A Scale Development Approach ..........................................................107
Pragati Priyadarshinee, CBIT, India

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a cloud computing adoption scale for Indian manufacturing,
service, and process industries. The scale development procedure has been followed from the previous
studies and is refined further for clear understanding to adopt easily. In the first step, the authors have
conducted a qualitative study for item selection. The second step includes pilot testing of 110 responses
for measurement scale purification, and finally, they are validating the scale with 660 sample respondents
through convergent validity and discriminant validity. The initial result showed very poor threshold values
for the items “top management support” and “marketplace establishment,” which have strong literature

support. This measurement scale will help managers to evaluate the level of cloud adoption to increase
the business performance. The study is a ﬁrst attempt to develop a validated scale for cloud adoption
that can be used in Indian industries.

The recent emergence of cloud computing has drastically altered everyone’s perception of infrastructure
architectures, software delivery, and development models. Projecting as an evolutionary step, cloud
computing encompasses elements from grid computing, utility computing, and autonomic computing
into an innovative deployment architecture. Cloud computing systems oﬀer a lot of advantages like pay
per use and rapid service provisioned on demand, while it suﬀers for some concerns specially security.
In fact, a number of unchartered risks and challenges have been introduced from this new environment.
This chapter explores the security issues in cloud computing systems and shows how to solve these
problems using a quantitative security risk assessment model.

The cloud is an appealing innovation that has driven, in record time, an extraordinary interest. It is right
now one of the busiest regions of research in IT, due to its adaptability, vigor, and capacity to altogether
lessen the expenses of administrations to clients on the web. Additionally, cloud stores all client information
in server farms dispersed the world over. In this manner, security has turned into a foremost worry that
anticipates numerous organizations to receive its administrations. Clients should store their information,
a few of which are ordinarily secret or individual; in this way, the authors are exceptionally mindful to
information honesty and classiﬁcation amid exchange to a cloud server. This exploration chapter plans
to build up an investigation on the diﬀerent security threats engaged with distributed computing along
with their recent countermeasures.

Chapter 8
A Framework Strategy to Overcome Trust Issues on Cloud Computing Adoption in Higher
Education ............................................................................................................................................162
Mohammed Banu Ali, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK
Trevor Wood-Harper, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK
Ronald Ramlogan, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK

Cloud computing has the potential of adding strategic value to the higher education domain owing
to exemplary growth in ubiquitous data and communication services ranging from student access to
educational materials to developing teaching and research practices. Despite the wide adoption of CC
in HEIs, there is a paucity of research that speciﬁcally addresses the issue of trust in cloud adoption in

the UK HEI context, as well as identifying smarter and more eﬃcient strategies to overcome the existing
CC trust issue in this domain. The authors propose a ﬁve-stage strategic roadmap to address the trust
issues impacting the uptake of cloud services in UK universities. They conclude that IT and management
participation and support are the keys to the success of the strategic framework.

Sharing, transmitting, and storing data has been one of the great needs of today. In the last years, concepts
and developed methodologies of cloud computing systems have been improved. This concept created in
the 1960s today is present in daily life from ordinary users to even large companies. The present study
aims to develop a method of data transmission based on discrete event concepts. This methodology was
named CBEDE (by the acronym). The experiments were matched in the MATLAB software simulation
environment, where the memory consumption of the proposed methodology was evaluated. Therefore,
the CBEDE methodology presents great potential to intermediate users and computer systems, ensuring
speed, low memory consumption, and reliability. Being the diﬀerential of this research, the use of discrete
events applied in the physical layer of a transmission medium, the bit itself, being this to low-level of
abstraction, the results show better computational performance related to memory utilization related to
the compression of the information, showing an improvement reaching up to 69.93%

The number of users of cloud computing services is drastically increasing, thereby increasing the size
of data centers across the globe. In virtue of it, the consumption of power and energy is a major concern
for system designers and developers. Their goal is now to develop power and energy-efficient products
at the same time maintaining the quality and cost of products and services. For managing the power and
efficiency, several aspects are taken into consideration in cloud computing paradigm. Load balancing, task
scheduling, task migration, resource allocation are some of the techniques, which need to be efficiently
employed to minimize the energy consumption. This chapter represents the detailed survey of the existing
solutions and approaches for energy-efficient load balancing algorithms used in cloud environments. The
research challenges as well as future research directions are also discussed in this chapter.

Meta-path is an important concept of heterogeneous information networks (HINs). Meta-paths were used
in many tasks such as information retrieval, decision making, and product recommendation. Normally
meta-paths were proposed by human experts. Recently, works on meta-path discovery have proposed
in-memory solutions that fit in one computer. With large HINs, the whole HIN cannot be loaded in the
memory. In this chapter, the authors proposed distributed algorithms to discover meta-paths of large
HINs on cloud. They develop the distributed algorithms to discover the significant meta-path, maximal
significant meta-path, and top-k meta-paths between two vertices of HIN. Calculation of the support
of meta-paths or performing breadth first search can be computational costly in very large HINs.
Conveniently, the distributed algorithms utilize the GraphFrames library of Apache Spark on cloud
computing environment to efficiently query large HINs. The authors conduct the experiments on large
DBLP dataset to prove the performance of our algorithms on cloud.

Chapter 12
A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model...................................................250
Cyrus Nourani, AFWMTS, Germany & TU Berlin AI, Germany

This author has for the past decade developed a mathematical basis for product languages, at times with
colleagues, applying agent crypto-signatures to authenticate business process models. This chapter is
the newest application for what is at recent times called block chain. A new algebraic tree based public
key cryptography techniques and algorithm for crypto-signatured block chain processing is presented.
The techniques apply agent crypto-signatured algebras and block product language signatures for an
agenda-based block chain protocol. An algorithm with a new public key computable trust model for
signature tree block parties accomplishes the block chain goals.

The CIM, PIM, and PSM models are the main levels of the MDA approach. Model transformation
is an important step in the MDA process. Indeed, in MDA there are two elementary transformation
kinds: CIM to PIM transformation and PIM to PSM transformation. However, most searches propose
approaches transforming PIM to PSM, since there are multiple points in common between PIM and
PSM. Nevertheless, transforming CIM to PIM is rarely addressed in research because these two levels

are mainly diﬀerent. However, there is not a synthesis work that makes it possible to carry out a model
transformation from CIM to PIM towards PSM until obtaining the code. This synthesis methodology allows
controlling models transformation from CIM to PIM to PSM, indeed, up to obtaining code according the
MDA. This approach makes it possible to limit the intervention of computer scientists in the life cycle
of software development. Indeed, this methodology allows modeling only CIM, the business process,
and then obtains the source code through successive semi-automatic transformations.

Compilation of References ...............................................................................................................284

Related References ............................................................................................................................315

About the Contributors ....................................................................................................................335

Index ...................................................................................................................................................342
xvi

Preface

Today, Cloud Computing services have become an indispensable part of modern Information and Com-
munication Technology (ICT) systems, and this paradigm has proven to be an incredible technology for
providing quickly deployed and scalable Information Technology (IT) solutions with reduced infrastruc-
ture costs. Cloud Computing service models include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a
Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Various other aspects associated with this paradigm
are distributed access control, risk management, Cloud architecture, Cloud governance, database security,
network security, and so forth. However, use of Cloud technology is raising serious issues associated
with security, privacy, latency, inadequate service levels, governance, forensics, data protection, maturity
and reliability. These issues prevent Cloud Computing solutions from becoming the prevalent alternative
for mission critical systems.
Moving information assets offer Cloud Computing with the potential of reduced costs, on-demand
self-service, ubiquitous network access, location independent resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and
measurable services for the Cloud users. However, these Cloud Computing services also open a number
of security, privacy, and forensics related issues and challenges that are required to be dealt with.
This book contains chapters dealing with different aspects of computer networks and cyber security.
These include Cyber-security issues in Clouds, Information revelation and privacy in Cloud computing,
Cloud computing security data analysis tools and services, Cloud with User Mobility, Mobile Cloud
Computing’s Security and Management challenges, Security for Cross Tenant Access Control in Cloud
Computing, Secured handling of Extra-scale computational loads on Clouds, Anonymous authentication
for privacy preserving in Cloud, Privacy concepts and applications in Cloud Platforms, Cloud Interop-
erability & Standards, Cloud Ecosystem, Cloud management and virtualization, Security and privacy
of cloud user’s data, Cyber-attacks and solutions for high fidelity Cloud storage, Cloud Security Risk
Management, Distributed access control in Cloud, Secure cloud architecture, Cloud Computing Adop-
tion, Cloud Computing Adoption in Higher Education, Energy Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in
Cloud Computing, Distributed Algorithms for Cloud, Block Chain model for cloud and so on.

xvii

Acknowledgment

Many people have contributed greatly to this book on Modern Principles, Practices, and Algorithms for
Cloud Security. I would like to acknowledge all of them for their valuable help and generous ideas in
improving the quality of this book. With my feelings of gratitude, I would like to introduce them in turn.
The first mention is the authors and reviewers of each chapter of this book. Without their outstanding
expertise, constructive reviews and devoted effort, this comprehensive book would become something
without contents. The second mention is the IGI Global staff, especially Courtney Tychinski, develop-
ment editor and her team for their constant encouragement, continuous assistance and untiring support.
Without their technical support, this book would not be completed. The third mention is my family
for being the source of continuous love, unconditional support and prayers not only for this work, but
throughout my life. Last but far from least, I express my heartfelt thanks to the Almighty for bestowing
over me the courage to face the complexities of life and complete this work.

B.B. Gupta

August 25, 2019

Chapter 1
Security- and Privacy-
Aware Computing in Cloud
With User Mobility:
An Extensive Review

Sayani Sen
Sarojini Naidu College for Women, Dumdum, West Bengal, India

Sathi Roy
Asian International School, Howrah, West Bengal, India

Suparna Biswas
Maulana Abul kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal, India

Chandreyee Chowdhury
Jadavpur University, India

ABSTRACT
Today’s computational model has been undergoing a huge paradigm shift from personalized, local
processing using local processing unit (LPU) to remote processing at cloud servers located globally.
Advances in sensor-based smart applications such as smart home, smart health, smart transport, smart
environment monitoring, etc. are generating huge data which needs to stored, pre-processed, analyzed
using machine learning and deep learning techniques, which are resource-hungry, to generate results to
be saved for future reference, and all these need to be done in real time, with scalability support satisfy-
ing user data privacy and security that may vary from application to application. In smart application
like remote health monitoring and support, patient data needs utmost privacy besides confidentiality,
integrity, and availability.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch001

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

INTRODUCTION TO SECURITY AND PRIVACY

ISSUES OF USER DATA ON CLOUD

The interpretation of ‘Cloud Computing’ according to the National Institute of Standard and Technol-
ogy (NIST) is cloud computing is a platform which enables on-demand, universal, convenient network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. This can be used for minimal manage-
ment cost and service provider interaction (Leavitt, 2009). For a Cloud Computing environment, both
resources and applications are delivered as services with minimal cost by using the underlying Internet
connection. The three most well-known services of cloud computing (depicted in Figure 1) are defined
below (Amini et al, 2015).

1. Software as a service (SaaS): SaaS represent the largest cloud market, where the software and
related data of the software are deployed by the cloud service provider. Most of the SaaS applica-
tions can be run directly through the web browser without any installations or download.
2. Platform as a service (PaaS): In PaaS the service provider makes services easy to the user to
perform a specific task. It makes development, testing, and deployment of software easy and
cost-effective.
3. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): IaaS provides storage and virtual machine to improve the
business applications of the user (Leavitt, 2009).

Cloud computing has few characteristics like service on-demand, worldwide network access, location
independence, resource elasticity, and security. These merits make cloud computing more attractive to
both the world industrial and academic research. However, there are few problems to be solved for the

Figure 1. Services of cloud computing

2

Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

enterprises as well as personal users regarding data storage and deployment of the applications in a cloud
computing environment. Data security is one of the most significant barriers in the cloud computing
environment. It is consisting of the issues of trust, privacy and legal matters as discussed in (Shah et al,
2008). There are three different accesses to cloud computing which is public, private and hybrid cloud
computing environments. The public cloud environment is the service provider’s property which can be
used by anyone. Private cloud is the property of the company which can be accessed by the authorized
user, whereas, combination of private and public cloud is called the hybrid cloud (Leavitt, 2009).

Applications of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the key driving force behind most web applications today. Application paradigms,
such as e-commerce, m-commerce, banking to IoT to smart city are possible because of the availability
of cloud services. This is summarized in Figure 2. Today, most internet users are accessing one or more
cloud services for storage, computation and communication. Collaborative applications are developed
to encourage working in a group remotely and that has eased application development across the globe.
Cloud services such as, storage and remote execution along with its elastic nature has helped small
companies to flourish as they do not need to purchase or maintain expensive servers. With mobile and
wearable devices communicating over the cloud, data and computation offloading at runtime is possible.
This has facilitated complicated games to run on lightweight handheld devices where the devices mostly
work as an input-output device but the core application is executed in cloud. Mobile cloud computing
is another paradigm that has come up to provide stable performance to mobile users by incorporating
optimizations in virtual machine selection in the cloud end. This is important especially to improve user
experience for various applications ranging from computer games to stock market transactions.

Figure 2. Potential applications of cloud computing

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

Healthcare industry has also seen a sea change as cloud computing has given a much reliable option
for health data storage and management that can survive server crash. Today, in many countries, cloud
services are used for many core healthcare applications as it heavily cuts down the operational and
maintenance costs. The traditional reactive healthcare system, where a patient would visit a doctor only
when some symptoms appear has been changed to proactive mode where the wearable sensing devices
can collect health data and send to cloud for storage and analysis. Proactive monitoring is crucial for
detecting chronic diseases in their early stages as well as day-to-day monitoring of them. Patient monitor-
ing systems, ambient assisted living systems are instances of cloud enabled healthcare applications that
are popularly used for eldercare and for monitoring patients undergoing rehabilitation after surgery etc.
Cloud computing has changed the landscape of e-learning applications as well. M-learning applica-
tions utilize the cloud for storage and processing capability to add richer user experiences. But these
applications suffer from security threats that are explained in the following sections.

Security Vulnerabilities, Attacks and Threats

Major challenges of cloud computing environments include resource management and monitoring and
data security. However, in cloud computing environment there is no such standard protocol available
for application deployment in cloud, so there is lack of standardization on controlling the data in cloud.
Numerous techniques have been designed to provide security to the data but most of these techniques
are not sufficient to provide a comprehensive solution due to the dynamic nature of the cloud computing
environment. The foremost issues in data security in cloud computing is privacy of data, protection to
the data, reliable and secure data transmission. The security threats in the cloud computing environment
include loss of data, service disruption, threats, unreliable data transmission, and malicious attack from
outside world. The four most important aspects of data security in cloud computing environment are
data Integrity, data Confidentiality, data Availability, and data privacy. These are explained below and
summarized in Figure 3.

1. Data Integrity: The meaning of data integrity is protecting the data from unauthorized used like
data cannot be modified, deleted or fabricated by any third party user. In standalone machine it is
easy to give protection to the database by using ACID property. But in cloud computing environ-

Figure 3. Important accept of data security in cloud computing

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

ment integrity means provide the three basic services of cloud computing SaaS, PaaS, IaaS. It can
be obtain by using the technique digital signature and RFID.
2. Data Confidentiality: Confidentiality is needed to maintain the privacy of the important data. The
data confidentiality, authentication, and access control issues in cloud computing environment can
be addressed by increasing the cloud reliability and data encryption. However, simple encryption
methods suffer from key sharing issues and also cannot support complex application requirements
(Rakesh et al, 2012). There are few other encryption strategies to maintain the confidentiality of
the user data like Homomorphic Encryption, Encrypted Search and Database, Hybrid Technique,
and Deletion Confirmation etc (Sun et al, 2014).
3. Data Availability: Data availability means accessing the saved data at anytime from anywhere.
Data may be lost due to network failure or hard disk crash. Such user data is needed to be recov-
ered using different verification tools available to test the authenticity of the available data. In that
case, the cloud vendor will explain the jurisdiction to the clients and should provide data safety
guarantees.
4. Data Privacy: In general, data privacy implies the ability of an individual or a group of members
to hide their data from outside world and reveal it to the selected one. In the case of privacy which
and how is the most important term. Which data to be protected, like present data is more important
than past data. The second important term is how, means how the user wants to protect his/her data.
It is possible that user wants to get notified manually every time before anyone makes use of the
data (sun et al, 2014).

Threat Models

Before taking a closer look to the cloud security here we have discussed about the two main aspects
of security- the threats of cloud computing and vulnerability of cloud computing (Amini et al, 2015).
Threats of cloud computing: Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) is a security assurance provider which
gives security to the critical data and area of the cloud computing. It helps to understand the security
threats and also in managing risks. Few most significant on demand nature related threats are listed
below (Leavitt, 2009).

1. Data Loss: The most critical and terrifying threats for businesses and consumers point of view is
data loss. Any data deletion by the service provider by mistake can lead to loss of consumers’ data.
2. Stealing Credentials: It may possible that the attackers steal the users credentials and get access
to the critical area of the cloud computing services. In that case the organization should prohibit
sharing of important data and stronger authentication techniques are required.
3. Insecure Interface: Customers of cloud computing environment use Application Programming
Interface (API) to interact and manage the cloud services. Authentication, and access control
technology is needed to protect the APIs from malicious attacks.
4. Malicious Insider: In that case, the data may be damaged by the authorized user while working on
a network. Thus, confidentiality, integrity and accessibility may get lost because of such attacks.

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

5. Stealing Data: Stealing private information from private organization by outsiders is not acceptable
at any point. Data encryption can help to reduce the risk of data stealing but in that case encryption
key is very important. As loosing of encryption key is equivalent to loosing of data itself.

Other than this there are some other treats in cloud computing environment like Denial of services
(Lohman et al, 2011) where, attacker prevents the user to reach to the destination. Cloud computing does
not provide any strong registration process to get access to the cloud services. So, any user with a valid
credit card can access register and access the services. This may lead to attack on the cloud environment.
Vulnerability of Cloud Computing: It is the probability of an asset which will be unable to resist
from the action of a threat agent (“Risk Taxonomy et al, n.d.). In cloud computing environment, for mov-
ing, organizational, critical or confidential data different types of vulnerabilities should be considered.
Here, in this section we have discussed few of the vulnerabilities.
Riding of a Session: It can be defined as sending command to the web applications by the hackers
to get the unauthorized access to the data. Hackers can perform malicious activities and even can delete
the user data.
Accessing Through VM: This kind of vulnerability allows attackers to run code on virtual machine
that may lead to operating system break down of the user machine. In this way, an attacker gets access
to the host operating system and other virtual machine directly (Rouse, 2009).
Encryption Method: The developer can use good encryption algorithm with proper key arrangement
procedure to protect the data from vulnerability.
Recovery of Data: The developer should use a data recovery procedure to recover the data with
proper security (Kenyon, 2010).
There are other vulnerability issues in cloud computing environment like lack in internet protocol
design, metering and billing vendor lock in etc (Kenyon, 2010).

AN OVERVIEW OF TOOLS, ALGORITHMS, TECHNIQUES

USED IN SECURE CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

In the field of Cloud Computing, security of data is very crucial. The data which is stored on the cloud
needs to be secured from unauthorized access (Islam et al, 2017). Thus data security and privacy are
the most critical aspect with respect to cloud computing.
When sharing of resources of multiple organizations occur, there is a very high chance for the data to
get misused. Hence a risk factor gets involved. Thus enhancing security of data (Dimitrios et al, 2012)
and protection of data is a challenge in this field.
As technology advances towards cloud environment, we must be aware regarding the benefits and
challenges of Cloud Computing (Kalpana et al, 2012) Among the challenges, Data Security and Privacy
is a major concern.

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

Literature Survey

In the paper (Kanti et al, 2014), the author provides a technique which maintains the integrity of data.
Here, at first data is being sent to the server which is saved behind the images. Hence the unauthorized
users cannot access as well as cannot perceive the data since it is hidden. Here steganography with im-
age is used for protecting the integrity of data. But the data security during transmission is not there.
Though it was a very unique approach but could have been much popular as it could not handle integrity
and confidentiality of data while uploading to cloud server.
In the paper (Aparjita et al, 2014), the authors describes a scheme where at first the plain text is
converted in hexadecimal format using MD5 algorithm, which was again converted to encrypted cipher
text using AES algorithm. Thus it uses two step encryption process one for plain text and another for
already encrypted text. This scheme can be easily implemented but the keys are not at all secure that are
being used for encryption the data.
In this paper (Bala et al, 2014), a protocol is used for the verification of storing the data and also in
retrieving the intact data. The main advantage is assuring integrity by the use of digital signature. The
process is a bit complex as data along with key are allowed to encrypt and decrypt accordingly.
In this paper (Singla et al, 2013), the issue of data security is the primary concern for data transmis-
sion and to encrypt the data .Here an encryption scheme is accompanied by Extensible Authentication
Protocol- Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (EAP-CHAP).
In this paper (Khadilkar et al, 2010), the author shares the data. The problem is regarding the stor-
ing data and accessing data. A different technique is described here using Hive and Hadoop for more
convenience.
In this paper (Alangar et al, 2013), the author attracts attention towards the problem of data secu-
rity and data encryption is done to resolve this issue. A list of various encryption techniques such as
RSA,DES etc are used.
In this paper (Sahu et al, 2013), when the service providers are not very cooperative with the users.
This approach can be modified with the help of third party auditor i.e. an external entity maintains of
integrity of data along with the user which provides a better security.
In the paper (Yadav et al, 2014), fingerprint of client is required for encryption and decryption of the
data. The approach is a very unique since no two persons can have the same fingerprints. It is not always
possible that the person using the cloud services will have fingerprint machine for such situation extra
machines are to be purchased and this is how it makes the model.

Security Issues in Cloud Environment:

Challenges/issues related to security in the field of cloud are described below:-

Integrity

We can preserve information that has not been modified by an unauthorized user during data transfer,
data storage and data retrieval. This is known as integrity (Islam et al, 2017; Velumadhava et al, 2015).
When more than one user can share identical data, application or platform in the cloud which can be

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Table 1. Summary of related works

Author’s details (Auhor name-

Security Attributes Security Techniques Remarks
Publishing year)
Data hiding algorithm is used
Mrinal Kanti Sarkar et al, January
Privacy/Confidentiality in Steganography (hiding data Matlab
2014
within images)
Java language with IDE
Aparjita Sidhu et al, January Eclipse or Net Beans.
Privacy/Confidentiality AES,MD5,RC4
2014 Encryption done using
hashing
R. Bala Chandar et al, January Data Integrity, Access Control, Provides end to end cloud
RSA
2014 Data Authentication security
Extensible Authentication
Protocol-Challenge
Privacy/Confidentiality, Handshake Authentication
Sanjoli Singh et al, July 2013 Rijndael encryption Algorithm
Integrity Protocol (CHAP) is
introduced which ensures
security
Loss of data, Data
Infection, Key
Varsha Alangar et al, October
Authenticity and Integrity DES,RSA Management Problem,
2013
Virtual Machine attacks
are the security threats
Implemented in Java,
Algorithm ElGamal
Privacy/Confidentiality,
AES and RSA (decrypt data with Digital Signature
Ashis Bhagat et al, May 2013 Integrity and Consistency, Client
Digital Signature) is implemented
Authentication by password
using ClouSim and
CloudAnalyst with Eclipse
Confidentiality, Integrity, AES(for Encryption) and RSA Implemented in Java,
Varsha Yadav et al, May 2014
Recovery (for Key Generation) Simulator used: CloudSim

changed by any other unauthorized user (Kalpana et al, 2012). This may cause the integrity failure. Hence
maintaining data integrity (Zissis et al, 2012) is our fundamental task. The cloud service providers have
to ensure integrity hence making the data secured.

Availability

Cloud Data is stored as a collection of data which resides in various Cloud servers (Zissis et al, 2012).
Hence availability becomes the most important legitimate issue (Khan et al, 2014).

Relocatable Data

Data is highly mobile in the Cloud field. The cloud service providers are responsible to ensure data
security. They must protect customer’s information by providing robust authentication. User can know
the location where the data is stored on Cloud. Data may move from one location to another. Cloud
Service Provider keep the data initially at an appropriate location (Kalpana et al, 2012). Later it may
change its location.

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Confidentiality and Privacy

Confidentiality and privacy is the major responsibility of the cloud service provider. There is no personal
data (Khan et al, 2014) stored in the cloud such as password. Cloud Service Provider allows to access
the cloud data by authorized users and there is no personal data stored in the cloud such as password.
Cloud providers must ensure that there is no access to inappropriate data (Zissis et al, 2012) in the
cloud. Vulnerabilities are to be checked to protect data (Islam et al, 2017). Security tests (Kalpan et
al, 20120 must be done to protect cloud data. Encryption is one of the best solution to confidentiality
(Velumadhava et al, 2015).

Algorithms applied for Cloud Security

Symmetric and Asymmetric algorithms are used for security purpose. Encryption provides a protection
to cloud data. Figure 4 depicts data security method to control data in Cloud Storage.
Security Algorithms can be broadly classified as:

• Private Key / Symmetric Algorithms

• Public Key / Asymmetric Algorithms
• Hash based Algorithms

Cloud Service Providers does not have any defined algorithm to ensure data security from threats
and attacks. They try to secure data using security algorithms. The primary goal of these algorithms is
to make the decryption of the generated cipher text harder. The more the length (Chatterjee et al, 2017)
of the key the harder it is to decrypt. Thus making the algorithms more efficient.

Figure 4. Security method to control data in cloud storage

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

Private Key/Symmetric Algorithm

This algorithm uses identical secret key to encrypt and decrypt data (Bhardwaj et al, 2016). Same Secret
key is used by both the sender and receiver.
The main advantage of symmetric/private key algorithm is that it has very high speed while data
encryption since it has requires less power for computation (Chatterjee et al, 2017).
There are disadvantages (Bhardwaj et al, 2016) with Symmetric Algorithms:

• Sharing one single secret key to encrypt and decrypt data over the internet is very unsecure.
Cloud service providers face very difficulty while communicating with sender and the receiver.
Changing the secret key and keeping it secure during the sharing phase is the main concern.
• If the intruder alters the content issues of data integrity and non-repudiation occurs.

Data Encryption Standard Algorithm

DES is symmetric-key block cipher algorithm. Identical secret key is used for the encrypting and de-
crypting purpose (Chatterjee et al, 2017). The entire plaintext is divided into blocks of 64 bit and key
size is taken as 56 bits. The round key size is 48 bits. Multiple permutations and substitutions are done.
There are three phases including the initial and final permutation (Chatterjee et al, 2017)which are
taken as the first and last phase respectively for data encryption. Sixteen rounds (Islam et al, 2017)
considered as second phase each of which uses a 48-bit key thereby finally producing a 64-bit data in
encrypted form.
This algorithm and its overall mechanism is applied in the cloud environment for data security.

Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm

AES is also categorized under the symmetric block cipher as 16 bytes (Islam et al, 2017). It has a 128 bits
of specified block with variable key size each of 128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits respectively (Chatterjee
et al, 2017). Depending on the key size, numbers of rounds are decided while encryption. Instead of us-
ing bits, it functions on the total block of data by performing replacement and rearrangement on bytes .
This algorithm is also applied in the field of cloud for data security.

Blowfish Algorithm

In 1993 Bruce Schneier designed this scheme using identical key for message encryption as well as
decryption. Here, key may differ from a range of 32 bits to 448 bits (Chatterjee et al, 2017). A message
is divided into predetermined partitions while encrypting and decrypting (Arora et al, 2013).
Hence it is mostly suited for cloud security purpose and is significantly faster than most of the sym-
metric encryption algorithms. It is perfect for the position where key is not so frequently altered.

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Asymmetric Algorithm

Here, to encrypt data, public key is used and to decrypt the data and private key is used. Keys are simply
large numbers that have been paired together but are asymmetric (not identical) (Bhardwaj et al, 2016).
The main asymmetric/public key algorithms are Diffie-Hellman and RSA.

RSA Algorithm

RSA consists of asymmetric keys for message encryption and message decryption (Arora et al, 2013).
RSA uses random numbers which are prime in nature to enhance security (Bahrdwaj et al, 2016) The
major drawback of RSA is the usage of small values for key (Islam et al, 2017). Here the encryption
process becomes fragile. Again if large values of prime numbers drops the performance.
RSA is used for the purpose of generating the key and performing the encryption and decryption of
the message. Before encryption, the Key is generated. At the sender end, at first the message is encrypted
using Public Key and stored in the Cloud. At the Receiver end the user wants to access the data from
the Cloud Service Provider according to requirement. It authenticates the user by verifying and finally
delivers the data in encrypted format. User then decrypts to find the original data. Thus, encryption
is done by the Cloud service provider and decryption is done by the Cloud user (Kalpana et al, 2012).

Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange Algorithm

In this protocol sender and receiver will exchange the shared secret key for the inter communication
using an unsafe channel. The shared key is not for encryption or decryption. Thus attacker thinks that
both sender and the receiver exchanged values by transformation of keys (Malik et al, 2015) and now
both of them have the same session key. Thus they can evaluate the required session key.

Function of Authentication Module of Diffie Hellman Algorithm

How to Make a New Registration for the Cloud Service

The steps for registration for the cloud service is as follows:-

1. Firstly the user is required to register who needs to access different types of cloud services. During
registration, the details of user eg user_id and mobile number is taken as input. The mobile number
is used for validating a genuine user (Malik et al, 2015) by sending a message including a key which
the user will have to enter for creating the account over the cloud to make a successful registration.
2. When user_id and password is entered, a key is being sent (Malik et al, 2015) that is generated us-
ing a Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange Algorithm. This key is valid for a specific time instance and
then is destroyed.

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Table 2. The comparative study of the cloud security algorithms

Characteristics AES in Cloud DES in Cloud RSA in Cloud

Type of Key used Uses Symmetric key Uses Symmetric key Uses Assymmetric key
Initial Size 128 bits 64 bits 1024 bits
Security Secured Secured Not Secured for provider
Capacity Used for large data Use for medium data Use for small data
Memory required Less memory is used More memory is used Highest memory usage

How to Use Cloud Service

1. Secondly, when a user wants to use the cloud services, they are requested to enter details. Registration
is successful only when user details are correct (Malik et al, 2015).The key is then sent to the mobile
number of the user.
2. The user then enter the key which was received on mobile .If the key matches with the key gener-
ated using the Diffie-Hellman Algorithm, then only data access and all the cloud services (Malik
et al, 2015) is provided to the user after authentication is made successful.

Hash based Algorithm

This algorithm uses fixed size data using compression technique.

Message Digest Algorithm

For message encryption public key is used private key is used to decrypt the message. MD5 uses a hash
value of 128-bit and a message of varying length. At first the input is divided into blocks of 512 bit. A
128 bit data which is fixed is delivered as output (Chatterjee et al, 2017).

Characteristics and Comparison of Cloud Security Algorithms

The Comparative Study (Arora et al, 2013) of the Cloud Security Algorithms according to their features
are as follows:

Simulation Tools for Cloud Based Solutions and Services

Before adopting any cloud services it is always better to test the clouds. For example, some clouds in-
volved in the cloud resources are very costly and the cost of internet for using the cloud resources may
cause inconvenience in the budget. Effective resource utilization (Gupta et al, 2016) is not possible in
the case of cloud. Through Cloud Simulation Tools, Testing of the clouds is done.

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Advantages of Cloud simulation tools (Gupta et al, 2016) are:-

1. No Capital Investment Involved:- Simulation tools requires no installation and maintenance cost.
2. Provides Better Results: Simulation tools helps user to change input easily as and when required,
thus providing better results as an output.
3. Risks are Assessed:- Risks are assessed (Gupta et al, 2016) as there is no running cost for simula-
tion tools with respect to capital.

For real time implementation, a cloud computing simulator (Gupta et al, 2016) is required. Simula-
tors are needed mainly required for algorithm execution, security threat analyzing, infrastructure quality
and performance measurement.
It is very much challenging and complex to choose the right simulation tool for a given scenario and
at the same time also knowing about the features of each tool. Simulators may be free, open source and
commercial (Gupta et al, 2016).
Simulators make dynamic and flexible configuration thereby making cloud reliable and scalable (Bala
et al, 2014). Easy commands and graphical user interface (Gupta et al, 2016) is provided. Simulators
with performance and security enable researchers to simulate cloud environments. These are the main
advantages of Cloud Simulators.
The various types of tool kits for the purpose of Simulation are:

CloudSim

CloudSim is a simulation tool kit based on Java (Bala et al, 2014).

The features are listed below:

• The simulation kit supports experiments and application in the cloud.

• Communication between various components and simulation clock are the main functions.

CloudAnalyst

CloudAnalyst is a GUI based simulator. CloudAnalyst provides a powerful simulation framework.

The features are listed below:

• It is very easy to use for viewing results of different experiments.

• Outputs may be viewed with tables and charts.
• Simulation outlines can be saved and can be formed as a loop.
• A series of simulations can be done when parameter is slightly changed.
• Evaluation of social network tools (Bala et al, 2014) is supported by the simulator.

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

GreenCloud

The GreenCloud is a GUI based open source, user-friendly simulator. It provides simulation for energy-
aware cloud computing (Gupta et al, 2016) data centres.
The features are listed below:

• The simulator mainly have a focus in monitoring and energy consumption in cloud computing
environment.
• This simulator tries to minimize the electricity consumption by improving power management
and dynamic management.

iCanCloud

The iCanCloud is a GUI based open source, user-friendly simulator (Gupta et al, 2016).
The features of iCanCloud are listed below:

• iCanCloud supports the simulation of large storage which is one of the major ojective of this
simulator.
• iCanCloud was designed to be a powerful simulator by optimizing flexibility, accuracy, perfor-
mance and scalability (Gupta et al, 2016).
• Repository of iCanCloud can add new components.

Emusim

Integrated Emulation and Simulation (Emusim) is an open source software.

The features of Emusim are listed below:

• It automatically extracts the information regarding the behavior of an application

• It reduce the cost while running in a cloud based simulation (Gupta et al, 2016).

GroudSim

GroudSim is a Java-based simulator which only requires one simulation thread. GroudSim mainly focuses
on the IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) area (Gupta et al, 2016).

DCSim (Data Centre Simulation)

DCSim is an event-driven Java based simulator which gives an easy platform for doing experiments.
The features are listed below:

• DCSim shares the workload.

• DCSim allows quick development and instant response on data centre (Gupta et al, 2016).

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ISSUES IN DESIGNING SECURE CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

Cloud computing has been successful with the support of enabling technologies such as Internet of
Things, Big data, Machine and Deep Learning among others. Utility of cloud platform in many forms
such as Platform as a service (Paas), Storage as a service (Saas), Infrastructure as a service (Iaas) can
be exploited over wide range of users ranging from individual to small organization to large ones to
offload huge data handling to cloud infrastructure which can be availed without exclusive ownership
thus huge monitory investment and also maintenance related hazards can be avoided. As it is popularly
known that no lunch is free similarly to avail all these advantages of cloud platform there a question may
arise of security compromise of data and application that will be running remotely at public cloud and
that is the reason behind not getting preferred over the issue of underlying security principles of cloud
platform (Ramchandra et al, 2017). Unauthorized access to any sensitive data at public cloud may jeop-
ardize the security and privacy requirement of a particular application hence cloud must have stringent
access control policy (Ramchandra et al, 2017) to assure a minimum level of guaranteed trust between
the service lender and end user. Edge computing using smartphones, laptops, Tablet computers etc. got
immensely popularized by the backbone support of cloud computing by taking away the computing
and storage load from the resource constrained devices thus saving battery power, limited memory etc.
along with user mobility support progressing towards new paradigm Mobile cloud Computing (Dinh et
al, 2013; Khan et al, 2013).

Secure Functional Cloud Framework

Key characteristics of cloud computing and services designed and developed on this platform are popular
due to salient features (Zissis et al, 2012) which also make this framework vulnerable to security attacks
and threats compromising security requirements of an application. Some of the key salient features are:

• Provisioning of Allocation/Deallocation Dynamically: Cloud computing provides virtual com-

puting platform to the user as per the application demands along with easy and non-hazardous
provision of joining and placing demand for resources without taking minimum pain to gain the
required support in terms of required computing, memory, energy and application specific se-
curity assurance. Similarly if any user wants leave then his/her allocated resources are released
without manual intervention and much changes in existing cloud system setup.
• Location Independence: Location independence is related to ability to access and utilize cloud
framework which is globally placed and the user needs to be least bothered about the location of
the cloud server that would be providing service or infrastructure or platform required to execute
the particular task submitted by the user.
• User Mobility Support: From the emerging point of cloud computing till date, the edge devices
have been revolutionarily changed from heavy weight desktop computing to light weight, por-
table devices such as laptop, tablet computers, smartphone etc. to satisfy with the ever dreamed
demand of users to be able to access, update or modify required data, to avail services or to utilize
resources (memory, CPU, battery power etc.) existing virtually somewhere in this globe.

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• Integration with Legacy Systems and Advanced Devices and Networks: Cloud computing
started in support of client-server architecture where private or stand-alone server has been re-
placed with cloud server implemented with several virtual machines (VMs) and now been associ-
ated with specialized networks like wireless body area network (WBAN) which is generally used
to sense vital health parameters through sensors and analyse data at cloud.
• Reliability Issue Over Redundancy: As data ported to the cloud gets copied and executed at
several places unknowingly to the user or requiring specific intervention by the user, reliability of
computation as well as data saved is ensured by the inherent property of cloud.
• Scope of Easy Expansion of Resources as Per Demand: If the scalability issue arises in required
infrastructure or capability usage of cloud framework, then expansion and assignment of addi-
tional requirements can easily be done.
• Underlying Security: As multi-parties are involved in cloud computing framework to access
same data, work on same data, sharing computing and storage resources, cloud framework as-
sures a level of security by ensuring access control and authentication along with privacy and
availability.

Security requirements of different applications are different. Applications in military or surveillance

essentially needs to implement confidentiality along with integrity and availability whereas health-
care applications primarily requires data integrity along with privacy over confidentiality. Additional
encryption-decryption algorithms to implement confidentiality, hashing algorithms to ensure integrity
can be deployed on top of the inherent security measures provided by the cloud framework. Again, as
data generated and offloaded to the cloud mostly are by sensors and forwarded to the cloud platform
to store, analyze etc. through edge devices such as smartphone, laptop, Tab etc., computing devices
involved in cloud based applications are heterogenous in nature having varying resources, computing
and power etc. Moreover, the network or links through which data gets forwarded are also heterogenous
in nature e.g. sensors communicate through short range communication links (WiFi, Zigbee, Wimax,
Bluetooth etc.), edge devices send data through open wireless internet to cloud thus it gets reflected
that communication links in terms of available bandwidth, communication range, speed etc. are also
heterogenous. Now the most fundamental question arises when it comes to add any additional security
measure to make the data secure then while implementing in whole system, henterogeneity plays a key
role. For example, traditional heavyweight asymmetric key cryptography algorithm RSA can be applied
between edge devices and cloud servers to make data confidential but not between sensors and edge
devices because sensors’ limited computing ability and resources do not permit to computer additional
computations required to perform RSA, also frequency of sensing is very high, so repeatedly doing en-
cryption makes it next to impossible. In summary, unilaterally no single security technique be applied
in Internet of Things and cloud based framework.

User Mobility Support

‘AAA’, anywhere, anytime, anything services and computing has got immensely popularized as user
location is not a factor to prevent someone accessing any infrastructure resource or availing any service.
This has been possible with the rapid advancement in semiconductor technology that add miniaturization

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and portability to the powerful devices, availability of communication bandwidth and enhanced speed,
cost reduction leading to affordability of smart devices with internet connectivity, availability of sup-
porting public infrastructure such as WiFi/access points mounted both at indoors and outdoors. Popular
exploitation of mobile user carrying smart devices is service discovery e.g. to find nearest health centre
or hospital or diagnostic centre or medicine shop, any food hub etc. in any locality or region. If extent
or scale of such services increases, then connection with cloud services is required but often physical
distance between edge device and cloud framework may add to increased latency degrading quality of
service. Concept of Cloudlet (Satyanarayanan et al, 2009). has been introduced to address this issue.
Here the authors proposed a concept of cloudlet which is an extended version of real cloud environment
towards local end thus reducing physical distance with user to ensure good quality of service. Cloudlet
can be formed as a cluster of few computers not so powerful, low cost thus adding low infrastructural
expense and these computers are connected or plugged to cloud framework.
Another mobile cloud computing framework is MobiCloud (Huang et al, 2010) that implements se-
cure mobile cloud environment in Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET). This secure framework provides
Virtual Trusted and Provisioning Domain (VTaPD) by implementing secure routing for preserving
security requirements of information flow. In this framework, uniquely mobile devices having comput-
ing and communication ability and available resources act as a service node to act as a service provider
virtually along with user mobility support.
Real challenge in mobile cloud computing lies in providing seamless connectivity of mobile users
while accessing cloud infrastructure or availing cloud services and for that efficient mobility manage-
ment is required which has opened a new research wing (Akyidiz et al, 1999).

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Security- and Privacy-Aware Computing in Cloud With User Mobility

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Chapter 2
Recent Advances
Delivered in Mobile Cloud
Computing’s Security and
Management Challenges
Christos Stergiou
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7713-3667
University of Macedonia, Greece

Kostas E. Psannis
University of Macedonia, Greece

ABSTRACT
Mobile cloud computing provides an opportunity to restrict the usage of huge hardware infrastructure
and to provide access to data, applications, and computational power from every place and in any time
with the use of a mobile device. Furthermore, MCC offers a number of possibilities but additionally
creates several challenges and issues that need to be addressed as well. Through this work, the authors
try to define the most important issues and challenges in the field of MCC technology by illustrating the
most significant works related to MCC during recent years. Regarding the huge benefits offered by the
MCC technology, the authors try to achieve a more safe and trusted environment for MCC users in order
to operate the functions and transfer, edit, and manage data and applications, proposing a new method
based on the existing AES encryption algorithm, which is, according to the study, the most relevant
encryption algorithm to a cloud environment. Concluding, the authors suggest as a future plan to focus
on finding new ways to achieve a better integration MCC with other technologies.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch002

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

INTRODUCTION

The need of “cloud” support has become inefficient due to the intensive computations, the mass storage,
and the security issues. Some examples include limited storage capacity, communication capabilities,
energy and processing. Inefficiencies like these have motivated us in order to find a model for the com-
bination of CC and other technologies such as Internet of Things and Big Data. As a “base” technology,
Cloud Computing consolidates various technologies and applications to get the maximum capacity and
performance of the existing infrastructure (Kryftis et al., 2016; Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Stergiou et
al., 2018b).
Mobile Cloud Computing improved through the recent years by a new generation of services based
on the concept of the “cloud computing”, which aims to provide access to the information and the data
from anywhere at any time, and simultaneously restrict or eliminate the need for hardware equipment
(Rahimi et al., 2014; Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b; Stergiou et al., 2018f). In
particular, Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) could be defined as an integration of Cloud Computing (CC)
technology and mobile devices in order to make mobile devices resourceful in terms of computational
power, memory, storage, energy, and context awareness (Fremdt et al., 2013; Keskin & Taskin, 2014;
Haung, 2011; Stergiou et al., 2018c). As a result of the operations of Cloud Computing, it could be used
as useful base for several technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data (BD) and Surveillance
Systems, and could provide improvements on their functions.
Therefore, the term mobile cloud is generally referred to in two perspectives: (a) infrastructure based,
and (b) ad-hoc mobile cloud. In infrastructure based mobile cloud, the hardware infrastructure remains
static, and provides services to the mobile users. Although cloud is useful for computing and storage
(Rahimi et al., 2014; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017a; Stergiou et al., 2018d), the traditional computation
offloading techniques cannot be used directly for smartphones because these techniques are generally
energy-unaware and “bandwidthhungry”.
Furthermore, the term “cloud computation” is defined as “the use of computing logistical resources
by using services transported over the internet” (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b).
Nowadays, Cloud Computing services constitute one of the world’s largest areas of competition between
giant companies in the IT sector and software (Mell & Grance, 2011). However, Cloud Computing
security is an evolving sub-domain of computer security, network security, and, more broadly, infor-
mation security. It refers to a broad set of policies, technologies, and controls deployed to protect data,
applications, and the associated infrastructure of cloud computing (Rahimi et al., 2014; Mell & Grance,
2011; Haghighat, 2015). Thus, as the MCC is the outcome of CC it faced the same security and privacy
challenges and issues.
In addition to this, CC additionally used to be a base technology for other technologies due to its types
of services (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Stergiou et al., 2018b; Plageraset al., 2017). One of those is the
Big Data (BD). BD is a term used to describe the expected, due to the connected to the Internet devices,
rapid increase in the volume of data production. Subsequently, these large amounts of data could be
defined as “a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications
are inadequate” (Stergiou et al., 2018b). Furthermore, BD is often associated to the use of predictive
analytics or certain advanced methods to extract knowledge from the data. Rarely, are also related to a

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

particular size of set of data (Hilbert & López, 2011; Fu et al. 2015). Precision in BD could result in more
confident decision making, and better decisions may drive in increased operational efficiency, reduced
costs, and minimized risk (Hilbert & López, 2011). From this scope, it can be observed that BD is now
equally important both for business and internet. This happens because more information drives to more
accurate analysis (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016). The real problem is not that the large amounts of data
have been obtained, but whether they have any value or not. Hopefully, by predicting that organizations
would be able to acquire information from any source, harness the relevant data, and analyze them in a
specific way in order to get quick answers, the following should be achieved: 1) reduce costs, 2) reduce
time, 3) produce new items and optimize their offerings, and 4) take more ingenious decisions (Stergiou
& Psannis, 2017b).
Regarding Security and Privacy issues and challenges in the field of CC and particularly of MCC, and
in order to succeed a secure communication over the network, encryption algorithm plays an important
role. It is a valuable and fundamental tool for the protection of the data. Encryption algorithm converts
the data into scrambled form by using “a key” and only the user have the key in order to decrypt the
data. Regarding the researches that have been made in the field, an important encryption technique is the
Symmetric key Encryption. In Symmetric key encryption, only one key is used to encrypt and decrypt
the data. In this encryption technique the most used algorithm is the AES algorithm (Stergiou & Psannis,
2017b; Kumar et al., 2011; Kaur & Kinger, 2014; Negi et al. 2013).
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is the high developed encryption standard recommended by
NIST aiming to replace the older DES algorithm. Brute force attack is the only effective attack known
against it, in which the attacker tries to test all the characters combinations to unlock the encryption.
The AES algorithm block ciphers. Also, AES has been carefully tested for many security applications
(Huang, 2011; Stergiou et al., 2018d; Singh & Kinger, 2013; Gupta et al. 2016).
The rest of the paper is organized in 6 sections as follows. In section 2 we present previous work that
address challenges and solutions related to Mobile Cloud Computing. Section 3 provides a compara-
tive analysis of the previous works which we have studied offering a brief analysis about evolution of
the number of researches that have been made through the years. In section 4 we offer a brief literature
analysis of CC and MCC. In section 5 we discuss the outcomes of the literature study and additionally
we propose an algorithm method as an indicated solution for Security and Management challenges. Final
conclusions and future research directions are given in section 6.

BACKGROUND

For the purpose of this paper we study and analyze previous literature which has been studying two
aspects, Security and Privacy Management in MCC and Security and Privacy of MCC. In addition to
this, we also present some former works of our research group which have been made in field of CC
in general. All the papers presented with ascending form, from the older to the newest. The following
paragraphs present the papers which contributed significantly in our study.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Security and Privacy Management in MCC

Initially, the papers that deal with the Security and Privacy issues of Management in MCC are illustrated
[23-34]. As we can realize there are several works in this field. More particular, Angin et al. (2010)
propose an entity-centric approach for an IDM model in Cloud environment. The proposed approach
based on two aspects: a) active bundles, and b) anonymous identification. The active bundles include a
payload of Personally Identifiable Information, privacy policies and a virtual machine that enforces the
policies and additionally the active bundles use a set of protection mechanisms in order to protect them-
selves. As regard the anonymous identification, they use it with the aim to mediate interactions between
the entity and the Cloud services using entity’s privacy policies. Moreover, the authors present the main
characteristics of the approach which are: a) independent of third party, b) provides minimum information
to the Service Provider, and c) provides ability to use identity data on untrusted hosts. Then, Doukas et
al. (2010) demonstrate the implementation of a mobile system that enables electronic healthcare data
storage, update and retrieval using CC. The proposed mobile application based in Google’s Android OS
and offers management of patient health records and medical images. This system was evaluated with
the use of Amazon’s S3 cloud service. Finally, the authors summarize the details of the implementation
and then present initial results of the system in practice. Moreover, Dinh et al. (2011) survey the MCC
technology, which could help the general readers to have an overview of the MCC including the definition,
the architecture, and the applications. Also, this work presents the issues, the existing solutions, and the
recent approaches of the MCC technology. At the end, the authors discuss a number of future research
directions of the MCC. Through Habib et al. (2011) propose a multi-faceted Trust Management system
architecture for a cloud computing marketplace, with the aim to support the customers in reliably iden-
tifying trustworthy cloud providers. The proposed system offers means to identify the trustworthy cloud
providers in term of different attributes that assessed by multiple sources and roots of trust information.
Furthermore, Prasad et al. (2012) presents a sort survey of MCC evolution and additionally explains how
CC and Mobile Devices could be combined with good terms for future opportunities, implications and
legal issues for developing countries. In another research, Shiraz et al. (2012) try to review the existing
Distributed Application Processing Frameworks, also known as DAPFs, for SMDs in MCC domain.
The main objective of this work is to highlight issues and challenges to existing DAPFs in develop-
ing, implementing, and executing computational intensive mobile applications within MCC domain.
Thus, through this work the authors propose a thematic taxonomy of the current DAPFs, and then they
review current offloading frameworks by using thematic taxonomy, and analyze the implications and
critical aspects of current offloading frameworks. Finally, this work puts forward open research issues
in distributed application processing for MCC that remain to be addressed. Also, Kim & Park (2013)
proposes a trust management approach by making an analysis of user behavioral patterns for a reliable
MCC. So, the authors suggest a method in order to quantify a one-dimensional trusting relation count
on the analysis of telephone call data from Mobile Cloud Environment. Subsequently, it is enhanced
trustworthiness of data production, management, and overall application. Whaiduzzaman et al. (2014)
present a state-of-the-art survey of vehicular Cloud Computing. More detailed, the authors present a
taxonomy for vehicular Cloud in which special attention has been devoted to the extensive applications,
Cloud formations, key management, inter-Cloud communication systems, and broad aspects of privacy

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

and security problems. Additionally, this work illustrates the design of an architecture for Vehicular Cloud
Computing, itemize the properties required in vehicular Cloud which support the proposed model. In
order to achieve their goal, authors compare the proposed mechanism with normal Cloud Computing
and then discuss about open research issues and the future directions. Additionally, Khalil et al. (2014)
discuss the limitations of the state-of-the-art Cloud Identity Managements with respect to mobile cli-
ents. In particular, the authors demonstrate that the current IDMs are vulnerable to three attacks. As a
result of their research, the authors propose and validate a new IDM architecture dubbed Consolidated
IDM that countermeasures these attacks. Through their experimental results the authors illustrates that
CIDM offers its clients with better security guarantees and that it has less energy and communication
overhead compared to the current IDM systems. Furthermore, Ali et al. (2015) offer a detailed survey of
the security issues that arise due to the very nature of Cloud Computing. Furthermore, this work presents
a number of recent solutions offered in the literature with the aim to counter the security problems. In
addition, there is a brief view of the highlighted security vulnerabilities in the Mobile Cloud Comput-
ing. Then, Rittinghouse & Ransome (2009) discuss about the evolution of the computing as regarding
the historical perspective, with focus on advances which primarily led to the evolution of the Cloud
Computing. Additionally, there is a survey of some of the critical components that are vital in order to
make the Cloud Computing paradigm feasible. The authors by addressing a number of particular legal
and philosophical problems try to conclude with a hard look at all the successful Cloud Computing
vendors. Finally, Mollah et al. (2017) try to present the major security and privacy issues and challenges
in the field which have grown much interest among the academia and research community. Also, they
try to illustrate reports of recent works of literature. Moreover, they present a comparative analysis of
the literature works based on different security and privacy requirements, and concluding they present
the open issues in the field.

Security and Privacy of MCC

Subsequently, the papers that deal with the Security and Privacy issues of the MCC are illustrated. Start-
ing from the oldest, a survey of the various security issues that pose a threat to the Cloud as presented by
the work of Subashini & Kavitha (2011). The survey that illustrated in this work could be more specific
to different security problems which have emanated due to the nature of the service delivery models of
a Cloud Computing system. Continuously, Liang et al. (2011) propose a Security Service Admission
Model based on Semi-Markov Decision Process in order to model the system reward for the Cloud pro-
vider. Initially, through this work try to define the system states by a tuple represented by the numbers
of Cloud users and the associated to them security service categories, and the current event type. Then,
the authors derive the system steady-state probability and service request blocking probability with
the use of their proposed model. Then, Hada et al. (2011) propose a trust model for Cloud architecture
which uses mobile agent as security agents to acquire useful information from the virtual machine that
the user and the service provider could utilize with the aim to keep track of privacy of their data and
virtual machines. In the proposed model the security agents can dynamically move through the network,
replicate themselves according to the requirement, and perform the assigned tasks like accounting and
monitoring of virtual machines. Also, Popa et al. (2013) propose a framework with the aim to secure the

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

data transmitted between the components of the same Mobile Cloud Application, and with the aim to
ensure the integrity of the applications at the installation on the mobile device and when being updated.
Furthermore, the proposed framework of this work allows applying different security properties to various
kinds of data and not the same properties to all the data processed by the application. In addition to this,
the proposed approach takes into account the user’s preferences and the mobile device performances.
Moreover, Hashizume et al. (2013) discuss and identifies the main vulnerabilities in CC systems, and
the most important threats that found in the literature related to CC technology and its environment, as
well as to identify and relate vulnerabilities and threats with possible solutions. Suo et al. (2013) with
the aim to facilitate the emerging domain of MCC security and privacy, in brief review the advantages
and system model of MCC, and pay attention to the security and privacy in the MCC. At the end, the
authors provide the current security and privacy approaches, by deeply analyzing the security and pri-
vacy problems from the aspects of mobile terminal, mobile network and Cloud. Additionally, Shahzad
& Hussain (2013) present a comprehensive literature review of MCC and the security and privacy is-
sues that MCC faced. Also, the authors present a complete understanding analysis of MCC, in where
they explain its architecture, advantages and applications. At the end, the authors conclude that their
research is significant useful for the mobile service providers, and thus they can improve the security
technologies and mechanisms used for Cloud security in order to minimize the user’s security concerns.
Then, Khan et al. (2013) illustrate particular efforts that have been devoted in research organizations
and academia in order to build secure MCC environments and infrastructures. Thus, in the spite of the
efforts, there are a number of loopholes and challenges that still exist in the security policies of MCC.
The authors through the literature review conclude in three things that discussed in this work. Firstly,
they highlight the current state of the art work which proposed to secure MCC infrastructures. Secondly,
they identify the potential problems. Finally, they provide taxonomy of the state of the art. Furthermore,
Zhang et al. (2017) propose a novel technique that called “match-then-decrypt”, in which a matching
phase is also presented before the decryption phase. The proposed technique operates by computing
special components in ciphertexts, which are used in order to perform the test that if the attribute private
key matches the hidden access policy in ciphertexts without decryption. Moreover, in this work there
is a proposal of a basic anonymous ABE construction, and then obtain a security-enhanced extension
based on strongly existentially unforgeable one-time signatures. More specifically, the authors conclude
that the formal security analysis and performance comparisons indicate that their proposed solutions
simultaneously ensure attribute privacy and improve decryption efficiency for outsourced data storage
in MCC. Finally, Jiang et al. (2018) initially identify that the scheme that proposed in former work of
Tsai and Lo, which was privacy aware authentication scheme for distributed MCC services, fails to
achieve mutual authentication. The authors of this work conclude to this regarding it is vulnerable to the
service provider impersonation attack. In addition to this, the authors state that the former scheme also
suffers from some minor design flaws, including the problem of biometric measure, wrong password,
and fingerprint login, no user revocation facility when the smart card is lost or stolen. At the end, they
offer some a number of suggestions in order to avoid the aforementioned design flaws in future design
of authentication schemes.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Research Group’s Previous Works in CC and MCC

At this point there will be present a number of former works which deal with problems and solutions in
the field of Cloud Computing in general. More particular, some of them deal with problems and solutions
in the field of Mobile Cloud Computing. Starting again from the oldest, Stergiou & Psannis (2016) try to
combine the MCC and IoT with the Big Data with the aim to examine the common characteristics and
in addition to discover which of MCC and IoT benefits improve the operation of BD applications. Also,
the authors of this work present the contribution of MCC and IoT individually to Big Data. Moreover,
Stergiou et al. (2018a) present a survey of Internet of Things and CC focusing on the security problems
of both of them. More particular, the authors try to combine these technologies aiming to examine the
common features, and also aiming to discover the benefits of their integration. At the end, there is a
presentation of the contribution of Cloud Computing to the IoT. So, this work illustrates how the Cloud
Computing improves the functionality of Internet of Things, and additionally, surveys the security chal-
lenges of the integration of Cloud Computing and Internet of Things. Continuously, Stergiou & Psannis
(2017a) present a survey of Big Data and Cloud Computing, illustrating their basic characteristics, and
focusing on the security and privacy problems of both of them. Regarding this, the authors try to combine
the functionality of Big Data and Cloud Computing aiming to examine the frequent characteristics, and
in addition to this to discover the benefits which are related in security problems of their integration.
Furthermore, Stergiou & Psannis (2017b) survey Cloud Computing and Big Data technology, and their
major characteristics, focusing on the security and privacy problems of both of them. Particularly, the
authors combine the functionality of two technologies aiming to examine the common characteristics,
and additionally to discover the benefits related in security issues of their integration. Then, there is a
presentation of a novel method of an algorithm that can be used for the purpose of improving Cloud
Computing’s security through the use of algorithms that can offer more privacy in the data related to Big
Data. At the end, there additionally a survey about the challenges of the integration of Cloud Computing
and Big Data related to their security level. Also, Stergiou et al. (2018b) in order to achieve a type of
network that will offer more intelligent media-data transfer new technologies were studied. Thus, the
authors initially studied the use of various open source tools of Cloud Computing analyzers and simula-
tors. So, the authors after they measure the simulated network performance with CloudSim simulator,
they use the Cooja emulator of the Contiki OS aiming to confirm and access more metrics and options.
In particular, in this work there is an implementation of a network topology from a small section of
the script of CloudSim with Cooja, so that the authors could test a single network segment. The results
that have been produced of the experimental procedure illustrate that there are not duplicated packets
received during the whole procedure. Finally, Stergiou et al. (2018e) propose a novel system for Cloud
Computing integrated with Internet of Things as a base scenario for Big Data. Moreover, the authors try
to establish an architecture relaying on the security of the network with the aim to eliminate the security
issues. The solution proposed in this work installs a security “wall” between the Cloud server and the
outer Internet, aiming to eliminate the privacy and security problems. As regard the main goal of this
paper a sort survey of IoT and Cloud Computing also presented, focusing on the security issues of both
of them. Additionally, the authors state that through their study conclude that Cloud Computing could
offer a more “green” and efficient “fog” environment for sustainable computing scenarios.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Literature Comparative Analysis

Taking into account the Related Research Review Section we realized that the study of MCC’s Security
and Privacy issues become more popular in the research and academic community over the recent years.
We have come to the above conclusion counting on our study of several works in the field of Security
and Privacy of Mobile Cloud Computing. The main balk of these works presented in Related Research
Review Section. Consequently, there is a need for further research in this area as the growing numbers
studied indicate.
As we can observe, the last four years the interest of the researchers has increased considerably
compared to the previous decade. Figure 1 illustrates the growth of studies in Security and Privacy
Management in Mobile Cloud Computing through the years. Equally important Figure 2 represents the
growth of studies in Security and Privacy of Mobile Cloud Computing through the years.
The study of previous works motivates us to survey the Security and Privacy challenges and issues
of the Mobile Cloud Computing technology. Thus, count on the major works related to Security and
Privacy challenges and issues we have tried to figure out them in Table 1.
Table 1 lists the major challenges and issues which we have distinguished from the related works.
Through Table 1 we can figure out which are the major issues and challenges of the Mobile Cloud
Computing that have been addressed by the literature.

Figure 1. Growth of works made in security and privacy management in mobile cloud computing over
the years

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Figure 2. Growth of works made in security and privacy of mobile cloud computing over the years

Introducing To Cloud Computing

CC offers abilities and functions such as computing, storage, services, and applications over the Internet.
In general, to render smartphones energy efficient and computationally capable, major changes to the
hardware and software levels are required. This causes the cooperation of developers and manufacturers
(Rahimi et al., 2014).

Features

As all technologies, so the CC technology has a number of characteristics which determine its operation.
These characteristics are represented and outlined below.

CC(a): Storage over Internet

Storage over Internet can be defined as “a technology framework that uses Transmission Control Pro-
tocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks to link servers and storage devices and to facilitate storage
solution deployment” (Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013).

CC(b): Service over Internet

The Service over Internet has as major objective is to “help customers all over the world in order to
transform aspirations into achievements by harnessing the Internet’s efficiency, speed and ubiquity”
(Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013).

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Table 1. Related research work’s challenges and issues of the Mobile Cloud Computing technology

Year Author Challenge/Issue

• Cloud reliability to users

J. W. Rittinghouse & J. F.
2009-08 • Users desired outcomes of the Cloud
Ransome (2009)
• Levels of trust in Cloud environment

2010-09 C. Doukas et al (2010) • Sharing and management of medical information resources through mobile healthcare systems

• Entities authentication to service providers

2010-11 P. Angin et al (2010)
• Entities multiple accounts associated with multiple service providers

S. Subashini & V. Kavita • Cloud environment safety

2011-01
(2011) • New Cloud model targeting to improve the existing one

• Increased number of Critical and Normal Security service users

2011-04 H. Liang et al (2011) • Allocate Cloud resource aiming to maximize the system rewards with the considerations of the Cloud resource consumption and
incomes generated from Cloud users.

• Low bandwidth of Mobile Cloud Computing

• Availability of Mobile Cloud Computing
• Heterogeneity of Mobile Cloud Computing
2011-10 H. T. Dinh et al (2011) • Computing offloading of Mobile Cloud Computing
• Security of Mobile Cloud Computing
• Enhancing the efficiency of data access of Mobile Cloud Computing
• Context-aware mobile Cloud services of Mobile Cloud Computing

• Not consistent descriptions in Service Level Agreements among Cloud providers

2011-11 S. M. Habib et al (2011)
• Uncertain reliably identifying trustworthy Cloud providers for the customers

2011-12 P. S. Hada et al (2011) • Major need of bringing reliability, transparency and security in Cloud model for client satisfaction

• Cloud Computing challenges: Performance, Security & Privacy, Control, Bandwidth Costs, Reliability
2012-10 M. R. Prasad et al (2012)
• Mobile Cloud Computing legal issues

• Users expectation to run computational intensive applications on Smart Mobile Devices in the same way as powerful stationary
computers
2012-11 M. Shiraz et al (2012)
• Establishment of distributed application processing platform at runtime which requires additional computing resources on Smart
Mobile Devices

• Use of MCC increases security risks and privacy invasion

2013-01 D. Popa et al (2013)
• MCC application model not well-defined

• Security and privacy risks faced be MCC uses

A. Shahzad & M. Hussain • Architecture and Cloud service delivery models issues
2013-06
(2013) • Mobile Cloud infrastructure issues
• Mobile Cloud communication channel issues

2013-07 H. Suo et al (2013) • Security and privacy issues and challenges in MCC

2013-07 A. N. Khan et al (2013) • Security threats have become a hurdle in the rapid adaptability of the MCC paradigm

• MCC architecture, design and implementation need to be improved due to limited computing capability and storage issues
2013-12 M. Kim & S. O. Park (2013)
• Trust management approach for reliable MCC

• Risk of outsourcing data to third party Cloud providers

2013-12 K. Hashizume et al (2013)
• Cloud Computing inherits many technologies security issues

• Services provided by third party Cloud providers entail additional security threats
2014-02 M. Ali et al (2014)
• Migration of user’s assets outside the administrative control in the Cloud environment escalates the security concerns.

• Mobile devices are easy to be compromised

2014-03 I. Khalil et al (2014) • Mobile users store Personal Identifiable Information in unprotected text files, cookies and applications
• Limitations of state-of-the-art Cloud Identity Management Systems with respect to mobile clients

• Traffic management and road safety by instantly using vehicular resources

Md. Whaiduzzaman et al
2014-04 • Vehicular Cloud Computing security challenges: Authentication, Secure location & localization, Securing vehicular
(2014)
communication, Vehicular public key infrastructure, Data security, Network heterogeneity, Access control

• Each decryption usually requires many pairings and the computation overhead grows with the complexity of the access formula
2017-02 Y. Zhang et al (2017)
• Existing schemes suffer a serve efficiency drawback and not suitable for MCC where users may be resource-constrained

• Data security challenges

• Partitioning and offloading security challenges
• Virtualization security challenges
2017-04 M. B. Mollah et all (2017)
• Mobile Cloud applications security challenges
• Mobile devices security challenges
• Privacy challenges

2018-06 Q. Jiang et al (2018) • A previous proposed scheme of Tsai & Lo fails to achieve mutual authentication and withstands all major security threats

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

CC(c): Applications over Internet

Cloud Applications, or as scientific known as Applications over Internet, are the programs which have
been written to do the job of a current manual task, or virtually anything, and which perform their job
on the server through an internet connection (Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013).

CC(d): Energy Efficiency

Energy Efficiency could be defined as “a way of managing and restraining the growth in energy con-
sumption” (Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013). By delivering more services for the same
energy input or for the same services for less energy input may be something more energy efficient
(Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013).

CC(e): Computationally Capable

The services of computational clouds are leveraging the computationally concentrated and ubiquitous
mobile applications which have been enabled by the technology of MCC. Thus, a system can be con-
sidered as computationally capable when it meets the requirements to offer us the results we want, by
making the right calculations (Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014; Garg et al., 2013).

Security on Cloud Computing

CC security is an evolving sub-domain of computer security, network security and information security.
It makes an allusion to a broad set of policies, technologies, and controls deployed to protect data, ap-
plications, and the associated infrastructure of CC.
CC technology offers through its storage solutions to users and industries various capabilities with
the aim to store and process their data in third-party data centers (Haghighat et al., 2015). Thus, by
aiming to offer secure communication through the network, encryption algorithm plays a vital role. As
regards the researches that have been made, an important encryption technique is the Symmetric Key
Encryption. In Symmetric key encryption, only one key is used to encrypt and decrypt the data. In this
encryption technique the most used algorithm is the AES (Kumar et al., 2011; Kaur & Kinger, 2011;
Stergiou et al., 2018g; Gupta & Badve, 2017).
AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is the newest encryption standard and the more reliable,
recommended by NIST to replace DES algorithm. The only effective scenario of attacking in AES is
the Brute force attack, in which the attacker tries to test all the characters combinations to unlock the
encryption. AES encryption model is fast and flexible, and in addition, it can be implemented on dif-
ferent platforms (Singh & Kinger, 2013).

Mobile Cloud Computing Trade Offs

CC has some disadvantages-limitations which should be eliminated over the years in order to achieve
a better and more ideal use. Some businesses and especially the smaller ones need to be aware of these
limitations before going in for this technology.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

CC(l-a): Security

One major issue of the MCC is the security issue. Before someone adopts this technology, they should
know that all the company’s sensitive information would be surrender to a third-party Cloud service
provider. This could potentially put the company in great risk. Hence, someone must be absolutely sure
that they would choose the most reliable service provider, who will keep the information completely
safe (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Viswanathan, 2012; Pfarr et al., 2015; Stergiou et al.,2018g; Gupta et
al., 2016).

CC(l-b): Connectivity

Internet connection is critical to CC. Thus, the user should be certain that there is a good result before
opting for these services. Since someone owes a mobile device which is connected to the internet has
become the norm in the wireless world of today, CC has a very large potential user base (Stergiou &
Psannis, 2016; Almrot & Andersson, 2013).

CC(l-c): Performance

Another major concern of the CC pertains to its performance. Some users feel performance is not as
good as in native applications. Thus, checking with one service provider and understanding their track
record is advisable (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Fremdt et al., 2013; GetCloud Services, 2014).

CC(l-d): Latency (Delay)

In CC, latency (sometimes referred as turnaround time) is defined as the time involved in offloading the
computation and getting back the results from the nearby infrastructure or cloud (Stergiou & Psannis,
2016; Li et al., 2017).

CC(l-e): Privacy

Data privacy is important and is one of the main bottlenecks that restrict consumers from adopting CC.
Therefore, to gain consumers trust in the Cloud, the application models must support application de-
velopment with privacy protection, and implicit authentication mechanisms (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016;
Pfarr et al., 2014; Shi et al., 2010).

Challenges Outcomes by Combining Cloud

COMPUTING with Other Technologies

When critical applications, such as the IoT applications, move towards the Cloud Computing technol-
ogy, concerns arise due to the lack of trust in the service provider or the knowledge about service level
agreements (SLAs) and knowledge about the physical location of data. Consequently, new challenges

32

Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

require specific attention as mentioned in surveys (Botta et al., 2016; Bhattasali et al., 2013; Simmhan
et al., 2011). Multi-tenancy could also compromise security and lead to sensitive information leakage.
Moreover, public key cryptography cannot be applied at all layers due to the computing power constraints
imposed by the things. These are examples of topics that are currently under investigation in order to
tackle the big challenge of security and privacy in integrating Cloud Computing with other technologies
(Botta et al., 2016; Book, 2018; Stergiou et al., 2018g; Gou et al., 2017).
Subsequently, some challenges about the security issue in the integration of Cloud Computing with
other technologies are listed below (Botta et al., 2016).

1. Heterogeneity: A big challenge in Cloud Computing integration with other technologies is related
to the wide heterogeneity of devices, operating systems, platforms, and services available and pos-
sibly used for new or improved applications (Grozev & Buyya, 2014).
2. Performance: Often Cloud Computing integration with other technologies applications introduce
specific performance and QoS requirements at several levels (i.e. for communication, computa-
tion, and storage aspects) and in some particular scenarios meeting requirements may not be easily
achievable (Rao et al., 2012).
3. Reliability: When Cloud Computing integration with other technologies is adopted for mission-
critical applications, reliability concerns typically arise. When applications are deployed in resource
constrained environments a number of challenges related to device failure or not always reachable
devices exists (He et al., 2014).
4. Big Data: With an estimated number of 50 billion devices that will be networked by 2020, specific
attention must be paid to transportation, storage, access, and processing of the huge amount of data
they will produce (Dobre & Xhafa, 2014).
5. Monitoring: As largely documented in the literature, monitoring is an essential activity in Cloud
environments for capacity planning, for managing resources, SLAs, performance and security, and
for troubleshooting (Aceto & Botta, 2013).

Cloud Computing as Base Technology for Big Data

Cloud Computing (CC) is a new generation of services which aims to provide accessibility to informa-
tion and data from any place at any time. With this kind of novel technology there is no limitation and
no further need for hardware equipment. The recent years, Cloud Computing services compose one of
the major areas in the world of competition among the giant companies in the field of IT and software
(Mell & Grance, 2011; Skourletopoulos et al., 2017; Dorgham et al., 2018).
More specifically, Cloud Computing is consisted of a technology of internet services providing remote
use of hardware and software. As a result, the users of Cloud Computing could have access to informa-
tion and data from any place at any time. In the concept of Cloud Computing there is another technology
called Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) that refers in general concept to in two prospects (Stergiou et
al., 2018f): a) infrastructure based, and b) ad-hoc mobile cloud. In the prospect of infrastructure based
mobile cloud, the infrastructure of the hardware is still static and delivers services to the mobile users
(Stergiou et al., 2018c; Batalla et al. 2016). Particularly, MCC is defined as “the integration of Cloud

33

Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Computing and Mobile technology in order to make any type of mobile devices resourceful in terms
such as computational power, memory, storage and energy” (Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b). Regarding the
usage of Cloud services in Mobile devices many types of services could be processed through it. Thus,
high quality media could be transmitted through Cloud environment progressed in applications which
were installed and operated in Cloud.
Considering this Cloud Computing could be settled as a base technology to operate other technologies
such as Big Data and consequently to be accomplished an integration of Cloud and Big Data (Haghighat
et al., 2015; Garg et al., 2013). In addition to this, Cloud Computing also used to be a base technology
for others technologies due to its type of services (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016; Stergiou et al., 2018d).
As already mentioned, one of those is Big Data (BD). Big Data used to describe the surprisingly
rapid increase in volume of data in structured and unstructured form. It is a broad term for data sets so
large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Furthermore, Big Data
often refers to the use of predictive analytics or certain advanced methods to extract value from data.
Rarely, it also refers to a particular size of data set (Hilbert & López, 2011; Fu et al., 2016). Precision in
Big Data could result in more confident decision making, and better decisions may lead to an increased
operational efficiency, reduced costs, and minimized risk [18]. From this scope we realize that the Big
Data is now equally important both for business and internet. This happens because more information
leads to more accurate analyses (Stergiou & Psannis, 2016). The real problem is not that you have acquired
large quantities of data, but whether it has any value or not. Hopefully, by envisaging that the organiza-
tions would be able to obtain information from any source, harness the relevant data and analyze it with
the aim to get quick answers, we will achieve the following: 1) to reduce costs, 2) to reduce time, 3) to
produce new products and to optimize their offerings, 4) to make more intelligent decisions (Stergiou
& Psannis, 2017a; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b).

RESEARCH OUTCOMES & PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Table 2 presents the challenges that have been addresses by the literature work which we have studied.
As we could observe most of the works that we have studied focus on the “Trusted environment” which
in our opinion is the major issue of the Mobile Cloud Computing, and as a result the “Security” issue is
most popular in the literature work. Additionally, concerning the rest of the challenges we come to the
conclusion that the “Reliability” and the “Management” are also basic issues that need to be addressed.
More detailed, through the number of 22 works that we have stood out the statistic results are the follow-
ing: Privacy 6 of 22, Security 15 of 22, Trusted environment 15 of 22, Bandwidth 5 of 22, Environment
limitations 10 of 22, Management 11 of 22, Reliability 12 of 22, User authentication 9 of 22, Efficiency
5 of 22. Equally important, the less mentioned issues are the “Bandwidth” and the “Efficiency” which
are really vital for the functionality of the Mobile Cloud Computing technology. Regarding this, we
could realize that more researches need to be done in the field in order to find better solutions aiming
to improve Bandwidth and Efficiency of MCC.
Thus, based on previous works (Stergiou et al., 2018b; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017a; Stergiou et al.,
2018f; Stergiou et al., 2018c; Stergiou et al., 2018d; Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b; Plageras et al., 2017;
Stergiou et al., 2018a; Stergiou et al., 2018e) the optimal solution in order to achieve a reliable and trusted
environment with a more “safe” authentication and encryption for the users the MCC system have to
adapt the AES encryption algorithm.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Table 2. Literature challenges in the field of Mobile Cloud Computing

Challenges
Literature work
Trusted Environment User
Privacy Security Bandwidth Management Reliability Efficiency
environment limitations authentication

Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009 X X X X

Doukas et al., 2010 X X

Angin et al., 2010 X X X X

Subashini & Kavitha, 2011 X X X

Liang et al., 2011 X X X X X

Dinh et al., 2011 X X X X X

Habib et al., 2011 X X X X

Hada et al., 2011 X X X

Prasad et al., 2012 X X X X X X

Shiraz et al., 2012 X X X

Popa et al., 2013 X X X X

Shahzad & Hussain, 2013 X X X X X

Suo et al., 2013 X X X

Khan et al., 2013 X X

Kim & Park, 2013 X X X X X

Hashizume et al., 2013 X X X X

Ali et al., 2015 X X X X X

Khalil et al., 2014 X X X X X

Whaiduzzaman et al., 2014 X X X X X

Zhang et al., 2017 X X X X

Mollah et al., 2017 X X X

Jiang et al., 2018 X X X X

The AES algorithm has variable key length of 128, 192, or 256 bits, with default 256 bits. It encrypts
data blocks of 128 bits in 10, 12 and 14 round depending on the key size. AES encryption is fast and
flexible algorithm, and it can be implemented on various platforms especially in small devices, such as
mobile devices. Also, AES has been carefully tested for many security applications (Singh & Kinger,
2013). As a result, the AES algorithm provides the ability to have speed key setup time a good key agil-
ity. So, if we use this algorithm we could have a trusted relay method with an encryption of a speed key
setup. Therefore, instead the trust relay use we can seize also there no serious weak keys in AES and so
we could have a beneficial security use of the encryption in the integrated new model. Similarly, we can
take advantage the less memory which AES needs for implementation that makes it for restricted-space
environments. Thus, we can seize the transmit power that AES offers and as a result we can have a bet-
ter and more trusted transmission in a MCC environment (Stergiou & Psannis, 2017b; Singh & Kinger,
2013; Stergiou et al., 2018e; Gupta, 2018).
Count our study and the reliability of AES encryption algorithm for a MCC environment we suggest
the following part of pseudocode based on the AES encryption algorithm.

35

Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Table 3. Suggested pseudocode based on the AES encryption algorithm

Algorithm 1
input -> byte[]
byte[] + R.Key -> state[]
for 6 to 66
W[i-1] -> T
if i mod 6 = 0
rotate T + 6
W[i-6] / T -> W[i]
R.Key+1
i+1 -> i
Row +1 -> Row
state[] -> output[]

With this proposed method we can extend the advances of MCC, in particular when it integrates
with other technologies like IoT and Big Data, by developing a highly innovative and scalable service
platform to enable secure and privacy services. Through tour research we can propose the algorithm 1
which extends the security advances of MCC environment, especially when integrates with other tech-
nologies. As a proposal of this work could be this part of pseudocode algorithm which uses the original
key consists of 128 bits/16 bytes which are represented as a 6x6 matrix.

Experimental Results

Compared our proposed method with the existing one we come to some measurements that have been
through time and showing the benefits of our proposed method.
As we can observe by Figure 3 the more often is the combined use of the algorithms, the higher level
of security of the data usage we get every time. The upper line represents our proposed model of AES
algorithm and the other (down line) represents the existing AES algorithm. Based on Figure 3 we can
also figure out that our proposed method is over from the existing model regarding the higher security
level of encryption that it can achieve through the time.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The MCC technology provides a number of possibilities, but additionally places several challenges and
issues that need to be addressed as well. Mobile Cloud Computing refers to an infrastructure where data,
applications and information could be processed through a mobile device, but simultaneously outside
of the mobile device. The main objective of the use of MCC is to decrease the use of stronger hardware
and to have the access to data and applications, and in many times to more computational power, from
every place and in any time, through a mobile device.
With our study, in regard on the huge benefits of the Mobile Cloud Computing technology, we try
to achieve a more safe and trusted environment for the MCC users in order to operate the functions,
and transfer, edit and manage data and applications. This could be achieved proving a novel method
count on the AES encryption algorithm, which is, according to our study, the most relevant encryption
algorithm to a Cloud environment.

36

Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

Figure 3. Security level of encryption algorithms of measurement used for the study of AES model algorithm

Furthermore, we try to define the most important issues and challenges in the field of Mobile Cloud
Computing technology by presenting a number of the most significant works related to MCC through
the last eight years.
As a future work, we could focus to find novel ways to achieve a better integration MCC with other
technologies, focusing on security algorithms and all the challenges that the technologies faced on se-
curity level. Regarding the rapid development of Cloud technology the security issues of Mobile Cloud
Computing must be solved or reduced to a minimum in order to have a better and safer model. The se-
curity challenges and issues that surveyed in this work could be the sector for further research as a case
study, with the goal of minimizing them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback
which was extremely helpful in improving the quality of the paper.

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Recent Advances Delivered in Mobile Cloud Computing’s Security

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44

Chapter 3
Security for Cross-
Tenant Access Control
in Cloud Computing
Pramod P Pillai
VTU Extension Centre, UTL Technologies Ltd,, India

Venkataratnam P.
VTU Extension Centre, UTL Technologies Ltd., India

Siva Yellampalli
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, SRM University AP - Amarvati, India

ABSTRACT
Cloud computing is becoming a de facto standard for most of the emerging technology solutions. In
a typical cloud environment, various tenants purchase the compute, storage resource, and would be
sharing the resource with other tenants. Sharing of the resources among various tenants is not popular
due to the security concerns. There are few solutions that try to solve the security problem of resource
sharing among tenants. Having a trusted mediator between multiple tenants is one of the methods. Few
research papers have been written, and this chapter attempts to enhance one of the published solutions:
Cross-tenant access control model for cloud computing. Most of the existing research papers explore the
theoretical way to solve the problem. This project develops a working prototype and proves how resource
sharing can be achieved. This research develops the concept of resource sharing activation, where the
resource can be shared with multiple cloud tenant and the deactivation where the shared resources can
be removed from the shared resource pool.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch003

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

INTRODUCTION

Security is one of the biggest concerns in today’s technology driven world. Security breach, privacy viola-
tion has become every day news. With many critical sectors like healthcare, transport, energy embracing
the technological innovation in a big way securing the resources used by these sectors becomes critical.
The business needs and the financial aspect is forcing many companies to adapt the cloud infrastructure
of the business need. In a cloud infrastructure the infrastructure is owned and maintained by 3rd party,
and the other unknown application would be executed in the same physical infrastructure. This is not
how the legacy application were run. In legacy environment the software application was run in an in-
dependent infrastructure and for all practical purpose the application and hardware were owned by same
entity. But the cloud paradigm changes this approach and enables faster and cost-effective deployments.
But this approach raised many concerns on the security aspect. The question to what extends the 3rd
party entities providing the cloud services can be trusted. It would be a beneficial in terms of economics
to share resources with other tenants in the cloud environment. But how to trust the resources that are
hosted by the other entities in the same cloud environment.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of the chapter is to provide an enhanced and secure solution to share the resources among
various tenants in a public cloud infrastructure. The existing solution are studied, and the short comings
are understood. This is followed by an analysis to arrive at detailed high-level requirements for the new
proposed solution. The requirements are then used to arrive a high-level design which is then prototyped
in a public cloud infrastructure.

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

The scope of the project is to build a porotype to share resources among the various tenants in a cloud
environment in a secure way. The prototype version of this project is limited to sharing the resource
between two public cloud-based file sharing servers.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

There are many solutions for sharing resources in a public cloud infrastructure with each solution has
its own limitation. The design by Quratulain Alamet et al in the paper titled A Cross Tenant Access
Control (CTAC) Model for Cloud Computing: Formal Specification and Verification (Alam et al, 2017)
proposed many improved in the existing resource sharing mechanism in the public cloud infrastructure.
But this paper has few limitations and has opportunities to improvement. The current work improvises
on the work conducted by Quratulain Alam et al. The area identified for improvement are as follows

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

1. Reduce the messaging between the tenants to share given resource.

2. Share the resource only for a predefined time rather than sharing it forever.
3. The resources that are shared are encrypted.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

This chapter provides the detailed description on steps, methods and procedures followed for the execution
of the designee, comparison of different parameters and the complete physical design implementation.
This chapter has four sections and short description of each section is mentioned below,
Section 1 discusses the Literature survey,
Section 2 details the system architecture of the system and requirement specification.
Section 3 explores the design options that were explored for the various sub-system design.
Section 4 explains the verification aspect.

SECTION 1

Literature Survey

To address the security concern and to obtain an optimum solution for the resource sharing in public
cloud environment many theories and practical solutions were proposed in various papers. The notable
few areas are listed below,

• Role based access (RBAC)

• Single Sign-On (SSO) techniques are combined with Security Assertion Markup Language
(SAML)
• Mediation service.
• Cross-tenant trust model (CTTM)
• Role based cross-tenant trust model (RB-CTTM)

Role based access (RBAC) method discussed in many papers (Ferraiolo et al, 2001), provides granular
level of access control. But it has its own limitation since in a cloud environment, either the individual
or organization may have more than one tenants and would typically manage separate infrastructure.
Therefore, it is very much possible that users do not agree to have a common agreement to manage the
access control. RBAC works nicely for the user accounts and not so nicely for some tenants. Nebula
Cloud Computing Platform (McKenty et al, nd.) developed by NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett
Field, California has integrated RBAC with finer authorization in to private cloud system. But Nebula
supports only centralized authority, which is not a feasible solution for the public cloud solution.
Sayler (2013) in the paper described in details autonomous multi-tenant network security framework
known as Jobber. Jobber built a solid inter-tenant network policy solution which can automatically al-
lowing optimized communication between trusted tenants while also blocking traffic from untrusted
tenants. But some of the security aspect is not demonstrated by the Jobber.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Single Sign-On (SSO) techniques can be combined with Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)
to perform authentication and also simple authorization in cloud environments (“Single Sign-On”, 2013),
but fine-grained authorization provided by RBAC solutions is not possible.
The Multi-tenant data architecture by IBM (“What is a cloud provider?”, n.d.) and Microsoft (Chong
et al, nd.) had proposed a resource sharing approach in data-centric cloud using database schema. This
solution is applicable to databases solution running on the cloud and not for other shared resources in
the cloud.
While these approaches are suitable for specific aspects of cloud computing, there remains need
for a general model of cross-tenant access control. Hence it is better to have a trusted entity which can
manage the access control of shared resource for all the tenants under a Cloud Service Provider (CSP).
The papers (Chong et al, n.d.; “Single Sign on”, 2013; Alam et al, 2017) describes the usage of
Mediation service to provide the access control in cloud infrastructure. But every solution has its own
limitation. Many of the solution considers the resource sharing aspect, but do not consider the full se-
curity aspect in the solution. Quratulain et al (2017) designed a Mediation service considering security
into consideration. The solution was not prototyped but proved using simulation models. Also, some of
the messaging sequence considered in the paper are not optimal. The resource sharing is done forever
or till the originating tenant decides to deactivate the resource sharing but does not account for the cases
where the resources has to be shared for a predefined time interval. There is no specification on how the
deactivation of the shared resource by an unknown user is handled.
The proposed solution fixes the security pitfall that were identified with the existing solution pro-
posed in paper (Alam et al, 2017). In addition, few enhancements are also identified as part the current
research work. The solution is prototyped which can be demonstrated using real world cloud solutions.
The message for the resource activation and resource deactivation is simplified without losing the security
of the system. A timer based resource activation is implemented to prevent any misuse of the activated
resource, and a secure communication TLS is used between all the communication entities.

BACKGROUND

Cloud service providers (“What is a cloud provider?”, n.d.) are third party companies that provides
cloud-based platform, infrastructure, applications or storage services. The end user would only pay
only of the services that they use. The cloud service provider typically provides a web interface where
the cloud user can manage resources and perform the customized setting to enable/disable a particular
service or implement access control feature on the resources.
Quratulain Alam (2017) in the paper proposed a concept of cloud resource mediation service (CRMS)
which acts a mediator between the various tenants and, the cloud users entrust the data to the cloud
service provider (CSP). This mediation server, CRMS, acts as a broker between various cloud tenants
and the helps to attains the access control over the resources that the tenants share among themselves.
The mediation server knows the set of resources that are present in the system, the owner of the resource
and the list of tenants with whom the resources can be shared.
The simplified architecture diagram of the concept that was proposed Quratulain Alam (2017) in the
paper is as shown in figure (1). The architecture is simplified to suit the current project implementation
without losing the overall architecture concept. The entities mentioned in the diagram is as explained
below.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Figure 1. Architecture overview of cross tenant access control system

• Tenant A and Tenant B are cloud services.

• Cloud Mediation Server is the trusted mediation server and is also known as cloud resource me-
diation service. In the rest of the thesis this entity will be referred to as mediation server.
• Mediation server holds the list of shared resources owned by each tenant that can be accessed
other tenant.

Firstly, it is important to know in brief how the system specified by paper (Alam et al, 2017) works
before exploring on the architecture and design of the current research work The below sequence diagram
shows the message flow associated with the permission request in a cloud environment as described in
In the sequence diagram shown in figure (2) T1 and T2 are the two cloud tenants, with T1 owning
a resource to be shared and T2 is the entity which is requesting the resource. CRMS is an entity which
perform the authentication and authorization decision based on the security policy provided by T1. The
below steps explain the message flow

1. T1 receives access requests from T2 and redirects the request to the CRMS for further processing.
2. The CRMS on receiving the permission-activation request redirected from T1, evaluates the request
on the pre-published policies.
3. The user has to authenticates at the parent tenant, T2.
4. Upon successful authentication, the user will be redirected again to CRMS with the attributes
requested by the CRMS for cross tenant policy execution.
5. The user’s attributes are evaluated against the T1 policy and if the policy criteria are successfully
fulfilled, then the user is provided service access at T1; otherwise, the access request is denied.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Figure 2. Message flow of resource activation as proposed by Quratulain Alam (2017) in the paper

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The figure (3) provides the high-level overview of the system in terms of the software usage and its
interaction. The figure (3) has the software mapping to the general architecture shown in figure (1).

Cloud Tenants

The cloud tenants Tenant A and Tenant B are implemented using Google Drive and DriveHQ cloud
solutions. The Google drive and DriveHQ are free file storage solution that runs on the cloud. These
solutions provide multiple options to the end customer, but only the file server option is utilized here.
Preconfigured accounts are created for this purpose. For this prototype the resources that are shared
among the tenants are files.

Database

The data that must be persistent has to be stored in non-volatile memory. The idea is - even if the process
crashes or if the system goes for reboot the data saved in the non-volatile memory can be retrieved by
the program and can be used. Some of the examples that require storage in non-volatile memory are user
identity and password pair, the key used to encrypt a file, the authorization list etc. In the simplest for the
non-volatile storage can be achieved by saving the contents in a plain text file and retrieving/updating it
as required. Though this approach is simple it has overhead of book keeping everything that is stored.
With technological advancement its easier and preferred solution to use a database developed by third
party and use the same to write and retrieve the data. Majority of the database available in the market
uses SQL for the purpose of writing and retrieving the data. In the project there are set of variables

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Figure 3. High-level overview of the system in terms of the software usage and interaction

that has to be stored in a persistent value. User identity and password keypair, the name of the shared
resources, the key associated with the username, the session key etc are the few items that has to be
stored persistently. There are many popular databases that are available in the market and the prototype
version will use MySQL database. The Community Edition of MySQL is free and is licensed under the
GPL which make a perfect choice for the project.

Web Interfacing to Manage the Resource

The resource that are shared in this research work are files. It could have been any resource but for the
simplicity and reasons explained in next section files are used as shared resources. The trigger to share
the resource and usage of the share resource is a manual, which means a user interface has to be provided
to share and use the shared resource. For this purpose, a suitable user interface has to be developed.
To ensure that the resources are shared by and shared with authorized user alone, there should be suf-
ficient session management implemented in the interface. The interface can be a command line-based
interface or a graphical web-based interface. Consider the ease of implementation the project uses the
web based graphical user interface approach to manage the shared resources. The web interface would
support logging to the mediation server, selecting the resource to shared and selecting with whom the
resource should be shared.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Tomcat Web Server

The user interface is web page driven, and this requires a corresponding support on the server side to
process the request that are sent from the web page user interface. This is achieved via the webserver,
which is a program that uses hypertext transfer protocol (http) and responds to the request that are send
from the web page clients. The web page and web server work in client/server model with the web user
interface being the client and the webserver acting as the server. There are many web servers available
in the market for use. Apache, Internet Information Server (IIS), nginx, Google Web Server (GWS),
Domino servers, NetWare server etc. In this project the webserver provided by apache namely Apache
Tomcat. The Apache Tomcat software is an open source implementation of the Java Servlet, Java Server
Pages, Java Expression Language and Java WebSocket technologies (Apache tomcat, n.d.).

Authentication and Authorization

For security reasons the set of entities that can access any part of the system has to be restricted and for
the same reason the access to the user has to be limited to the predefined set of operations. This brings
in the concept of authentication and authorization of the users to access the system resource. Authentica-
tion in web-based domain in simple term would mean, a user providing a predefined user identification
and password to login to the system. The user identity and the password provided by the user is then
compared against the prestored values and if they match the user is termed as authenticated user to ac-
cess the system. Once the login is performed the set of operations that the user can perform defines the
authorization aspect. As part of authorization one has to define the set of operation that can be performed
by a given user. So, the first step to system access is authentication and its followed by authorization.
In our system the system access is performed via web page and hence the web interface will provide
the facility to authorize the user. In fact, no functionality is accessible without successful authentication.
The user identity and password pair are stored in the mediation server database and the authentication is
performed by the process within Mediation server. Once the mediation server authorizes the user suc-
cessfully the same is intimated to the user via web access and a web session is created. The authorization
part is done via web server. That is the user based on the profile is restricted to access a limited set of
operation that can be performed.

MVC Architecture

Model View Controller (MVC) is a popular software architecture which is commonly used to implement
user interfaces and hence it is a popular choice for architecting web application. MVC separates out the
application logic into three separate parts namely Model, View and Controller. Model represents shape
of the data and business logic. View is a user interface. Controller handles the user request. The figure
(4) illustrates the interaction between Model, View and Controller.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Figure 4. Model view controller (MVC)architecture

Interface Among Various Entities

There are external and internal interfaces that make the system complete. The external interface includes
the interface from the mediation server to the file server namely Google one drive and DriveHQ. This
interface is not secure due to the practical limitation of the third-party file server. The scope of this proj-
ect initially was to have a secure TLS session between the mediation server and the external file server
(google one drive and the DriveHQ), but it’s not achieved. As a mitigation the files that are stored on the
external file server are encrypted using AES algorithm and the key used for encryption is known only
the tenant that is sharing the resource and to the tenant with whom the resource is shared. Thus, though
interface is insecure the resources is shared via this interface is secured. The other external interface is
between the web client and the webserver. This is an http interface. There are few internal interfaces with
in the mediation server. There is an internal interface between the Tomcat webserver, Authentication
and Authorization entity, and between the MySQL database and the Authentication and Authorization
entity. Since these are processes internal to the mediation server hence they need not be secure and in
this project, they are not secured for the same reason.

REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATION

Based on the literature survey and the further analysis the scope of the project was presented earlier
section. For developing a system with quality it’s important to have the requirements specified early in
the research. The specification will have to specified at multiple levels, with each level capturing the
details at different granularity. The specification starts at Level1, aka L1 requirements, which captures
the specification as perceived by an end user of the project. This is followed by Level2 specification
which captures the system level requirements. Level2 specification details the requirements by splitting

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

the whole system into logical or physical system and specifying what is expected from the combination
of sub-systems. This also involves specifying the interfaces between various sub-systems. The third level
of requirement specification is known as Level3 specification where each requirement related to each
entity are covered. In the project the level3 specification is provided for cloud tenants, the Mediation
server and the Graphical User interface.

Level 1 Specification

Level 2 Specification – System Level

Level 3 Specification – Entity Level

Entity Level Specification - Tenant

Entity Level Specification – Graphical User Interface

Entity Level Specification – Mediation Service

DETAIL DESIGN

The requirements and architecture covered in the section 2 forms the basis for the design. While design-
ing attempt is being made to keep the design as generic as possible, but some of the design aspect had
to be constrained to the domain of the prototype version of the project. Some of the constraints that
had to be looked into were the availability of free software for faster development, cloud services that
could be used with ease, with less or no cost. The current project work is an improvement on an existing
research paper (Alam et al, 2017), but the scope of paper did not have a design to cover. Hence scope
of designing current thesis include design for the original work and the design for the improvement that
were identified as part of this research work.

Table 1. Level 1 specification

Requirement Number Requirement Text

L1_1 As a CSP I want to facilitate secure resource sharing between to cloud tenants on the fly

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

Table 2. Level 2 - system specification

Requirement Number Requirement Text

L2_1 System shall enable sharing of resources between two tenants.
L2_2 System shall have a mediator which is trusted by all the tenants.
System shall maintain the list of shared resources supported by each tenant and the list who can
L2_3
access them.
L2_4 System shall support logging of the activities to audit the transaction in the system.
L2_5 System shall support secure message exchange between various entities for sharing resources

Table 3. Level 3 specification for tenant

Requirement Number Requirement Text

Each tenant shall publish the list of resources that are available for sharing along with the list of
L3_T_1
tenants that can access the resource.
L3_T_2 Each tenant shall have the capability to request the resources from the peer tenant on need basis.
The tenant shall be capable of sharing a resource via activation request and release the resource
L3_T_3
via deactivation request to peer tenant.
Receiving tenant shall verify the deactivation request is received only from the tenant for which
L3_T_4 the resource is allocated. This is to prevent rouge tenant from sending deactivation request to
remove the resource allocated to genuine tenant.
All the resource sharing request and resource accessing request shall be forwarded to the
L3_T_5
mediation server.
L3_T_6 Each tenant system shall rely on the mediation server to authenticate the peer tenant.

Table 4. Level 3 specification for GUI

Requirement Number Requirement Text

A GUI interface shall be provided on each tenant so that the tenant can request the shared
L3_G_1
resource.
The GUI shall have the option to select the required shared resource and tenant from where
L3_G_2
shared resourced would be fetched.

WHAT RESOURCE TO BE SHARED?

The first and foremost question to be resolved is to identify what resources are to be shared between
various cloud tenants. Since the cloud tenants in the identifiable by its IP address, in theory any comput-
ing resources could be shared between the cloud tenants. For example, the one of the cloud tenants may
have some resources that could share video conversion technology to other cloud tenant. Or it could be a
cloud tenant sharing its computing resources with other cloud tenant. The list can grow to a big number
as e various usecases are analyzed and documented. Also cost associated with each of the usecase can

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Table 5. Level 3 specification for mediation service

Requirement Number Requirement Text

Mediation Service shall maintain the list of supported tenants and track the request that are made
L3_M_1
by each tenant.
The mediator shall handle the authorization request while sharing resource.
(1) The activation request shall be verified by the Mediation service to check if the requested
L3_M_2 resources are available for sharing from the tenant.
(2) The deactivation request shall be verified by the Mediation service to check if the
deactivation request is valid one.
Mediation service shall accept the deactivation requests if the requesting tenant has already
L3_M_3
requested for an activation session.
All the system entities shall support logging to track the transactions happening in the system for
L3_M_4
verification.

vary. The cost involves the time to design and implement a given usecase and also the cost associated in
procuring the shared resource licenses. Also, the time involved in developing a complex usecase for the
prototype can be considerably larger. Considering the above factors and based on the feedback with the
stakeholders it was decided to make an entity which is cost effective and simple to implement, and do
not consume too much time and resource. Based on this decision a file, either ascii or binary, is defined
as a shared resource for this prototype. With the file being defined as a shared resource many of the
design aspect will have to constrained with this decision.
If the file is treated as a shared resource, then the question comes how it is different from the many
network file server solutions that are available in the market. The answer to this comes by the fact that
the network file sharing solution are shared with the know set of IP address and in some cases the files
shared by the network are exposed directly to the end user, unlike this thesis solution where-in the files
sharing happens via a mediator. This kind of resource sharing via a mediator may look like a limitation,
but the design is flexible enough to include other shared resource with less changes.

DESIGN INPUTS

The bigger system can be broken down into smaller subsystem and then each subsystem can be designed
at individual level and later stitched together to get an overall system. In this section various design op-
tions that were explored for important subcomponents are documented along with the reasoning for the
design section.

Design Option to Select The Cloud Tenants

With the decision to make a file as a shared resource the next step is to select a design that us suitable
to share the file among the cloud tenant. Following design option were explored.

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Design 1: Use a Commercial Cloud Tenant

In this design a commercial cloud solution like Microsoft Azure or Amazon web server is selected and
then implement a file sharing solution. The design would involve developing solution that is custom
made, that provides a authentication framework, and an interface to share files with external entities etc.

Pros

1. Since the solution is custom made it provides enough flexibility in the design.
2. The interface security can be implement as required by the specification.

Cons

1. It’s expensive to build a solution from ground zero.

2. It take more time to build a stable solution.
3. The solution is error prone since the amount compared to readymade solution.

Design 2: Cloud Based File Service as Cloud Tenant

In this design a commercial file sharing cloud service is used. The cloud tenants would be file sharing
solution like Google drive, DriveHQ, dropbox etc. These solutions provide ready solution for sharing
the file and hence it has inbuild mechanism for authentication and would have a standard interface to
access the files.

Pros

1. The solution are less expensive especially from the prototype point of view since they are available
at almost zero cost.
2. The interfaces to these servers are available in public domain and hence easy to implement.
3. The time to develop is very less.

Cons

1. There is less flexibility in terms of customizing the solution to individual need.

2. Some of the solution do not expose secure interface to the external world. To make the solution
secure additional secure mechanism has to be implemented at the mediation server.

Considering the ease of implementation and cost involved in the developing the solution it has been de-
cided to go with design option 2 . For file sharing solution Google drive and DriveHQ has been selected.
To overcome the short coming of having insecure interface between the file sharing tenant and external
entity the file that is shared is encrypted and the keys are shared using authorized users.

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Message Authorization – Manual Versus Automatic

The authorization for the accessing the shared resource is critical in order to avoid unnecessary access.
The precondition for these designs is that the resources is already shared by the sharing party. This cov-
ers only the authorization aspect.

Design 1: Manual Authorization

In this design option for every step in the overall authorization flow the authorization is done manually
by the appropriate user by logging to the web page of the mediation server. This case is explained using
Activation of a resource usecase. The message flow is as shown in the figure (5)
The details associated with the message flow is as explained below.

1. Tenant-B send the request to access a shared request that is owned by Tenant-A
2. The Tenant-A on being notified about the request logs into the web portal and seeks the mediation
servers to check the authorization of this request.
3. Mediation server admin on being notified of step 2 logs into the web portal and checks if Tenant-B
is authorized to access the request resources. If it is authorized, then it sends a positive response
to the Tenant-A
4. Tenant-A on receiving the authorization result again logs into the web portal and authorizes the
Tenant-B to access the shared resource

Figure 5. Message flow for manual authorization

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Following are the pros and cons with the above approach

Pros:

1. The approach gives every user in the system to get granular access to the authorization.

Cons

1. There are too many manual interventions required to achieve the required activation of a shared
resources.
2. Due to the manual effort in every step the sharing of the resources can be delayed.
3. The manual steps are error prone.

Design 2: Automatic Authorization

In this design each entity has the intelligence to forward the request to the next entity for authorization.
Each entity performs its job and overall authorization is completed collectively. In this approach the
manual intervention is only to request the share resources and the rest of the flow is automated with
required logic inbuilt. The message flow for this design approach for an activation request is as shown
in figure (6)
The details associated with the message flow is as explained below.

1. Tenant-A shares the resource R1

2. Tenant-B request the mediation server to authorize to access the resource R1
3. Mediation server validates the message and checks if the Tenant-B is authorized to access the
resource requested. If the answer is positive a positive response is sent to the Tenant-B

Figure 6. Message flow for automatic authorization

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Following are the pros and cons with the above approach

Pros:

1. The design ensures that there is no manual intervention as part of the shared resource authorization
process.
2. The design is modular since the responsibilities of each entities are clearly defined.
3. Due to automatic authorization mechanism there is no delay associated with human factors.

Cons

1. The flow being automated debugging an issue and isolating the fault is cumbersome.

Based on the above analysis it has been decided to follow automatic authorization for the shared re-
sources. Hence design 2 is selected.

Message Exchange Protocol Between Various Entities

There are various entities in the system and a proper communication is required for the working of end
to end system. This point to point communication should be done via protocol that is common across
various entities in the system. Following options were explored.
Option 1: Develop a custom-made messaging mechanism to enable the point to point communication.
This would include developing the specification for the protocol, implement it and also verify the same.
The library that implements the protocol should be made available for the all the hardware variant, the
operating system and the programming language that is used on this project.
Option 2: Use the standard messaging like HTTP and API calls. This approach would require a
standard set of libraries that are available in the market. This approach would require identifying the
standard tools and library that are readily available for use and also understand the licensing terms and
the monetary cost of using such tools.
Based on the factors like ease of development and time to develop it has been decided to pursue option 2.

Persistency of User Credentials

The mediation server is the entity that stores all the credentials of the system. This include the access
details of the cloud tenants, the user who would login to the web portal to access the resources. These
credentials have to be stored forever since they are required as long as the system is live. There are mul-
tiple ways to store the credentials and below section explain the possible ways.
Option 1: The credentials can be stored in the text file either in clear text format or in encrypted
format. This will require developing logic to retrieve and write the credentials to the file when required.
Option 2: This option is using MySQL database to store the credentials in a predefined table. Since
the database take care of storage and retrieval aspect, the logic of implementation is limited to the few
set of APIs exposed by MySQL.

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Both the options are good with equal merits. Since MySQL database is used by the project for other
purposes too, its deemed advantage to continue to use the MySQL database for storing the credentials.

Log Maintenance

Logs form an important aspect for debugging the issue and also for forensic investigation. One of the
options is to dump the log on to the standard console or to a file. Second option is to store the logs into
a standardized location from where the logs can be retrieved. Since there are variety of logs that are
present in the system like one used for debugging during development and testing phases and another
set of logs for production phase and for forensic investigation. Hence it has been decided to support both
the options of logging.

USER SCENARIOS

This section covers the message flow of the various user scenarios that are possible.

Registration of a User Account

Precondition: Mediation server is configured, and the web portal is up and running.
Actor: Web client, Web server, Mediation server.

Description:

1. User access the web portal of mediation server by proving the appropriate URL.
2. User clicks on the registration button.
3. User enters the following details on the web page.
a. Username
b. Email id to be associated with the user account
c. Password for the account
d. Selects the tenant to which the user has to be associated with. The choice is either google
drive or DriveHQ
e. Selects the access policy for the account. The access policy can be student, Professor, or
researcher.
f. Phone number associated with the account. This value is not used in the current implementation.
4. Web client form the registration request message and send the details to the webserver running on
the mediation server.
5. Mediation server fetches the parameters sent by the web page and stored into local variables.
6. The username is checked for uniqueness by comparing the username presented by the web page
against all the username present in the table reg in MySQL database.
7. Mediation server creates a random security key and links the security key to the new account.
8. The random key is then sent to the email id of the registered user.
9. A successful registration notification is sent to the web page client.

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Post Condition

A user account is created in the mediation server

Sequence Diagram

Login to the System

Precondition: The user account is created, and the security key associated with the user is available
with the user.
Actors: Mediation server, Web portal, User

Figure 7. User registration message flow

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Description:

1. The user opens the web portal to login to the Mediation server
2. User enters the user credentials and the secret key
3. User clicks the submit button.
4. Web client builds the login message with the parameters - username, password and security key
and sends it to the web server running on the Mediation server.
5. Mediation server checks if the user with the given credentials exists, by querying the database
(table reg).
6. On getting a positive response from the query the mediation server sends a positive response to
the web client and creates a session for the login session.
7. The session attributes include the following
a. User name

Figure 8. Message flow for user logging into mediation server

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b. Associated tenant Name

c. Email Id of the user
d. Security Key of the user
e. Upload Policy of the user

Post Condition: User establishes a web session with the mediation server.

Sequence Diagram:

Activation of the Resource

The resource that is used for sharing is file and hence the activation of the resource maps to uploading
the file to the file sharing server.
Precondition: The users are configured on the mediation server with valid credentials. Here tenant-A
is the entity that owns the resource.
Actors: Tenant-A, Mediation server, Web portal.

Description:

1. User logs into the mediation server web portal using username, password and the unique security
key.
2. User Selects
a. The file to be shared
b. File access policy which are student, professor and researcher.
c. And enters the file access key, which is used to encrypt the file.
3. The web portal sends the details of the user name, file name, file access key, file access policy
details to the mediation server.
4. Mediation server on receiving the activation request fetches the name of the file, file access policy,
file access key and the username.
5. Mediation server uses the file access key to encrypt the file using AES encryption.
6. Mediation server uses the username to identify the associated tenant. The tenant can be Google
drive or DriveHQ.
7. Based on the tenant type mediation server uses appropriate APIs to upload the file to the cloud file
server.
8. Mediation server stores the values to identify the file and its ownership into the table (table upload)
to identify the file.

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Post Condition

The selected resource is shared with the given access group.

Sequence Diagram

Setting the Duration for Which the Resource can be Shared

Precondition: The resource that is to be shared is activated and available for sharing.
Actors: Mediation server, Web portal.

Description:

1. The user logs on to the web portal.

2. The user selects the menu to set the timer associated the shared resource
3. User sets the start time and end time indicating the time duration for which the resource is to be
shared and clicks the submit button.
4. The web client sends the filename, start time and end time details to the web server running on the
mediation server.
5. The mediation server update the database with the time start time and end time details.

Figure 9. Message flow for resource activation or sharing

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Post Condition:

The duration for which the resources are shared is set in the database.

Sequence Diagram:

Deactivation of the Resource

Precondition: The resource that is to be shared is activated and available for sharing.
Actors: Mediation server, Web portal.

Figure 10. Message flow for setting the deactivation timer

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Figure 11. Message flow for deactivation of shared resource

Description:

1. The user logs into the web portal using the credential.
2. User execute the usecase “Setting the duration for which the resource can be shared” with the end
value as the current time.

Post Condition:

The resource that was shared is no longer available for sharing.

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Figure 12. Message flow for accessing shared resource

Sequence Diagram

Access Shared Resource

Precondition:

1. The resource that is to be shared is activated and available for sharing.

2. The user has access to the shared resources and is in possession of the secret key associated with
the shared resource.

Actors: Mediation server, Web portal.

Description:

1. User logs into the web portal using the credentials.

2. User clicks on the menu to check the shared resources.
3. Web Portal displays only the resources that the user is authorized to access.
4. User clicks on the download option and provides the security key associated with the resource.
5. User sends the tenant name, name of the file to be download, the security key of the file, username
who has logged into the web portal to web server running on the mediation server.
6. The mediation server check if the filename and the associated key matches the value stored in the
database.

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Table 6. Messsage defination of Registration Request

Name Description
uname User name that is used to login to the system
pass Password for the user to login to web portal
email email id of the registered user
The cloud file server to which user is associated with. Possible values are { tenent1, tenent2}
tenent tenent1 maps to DriveHQ
tenent2 maps to Google Drive
mno Mobile number of the user
The hierarchy of the user.
policy
Possible values are { student, Professor, Researcher }

Table 7. Messsage defination of activation request

Name Description
file The name of the file as stored in the local PC
fname Name of the file as it is uploaded to the cloud file server
fkey The key to encrypt the file
The policy of the user
policy
Possible values are { student, Professor, Researcher }

Table 8. Messsage defination of download request

Name Description
fname Name of the file as it is uploaded to the cloud file server
fkey The key used to decrypt the file
uname The owner of the file

Table 9. Message defination of Login Request

Name Description
uname User name used to login
pass password of the user
skey Secrect key of the user

7. The mediation server checks if the resource that is shared is still allowed to be shared. This is done
by checking the current time against the time when the sharing of the resources has to be stopped.
If the resource sharing is allowed the usecase continue with the next step else the usecase ends
after sending an error response to web portal.

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8. The mediation server connects to the file server cloud tenant and downloads the file locally.
9. The mediation server uses the security key and decrypts the file that is downloaded.
10. The content of the files are displayed to the user on the web browser.

Post Condition:

The shared resources is available with the authorized user.

Sequence Diagram:

INTERFACE DEFINITION – MESSAGE STRUCTURE

The message exchanged between the web client and the web server is via http protocol. Here the GET
or POST methods are used for the message exchange. For both the type the message will contain name
and value pairs. Since the name value pair is used the web client and the web server should use the same
name to identify a give parameter. This forms the interface definition between the web client and the
web server. The interface definition for the messages exchanged between the web client and web server
are captured below.

Registration Request

This the message sent from web client to web server as part of user registration process. The message
exchanged between web client and web server is as shown below.

Activation Request

This is the message sent from web portal to web server to share a resource

Download Request

This message is sent from the web portal to the web server to download the shared resource.

This message is sent from the web portal to the web server while logging into the Web Server.

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VERIFICATION

The implementation is always prone to human error. The error could be due to misinterpretation of
requirements, or due to bad design or it could be because of flaw in implementation logic. Hence it is
important to check if the product that is developed is meeting the expectation of the original specifica-
tion. This is achieved in the verification stage. This verification can be done are different stages. These
can be classified as Component verification, Integration verification and System Verification.

Component Verification

In this approach a specific module/function or program is verified in isolation. This typically involves
writing the stubs for the given module. In this project this aspect was achieved using print statements at
the relevant places. This was performed for the code written in all the sub-system.

Integration Verification

In integration verification the functionally across two sub-systems are verified. Typically test stubs and
drivers are used to perform this testing. The interface definition document is mandatory for performing
this kind of testing. Understanding of the messages that are expected to flow between the sub-systems,
the handshakes between the subs-system. The kind of verification typically done via log verification or
using tools that can capture the message between two entities followed by checking the contents of the
captured logs.

System Verification

The system verification involves the checking the correctness of the system, the software delivered, the
documents that are delivered. The system verification is done by integrating all the sub-systems used in
the product. In this current project the scope of verification is limited to the verification of the imple-
mentation and the verification is done by checking the correctness of the implementation against the
requirement. In some cases, it was found during the verifications that the requirements is no feasible to
be met and hence it was decided to change the requirement to align with the ground reality

TEST PLAN

To cover the test scope, test environment, test strategy a test plan has to be in place along with the
specification. This is important to ensure that proper planning is in place with adequate test resource.

Test Planning Assumption

The test plan covers the system and integration level of verification. The component and unit level testing
are expected to be completed as part of the implementation. The expectation is the code implemented in
completeness and the required executables are available for verification. The specification is assumed to

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frozen and no changes are expected. Any change in the requirement has to be treated as a failure point
in the requirement.

Testing Environment

The test bed for the integration and system verification is done on end to end set up compromising of
the mediation server and the two cloud-based file servers. As mentioned in the architecture section the
resource to be shared is a file and hence the verification will be performed on the same. In usual cases
the integration testing is performed in a simulated environment. Creating simulation tools is not possible
within the given time frame and hence the end-to-end environment is used for integration test verifica-
tion too. The system verification assumes the entities as black boxes and verifies that the end to end
scenarios are as per the L2 specification.
The figure (13) depicts the actual test environment.
The Mediation server id hosted on a laptop/desktop. The file server is hosted on remote server namely
the google drive and DriveHQ. The credentials to these are not configurable from the entities that are under
testing and hence only criteria is to ensure that these servers are reachable from the mediation server. The
web portal of the mediation server is accessed via standard web browser like Internet explorer or Google
Chrome. To check the message that flows between the various external entities Wireshark tool is used.

Figure 13. Test environment

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Table 10. Defination of completion

Sub-Task Evidence for completeness

Test planning The test plan is ready
Testing cases The testcases with description are available
Testcase to requirement mapping The test case to requirement mapping in tabular format
All the testcases are executed and all the testcases are marked as
Test execution completeness
PASS

Tools for Testing

For the verification following tools are used

1. Web Browser
2. Standard laptop/desktop with internet access
3. Wireshark

Verification Entities

For system verification the verification entity is the Mediation server which provides the cross-tenant
access functionality along with host the web server. The web user interface is also verified to check
the user interface specification. For the integration verification the interfaces between the web portal
and the web server will be verified along with the interface between the cloud-based file server and the
mediation server.

General Test Strategy

The test strategy is to execute the end to end scenario in the test environment and verify that they are
aligned to the specification. For file sharing a simple test file is created in the test laptop and uploaded
the same to the cloud file server via the web portal. In the process of testing the functionality verify that
the general security practices are covered.

Definition of Done

The complete feature verification work involves various other sub-tasks. And each sub-task requires a
definition to mark that sub-task as completed. The following table captures the sub-tasks and its defini-
tion of completeness.

Testcases

Following table covers the testcases that are executed as part of the verification.

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Table 11. Testcase with test description

Test # Testcase Title Description

Input:
Connect to the web portal via a browser
Click on the registration option.
Provide the required details necessary in the form
T1 Registration of a user
Submit the Form
Expected Output:
The user should be registered in the mediation server
User secret key should be available in the registered email id
Input:
Connect to the web portal via a browser
Click on the Login option.
Authentication of a user by Enter username, password and secret key.
T2
the mediation server Submit the form

Expected Output:
The user should be able to login to the mediation server
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Select the resource that must be shared.
Sharing of the resource by
T3 Share the resource
a registered user
Expected Output:
The resource is shared and is available for the user with the same profile.
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Select the resource that was shared.
Deactivation of the Set the deactivation time as current time.
T4
resource Click the submit

Expected Output:
The resource is no longer available for sharing
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Select the resource that was shared earlier.
Each tenant requesting Provide the file security key
T5
resource from peer Click on the download option

Expected Output:
The share resource is available for the end user.
Input:
Login to the mediation server with policy student.
Select the resource that was shared earlier with policy professor.
Deactivation of resource
T6 Click on the download option.
only from authorised peer
Expected Output:
The share resource is not available for the end user.
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Select the resource that must be shared.
Tenant publishing the list
Share the resource
T7 of resource available for
sharing
Expected Output:
The resource is shared and is available for the user with the same profile.
Verify by logging as another user to see the resources are available for download
continued on the following page

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Table 11. Continued

Test # Testcase Title Description
Input:
GUI should provide the
Login to the mediation server
option to select the shared
In the user interface there should be a option to select the shared resource
T8 resource and tenant from
where the shared resource
Expected Output:
can be fetched
The shared resources are available in the GUI
Input:
There is no direct way to verify this. This testcase has to be executed by checking
the database (MySQL)
Login to the mediation server
The mediation server
Connect to the MySQL database.
T9 maintains the list of
Check the entries present in table tenant by executing the sql command in the
supported tenants
database.
Expected Output:
The list of shared resources are available in the database present in the mediation
server.
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Logging of the message
T10 Perform the activation of resource operation.
request is supported
Expected Output:
The operation that are performed are available in the log file.
Input:
Login to the mediation server
Select the resource that has to be shared.
Share the resource
Resource sharing and Input:
Resource accessing Login to the mediation server and different user
T11
handling by Mediation Select the resource that was shared earlier.
server Provide the file security key
Click on the download option
Expected Output:
The user is able to share the resource via mediation server and the resource can
also be accessed via mediation server.

Testcase to Requirement Mapping

The following table covers the testcase to requirement mapping.

Test Results

All the testcases mentioned above were passed. Below is the list of issues that were identified as part of
testing, and the resolution column capture the resolution for the issue.

Communication Matrix

The communication matrix captures the TCP/IP ports that are open on a given device. This is important
to know the open ports from security point of view.

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Table 12. Testcase to requirement mapping

Test # Testcase Title Requirement Number

T1 Registration of a user L3_M_5
T2 Authentication of a user by the mediation server L3_T_6
T3 Sharing of the resource by a registered user L3_T_3, L3_M_2
T4 Deactivation of the resource L3_T_3, L3_M_2, L3_M_3
T5 Each tenant requesting resource from peer L3_T_2, L3_M_3, L3_G_1
T6 Deactivation of resource only from authorised peer L3_T_4, L3_M_3
T7 Tenant publishing the list of resource available for sharing L3_T_1
GUI should provide the option to select the shared
T8 resource and tenant from where the shared resource can L3_G_2, L3_G_1
be fetched
The mediation server maintains the list of supported
T9 L3_M_1
tenants
T10 Logging of the message request is supported L3_M_4
Resource sharing and Resource accessing handling by
T11 L3_T_5
Mediation server

Table 13. Issues identified as part of testing along with the resolution

Sl No Issue Description Resolution

As per requirement the receiving The requirement was modified as “All
tenant shall redirect the request to the the resource sharing request and resource
1
Mediation service for checking the accessing request shall be forwarded to the
share resources. mediation server.”
The requirement was changed to align
As per the requirement the mediator
with the design. The requirement was
shall forward the authorization request
2 reworded as “ The mediator shall handle
to the peer node. But no such option
the authorization request while sharing
exists in the system design
resource“.
Deactivation of the resource was not The deactivation of the resource has to be
3 working. There is no option in the GUI done by setting the deactivation timer to
to deactivate the resource current time.

Table 14. Communication matrix of mediation server

Application Open Port

MySQL 3306
Apache Tomcat 8084

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

As part of testing and post project analysis following area were identified for future research.

• The cloud solutions are tied to google drive and hardhq solutions and this can be enhanced to
make the solution generic by providing the user to configure the cloud server as needed.
• The password aging, password complexity, account locking feature can be implemented for the
user accounts that are used.
• Deactivation of the shared resource. Currently this is achieved indirectly by setting the timer to
appropriate value, instead there should be an option to deactivate the resource with a click of a
button.
• The current prototype implementation is restricted to file as a shared resource. This can be en-
hanced to share any feasible computable entity as a shared device. This would be of greater useful-
ness for machine to machine communication which would be the tread in the 5G communication
era.
• A set of APIs can be developed to sharing the resource and requesting for shared resource. This
will enable programmatic way to share the resource and seek the shared resource in run time.
Current implementation is driven by humans via web interface. APIs development will enable
automated resource sharing, which will is a key enabler for machine to machine communication.

CONCLUSION

The research concludes that

• security is an important and key factor in the cloud computing world since the physical resources
are shared among various tenants. It become more important in the emerging era of machine to
machine communication where the more resources are shared among various entities.
• message optimization should be considered wherever feasible. As the number of entities partici-
pating in the communication network increases even a minor improvement will have a positive
impact in terms of performance.
• it is feasible to share the resource between two cloud entities via a mediation sever in a secure way.
• using standardized security libraries and tools are essential in building secure software solution,
since building inhouse security solution from scratch is time consuming and also error prone.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

REFERENCES

Alam, Q., Malik, S. U. R., Akhunzada, A., Choo, K.-K. R., Tabbasum, S., & Alam, M. (2017). A Cross
Tenant Access Control (CTAC) Model for Cloud Computing:Formal Specification and Verification. IEEE
Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 12(6), 1259–1268. doi:10.1109/TIFS.2016.2646639
ApacheT. (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://tomcat.apache.org/
Chong, F., Carraro, G., & Wolter, R. (n.d.). Multi-tenant data architecture. Retrieved from http://ram-
blingsofraju.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Multi-Tenant-Data-Architecture.pdf
Chong, R. F. (n.d.). Designing a database for multi-tenancy on the cloud. Retrieved from https://devel-
oper.ibm.com/tutorials/dm-1201dbdesigncloud/
Ferraiolo, D. F., Sandhu, R., Gavrila, S., Kuhn, D. R., & Chandramouli, R. (2001, August). Proposed
NIST standard for role-based access control. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security,
4(3), 224–274. doi:10.1145/501978.501980
Foster, I., Zhao, Y., Raicu, I., & Lu, S. (2008). Cloud computing and grid computing 360-degree compared.
In Grid Computing Environments Workshop (GCE), (pp. 1–10). IEEE. 10.1109/GCE.2008.4738445
McKenty, J. (n.d.). Nebula’s implementation of role based access control (RBAC). Retrieved from http://
nebula.nasa.gov/blog/2010/06/03/nebulas-implementation-role-based-access-control-rbac/,2010
Sayler, A., Keller, E., & Grunwald, D. (2013). Jobber: Automating inter-tenant trust in the cloud. 5th
USENIX Workshop Hot Topics Cloud Comput.
Single Sign-On with SAML on force.com. (2013). Retrieved from http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/
SingleSign-OnwithSAMLonForce.com
What is a Cloud Provider? (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/overview/what-is-
a-cloud-provider/

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Authentication: It is a process of verifying a user’s identity. In simple mechanism, this involves

using a username and password to prove one identity. In complex system, certificates, images can be
used to prove one’s identity.
Authorization: In computing world authorization refers to specifying access rights/privileges to
computing resources.
Cloud Computing: It defined as on demand availability of computing resources, like data storage
and computing power, without direct active management by the user.
CSP (Cloud Service Provider): Is a company that offers some component of cloud computing—typi-
cally infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS), or platform as a service (PaaS)—to
other businesses or individuals.

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Security for Cross-Tenant Access Control in Cloud Computing

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, and
hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the world wide web.
RBAC (Role-Based Access Control): Is a method of limiting access to computing resource based
on the roles of individual users within an organization.
SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language): Is an open standard for exchanging authentication
and authorization data between parties, in particular, between an identity provider and a service provider.
SFTP: Secure file transfer protocol.

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Chapter 4
Secure Identity-Based Proxy
Signature With Computational
Diffie-Hellman for Cloud
Data Management
Dharavath Ramesh
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3338-6520
Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, India

Rahul Mishra
Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, India

Damodar Reddy Edla

National Institute of Technology, Goa, India

Madhu Sake
Guru Nanak Institutions Technical Campus, Hyderabad, India

ABSTRACT
This chapter explains a secure smart cloud framework based on identity-based proxy signature (IDBPS)
scheme on Computational Diffie-Hellman (CD-H) assumption and AckIBE for data management. The
objective of this chapter is to construct a secure hierarchical structure of homogeneous and heterogeneous
cloud centers. This structure gives various types of computing services in the support of data analysis
and information management. In this, the authors also introduce a security-related solution based on
acknowledgment identity-based encryption (AckIBE), an IDBPS on computational Diffie-Hellman assump-
tion, and identity-based proxy re-encryption to face critical security issues of the proposed framework.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch004

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

INTRODUCTION

Smart models improve reliability, efficiency and substantiality of computing services in comparison
with traditional power grids in the form of smart grids (Farhangi et al, 2010). There are various benefits
given by smart grids to electrical related grids, but their presence and accuracy is confined to smaller
locations. Due to several challenges, there is a necessity of deployment of the smart grids in larger capaci-
ties. Information management is associated with the management that gathers, stores, and processes the
information (Bojkovic et al, 2012; Duff et al, 2009; Fan et al, 2012). A suitable framework is required
to manage huge sets of data, i.e. to select the data, deploy and include the data, monitor the data and
analyze the data of smart cloud models in a heterogeneous environment. In the scenario of smart mod-
els, several sources create and generate different type of data in a large quantity which is termed as big
data. These sources denote the consumption activities of the customers; phase-wise data for storage and
retrievals; energy consumption of the data used by several smart location meters; to manage, maintain
and to control the data. Data related to a network taken by operational devices like virtual machines,
servers, etc., can also serve as other parameters. These data are widely used in decision making. Big
data are measured exponentially in terms of power utilities. Countries like China, US, and Europe are
estimated to install and utilize about 450 million smart meters by that date. Also, predictions show that
the number of smart operational meters of different models of cloud will touch the range of 650 million
by the year 2020. Sometimes, processing the tasks in real time become more important since it usually
has strict deadlines. Any delay may cause harmful and destructive results of the whole system.

ID Based Proxy Signature Scheme Based on CDH Problem

Proxy signature has attracted significant attention from scholars as well as researchers (Baek et al, 2015;
Schuldt et al, 2008; Wang et al, 2015; Cao et al, 2016; Wei et al, 2014; Zhang et al, 2011; Boldyreva et
al, 2012; Gu et al, 2013). But, in order to bind between user’s corresponding identity and the public key
(usually taken as a “random” string) as a proxy signature, a certificate service is needed. This certificate
is constructed by a trusted third party known as CA (Certificate Authority) in a PKI. Thus, two verifi-
cations are required to be made by the receiver: for the user’s certificate and for the signature. Shamir,
in 1984, introduced the concept related to identity-based cryptography (IDB), which solves the above
problem. In IDB cryptography, the public key generator (PKG) constructs the private key, whereas the
public key is the identity of the user such as an email etc.
Recently, certain Identity based proxy signature schemes (IDBPS) have been built in the standard
model. But these contain loose security reductions, where, they cannot prevent the delegator attacks.
Also, their computational efficiency is very low. To accommodate this constraint, in this chapter, we
construct an efficient IDBPS and prove its security based on computational Diffie-Hellman assump-
tion. As compared with other schemes, we have two main advantages; tight security reduction and more
complete security that includes resistance of the delegator attack. Also, our scheme provides efficient
performance, including less computational cost and shorter signature size as compared to other existing
similar IDBPS schemes. In addition to this, in our scheme, secure channels are not required for transfer-
ring delegation keys, where other identity-based proxy signature schemes need this environment.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Support of Cloud Environment

The cloud computing model is a remarkable and a well-known platform for different computing sce-
narios that provides different measured services and benefits over traditional computational models. It
is energy efficient, scalable, agile, flexible and cost saving (Hayes et al, 2008). It provides energy saving
mechanisms and platform of saving the cost. Cloud computing as a smart model addresses the problem
related to information at large scale. This is exploited in two folds: it is highly scalable and able to deal
with the amount of information being processed. Also, it efficiently utilizes the resources concerned with
the data centers. In order to handle huge amount of data, the cloud environment yields better and faster
computation facility of parallel and distributed computing with efficient storage. In order to process the
huge amount of data which is termed as big data, new algorithms to perform with data analysis and new
approaches used for handling the unexpected amount of big data are required. It is possible for a cloud
service provider (CSP) to provide cheaper, more reliable and better cloud services for the users, with the
help of lower and under managed cloud infrastructure. To handle these modalities, many smart grid and
cloud computing properties in the form of different cloud models have been analyzed. This analysis proved
the validity of the relationship between the smart grid and cloud computing (Rusitschka et al, 2010).
By keeping these constraints into consideration and with the motivation of the work presented in (Lim
et al, 2011), in this manuscript, a secure smart cloud framework is proposed as a smart model based
AckIBE for the management of large amounts of data (big data) in homogeneous and heterogeneous
cloud data centers. This chapter has threefold contributions:

• Design of smart model: A framework that supports cloud computing for processing information
management related to big data, also termed as smart model, provides reasonable scalability and
security.
• A security solution supported by an identity-based encryption (IBE), ID based proxy signature
scheme (IDBPS-CDH) on computational Diffie-Hellman problem and identity based proxy re-
encryption is introduced for the proposed smart model to provide secure communication between
heterogeneous and homogeneous entities.
• Additionally, acknowledgments (AckIBE) are introduced and it is shown that how messages along
with signatures and the acknowledgments are sent in a hierarchical cloud environment from one
level to another.

The main contributions regarding IDBPS-CDH scheme is as follows:

• We propose and model a tight security IDBPS-CDH scheme which has more complete security
and can withstand the delegator attack.
• The proposed scheme IDBPS-CDH is more efficient and it reduces the computational cost as
compared to other similar existing IDBPS schemes.
• Other schemes need secure channels to transfer secret delegation keys produced during the delega-
tion procedure of proxy signer, whereas the proposed scheme just requires ordinary channels i.e.,
the proposed scheme is comparatively secure and lower in cost.

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The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the related work. Section 3 and
Section 4 presents the proposed Smart model with possible security solutions. In a particular manner,
Section 3 emphasizes the proposed Smart model architecture whereas Section 4 explains related solutions
based on AckIBE. Finally, we demonstrate the security analysis in Section 5 followed by the validation
and in Section 6. And finally, we conclude in Section 7.

RELATED LITERATURE

Smart Model: Information Management

Gathering, processing and storing of information are the three important factors of management of a
smart model. Various solutions have been introduced and proposed for addressing the issues related to
the collection of large quantities of data. The issue of interoperability is managed by standardizing the
data structures that are introduced in smart grids (Bojkovic et al, 2012; Fan et al, 2012; Wang et al, 2011).

Approaches for Security

In the literature, various security vulnerabilities have been detected (Li et al, 2009), where the smart grid
deployment is huge. In order to process the information on smart meters, various methodologies have
been introduced to capture certain security issues (Efthymiou et al, 2010; Kalogridis et al, 2010; Li et
al, 2010; chu et al, 2013). As mentioned by Wei et al. (2010), smart models are protected against cyber-
attacks. Some frameworks for the security have been introduced to control the consistent factors related
to the security requirements of smart model components. Rogers et al. (2010) used digital signatures
and time stamps to provide the authentication among communication entities participated in the net-
work. To have a secure computing in the cloud environment, identity based cryptography serves a good
purpose as explained in (Shamir et la, 1984; Ateniese et al, 2006; Green et al, 2007; Shao et al, 2011).
Coates et al. (2016) introduced the architecture of smart model’s security in a specific environment. In
public cloud environment, verification of remote data integrity is a major security concern. Because,
after outsourcing the data, user’s data can be corrupted by malicious CSP. In order to deal with security
concerns, some dynamic PDP models are designed (Wang et al, 2013; Zhang et al, 2014). In (Khurana
et al, 2010), general grid has an identity-based key agreement while our work emphasizes on providing
a framework of security which is based on identity-based encryption, identity based proxy signature
scheme and identity-based proxy re-encryption schemes to the proposed smart model.

Identity Based Cryptographic Scheme

Shamir proposed identity based cryptography that removes the requirement to detect whether certificates
are valid in traditional public key scenario (Rusitschka et al, 2010). The generator of the private key
(P_KG) is the reliable party that produces a secret key msk which is called the master key and also the
public parameter known as params. The private keys are distributed in the same manner as the digital

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

certificates are issued in any normal public key cryptography scheme. The P_KG authenticates users and
distributes private keys in correspondence with their identities. An encryption algorithm is executed by
a sender, who has IDrec that encrypts an original plain text message M. The receiver deciphers cipher-
text C by executing the decryption algorithm in taking as the KIDrec, which is the private key received
from the generator P_KG. In (Gentry et al, 2002), a methodology named hierarchical identity-based
cryptography (HIBC) is introduced. HIBC is the extension of identity based cryptography, which is used
in such a manner that the root P_KG produces private keys and authentication of identity to other users
that are lower level P_KGs (Rusitschka et al, 2010).

Identity Based Proxy Re-Encryption and Other Security Encryptions

Proxy re-encryption permits a proxy to change the ciphertext created using the public key of Alice so
that the changed ciphertext can be deciphered with the help of the private key of another party Bob.
Green and Ateniese proposed an identity based proxy re-encryption scheme which is much closer to the
framework of our proposed smart model (Green et al, 2007). Ateniese et al. (2006) proposed the first full
functional proxy re-encryption scheme to perform the encryption based on related parameters. It is based
on the pairing like IBE encryption scheme proposed by Boneh et al. (2008). Xiaming Hu et al. (2016)
introduced secure and efficient identity-based proxy signature scheme in the standard model based on
Computational Diffie-Hellman problem with proxy signature scheme. Ramesh et al. (2017) introduced
an e-Stream cipher-based secure and dynamically updating policy for secure cloud storage. It examined
a stream cipher called ChaCha20 for providing security and efficient storage.

Proxy Signature Scheme

Proxy signature has attracted significant attention from scholars as well as researchers (Baek et al, 2015;
Schuldt et al, 2008; Wang et al, 2015; Cao et al, 2016; Wei et al., 2014; Zhang et al, 2011; Boldyreva et
al, 2012; Gu et al, 2013). But, in order to bind the flow between user’s corresponding identity and the
public key (usually taken as a “random” string), in proxy signature, a certificate is needed. This certificate
is constructed by a trusted third party known as CA (Certificate Authority) in PKI. Thus, two verifica-
tions are required to be made by the receiver: for the user’s certificate and for the signature. Shamir
introduced the concept related to identity-based cryptography (IDB), which solves the above problem
(Shamir et al, 1984). In IDB cryptography, the public key generator (PKG) constructs the private key,
whereas the public key is the identity of the user such as an email etc.
IDB signature is combined with proxy signature to obtain a new signature type called as IDBPS (Gu
et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2003; Gu et al, 2006; Wu et al, 2007). It simplifies key management procedure
in setting on the certificate. Cao and Cao (2010) were the first to propose direct construction of an
IDBPS without random oracle model that was secure. But, since it was an incomplete model, it could not
withstand the delegator attacks (Cao et al, 2010; Sun et al, 2013). Gu et al. (2015) introduced a detailed
framework which is a security model of IDBPS. But, it could not withstand the delegator attacks. All
these schemes had loose security reductions. The security proof modeled in (Katz et al, 2003)proved
that an adversary may include their own constructs in different ways. Hu et al. (2015) proposed another

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

IDBPS scheme in the standard model. This IDBPS has security reduction and better computational ef-
ficiency. But, this scheme required a lot of system parameters. And the security reduction (2015) were
not tight i.e. (a reduction is called tight if). The methodology presented in (Hu et al, 20150 also could not
withstand the delegator attacks. Wang and Wei introduced an improved proxy signature scheme (Wang
et al, 2016). However, their scheme also was not based on the identity. Therefore, it is still a challenge
to build an IDBPS-CDH scheme secured in a complete security model in the standard model with tight
security reduction. On the other hand, some of the works related to the security mechanisms have been
propagated in order to make the application domain massive in various fields. By keeping the above
mentioned works in consideration, in this chapter, we address the related IDBPS schemes to fill the
negative overlaps occurred in the smart model security (Tewari et al, 2017; Hai et al, 2018; Zkik et al,
2017; Gou et al, 2017; Ibithal et al, 2017; Gupta et al, 2018; Gupta et al, 2016).

SECURE SMART MODEL

Smart model is an information management framework that provides scalability, flexibility and security.
Management of data is designed according to these models. Also, these models use the cloud comput-
ing technology to perform the data related operations. The basic strategy we opt and follow is that the
framework is constructed at three different levels of hierarchy: top, regional and end-user levels. The
first and second level contains the entities as cloud computing centers. The lowermost level contains
end-user intelligent devices.
The top level cloud is responsible to manage general devices and to collect the data taken across
several regional centers of cloud environment. These regional devices of cloud are responsible for the
management of lower hierarchical level, which contains various front end intelligent and thus the re-
gional cloud, of any specific region, processes the huge amount of data occurring from such devices. In
smart grids, leakage of information should be avoided because smart grids are vulnerable to insecurity
and illegal breach, and it may result in fatal consequences. We further propose a security solution which
makes use of IBE and IBS (Boneh et al, 2001; Green et al, 2007) and identity based proxy re-encryption
(IDBPRE). The benefit of using IBE when compared with traditional public key encryption scheme is
explained when identity based encryption uses identities instead of digital certificate that depends upon
public key infrastructure. A lot of resources are saved for performance of computation and communica-
tion. Also, the scalability issue is resolved. Additionally, to ensure that data are received successfully by
the receiver and there is no loss of data in the cloud environment. To preserve this instance, an acknowl-
edgement is introduced, which is sent by receivers to the intended senders. These acknowledgements are
sent in encrypted form so that the user deciphers it after receiving. The architecture used is depicted in
Figure. 1. A detailed IDBPS security model that includes self-proxy and proxy private key exposure.
The tight security under the new security model which is based on CDH assumption is introduced. The
proposed model has complete and tight security and can resist the delegator attack. On the other hand,
the proposed scheme is more efficient in the sense that its computational cost is reduced than most of the
present similar IDBPS schemes. Also, our scheme requires only ordinary channels for transferring the
secret delegation keys. These keys were created during the delegation procedure for the proxy signer. If
we compare it with other IDBPS schemes, then we find that these other schemes need secure channels
to transfer secret delegation keys. So, the proposed scheme is low in cost and more secure.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Figure 1. Architecture used in the system

Smart Model: General Architecture

The proposed smart model architecture is depicted in Figure. 2. This contains a grid which is parti-
tioned into various regions. A cloud computing center manages these regions. The cloud computing
center can be a multi cloud environment of the form of public or private. The primary responsibility of
any regional cloud center is to manage the end-user devices belonging to the region. It also to provide
a processing of initial level of the information that arrive from such intelligent devices. The computing
center situated at the topmost level is accountable for managing and processing the data for the whole
grid. Every computing center is accountable for the deployment of these services mentioned as follows.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Figure 2. Architecture of the smart frame

IaaS: This layer makes availability of resources to all the applications and services deployed in the
system. Gathering, processing, and storing of information, which are known as the three main tasks of
information management and are performed by this service.
SaaS: This layer performs the deployment of services of a smart-model at the top of the system. For
example, services that permit consumers for saving and optimizing their utilization of energy (Ateniese
et al, 2006) e.g. GPM.
PaaS: This layer provides tools and related libraries accountable for developing cloud computing
services and applications. Platform-as-a-service is convenient for in-built requirements for the imple-
mentation of the applications.
DaaS: Smart grid data are usually very large in quantity. It is beneficial to offer statistics services
related with data for service consumers.

Component Views

In this section, we introduce four basic functional clusters in our Smart model framework. These services
are illustrated in Figure. 3.
Information Storage: Main information storages contain all the information accumulated from the
front end intelligent devices. These storages are used in various modes of transportation using wired
channel as well as wireless channel. The related statistics exist in the corresponding cluster.
General User Services: Services consumed by electricity user are general user services. Examples
are to control, to monitor, and to optimize their electric utilization. This sort of service includes most of
the SaaS and also PaaS services that provide libraries utilized for user services.
Control and Management Services: All services with respect to system management like governance
service, monitor, task scheduling and security fall under this category.
Electricity Distribution Services: The services related to electricity distribution fall under this
category. Examples include optimization service, measuring quality of service measurement, services
pertaining to distribution.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Figure 3. Functionality of cloud service clusters

Flow of Information Management

Handling the information flow in any system is a big challenge because, the smart grid handles huge
amounts of data. There exists a centralized service that is responsible for the management of information
flows. The inputs are collected from various parameters such as amount of information, time of arrival,
and service clusters using which a schedule related to information flow are constructed. This schedule
explains the processing of information as well as the beginning and end of the flow. The centers of in-
formation and service clusters go through this schedule. The schedules created have an expiry time as
well, post which new schedule need to be created. Figure. 4 illustrates the information flow schedule.

SECURITY SOLUTIONS

As shown in Figure. 5, in the smart model framework, we make the following assumptions.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Figure 4. Information flow schedule

Figure 5. Proxy re-encryption

Model Description

We assume the following points while realizing the security framework.

• A generator of private key PK_G issues private key for the entities involved in participation, as
soon as they register. PK_G is responsible and is reliable and holds the responsibility at the na-
tional level.
• In order to recognize the top cloud, the regional clouds and the end users, the unique strings in the
form of IDs are used. These are used for verification as well as for signature.
• Each entity in participation gets a PK_G in correspondence with its identity so that the cipher-text
that contains the sensitive data can be decrypted.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

• Every entity in participation sends the encrypted information to the entity present only a level
above. An end user sends the encrypted information to the regional cloud entities while the re-
gional cloud entities send encrypted information to the top cloud only.
• Every entity in participation can authenticate data using the private key obtained from the PK_G.

The ID based proxy signature scheme is used for more security.

• Every receiver level of the information can send the acknowledgement to the sender.

Figure. 6 depicts the main idea that is framed. The top cloud is responsible for managing regional
clouds. In the hierarchy, the top cloud contains distribution services, management services and power
stations. The regional clouds have basic user services and information storages. The lowest hierarchy is
of smart (intelligent) end-user devices.

Key Generation

Setup: Through the parameter ψ >1 of security, the PK_G creates a secret key, also termed as the
master (secret) key mskey and a parameters’s set params. This parameter params is distributed among
end users and all the clouds. Say, in case of Top cloud, procedure is followed as:

Figure 6. Hierarchical architecture

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Extract_TC_Key: Once the identity TC of top cloud is obtained, the generator PK_G creates κ TC,
a private key by executing Extract(), the extraction algorithm of the private key which intakes identity
TC as the input. It is represented as:

κ TC ← Extract_TC_Key(params, mskey, TC).

Similarly, using the identities for information storage as IS, service A as Serv_A, end user as EndU,
the corresponding private keys are produced.

Encryption to Top Cloud

1. Encrypt_to_TC: An original message M can be encrypted into a ciphertext CTC by any information
storage on the execution of the Extract() IBE extraction algorithm.

We depict the encryption task as follows:

CIS ← Encrypt_to_TC (params, TC, M).

2. 2. Decrypt_TC: The ciphertext obtained is decrypted by top cloud into a decrypted message M on
performing the execution algorithm called as Decrypt using the private key κ TC using the identity
TC. We depict the encryption task as follows:

M ← Decrypt_TC(params, κ TC,
CTC).

Similarly, the encryption process on storage by end-user devices can be performed with the help of
the Encrypt and Decrypt algorithms using the identity IS.

Re-encryption for Service A

1. Re_enc_KGen: The storage present in the regional cloud produces a re-encryption key Re_encKIS →
Serv_A intaking input as κ IS, the self-private key, its identity IS and the identity of service A as
Serv_A. This is represented as:

RencKIS → Serv_A ← Re_enc_KGen( κ IS,

IS, Serv_A).

2. Re_Encrypt: The ciphertext CIS is re-encrypted through the re-encryption key Re_enc_KIS →
Serv_A and obtains a ciphertext CServ_A. This process is represented by CServ_A ← Re_encrypt
(Re_enc_KIS->Serv_A, CIS).
3. Decrypt_Service: The service A can decrypt ciphertext CServA using its private key κ ServA. It is
represented as M ← Decrypt_Service( κ ServA, CServA).

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Acknowledgement (e.g. by Regional Cloud): Any level whether topmost cloud, regional cloud or
end-user can send the acknowledgement to any sender level. It is also sent in an encrypted form so that
the recipient can decrypt it. The same encryption procedure is used.
ID based Proxy Signature Scheme: An identity based proxy signature scheme is constructed and
used for authentication purpose by the participating entities. The procedure is described in the follow-
ing section.

Security Transformation

The security framework discussed below uses IBE scheme proposed by Boneh and Franklin (2001)
and Green and Ateniese’s (2010) identity-based proxy re-encryption scheme. Both the schemes use the
bilinear pairing e: G X G -> GT, is a bilinear pairing. Here, the groups G and GT are of prime order,
which has the following properties:

• Bilinear: ∀ r, s ∈ Z *p , e( g r , h s ) = e( g , h) rs .
• Non-Degeneracy: It follows: e( g , h) ≠ 1 .
• For all g, h ∈ G, e(g, h) can be efficiently computable.

In other words, let us infer, Ep be an elliptic curve over field Fw, w = vn where v be a large prime.
Then, Ep[ φ ] = [M ∈ Ep |M ⋅ φ = O], assign the φ torsion sub-group of Ep for a large prime. Further,
the mapping for weil–pairing generates; e: Ep[ φ ] × Ep[ φ ] → Fw*β (where β ∈ Z+ and φ divides (
φ β −1 )).

Maintaining Confidentiality

This happens in three phases as (i) Key Generation, (ii) Encryption to top cloud (iii) Proxy Re-Encryption
to Information Storage. The Key generation phase happens in the below manner.

• Key_setup: The party PKG takes G and GT, two multiplicative cyclic groups of prime order p and
an admissible pairing e: G x G → GT, a generator g ∈ G and hash functions H1:{0,1}* → G and
H2:GT → {0,1}n, n ∈ Z p+ where n is the size of the plaintext. We then take random u ∈ Z *p and
calculate a ∈ g u . The top cloud sets secret master secret key mskey = u and a set of public param-
eters params = (G,GT,e,g,a,H1,H2). The parameters params is distributed to top, regional and end-
users by key generator PubKG.
• Extract_TC_Key: On obtaining the identity of top cloud TC, the generator PubKG computes H1
(TC)u ∈ G and produces the private key κ TC = H1(TC) u.

Similarly, private keys of Information Storage (IS), Service A (Serv_A), End User (EU) are produced
using the extract algorithm.

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Encryption to Top Cloud

• Extract_to_TC: A regional cloud entity can encipher an original message M with the help of
params parameter and the identity TC of top cloud using following calculations. Take random
value v where, v ∈ Z *p . Calculate C1=gv and C2=M ⋅ e(a, H1(TC))u. Later, we get output ciphertext
as CTC = (C1, C2).
• Decrypt_TC: With the help of private key κ TC = H1(TC)v, the top cloud can decrypt a received
ciphertext CTC = (C1,C2) into M, where M = C2/(e(C1, κ TC)).

Similarly, encryption to information storage located in regional clouds can be performed by the end user
devices, where identity IS is used for information storage.

Proxy Re-Encryption to Information Storage

• Re_enc_KGen: A re-encryption key is received by information storage possessing identity as IS

by calculating Re_enc_KIS->ServA = (Rk1, Rk2, Rk3). Here we compute Rk1 = gx and Rk2 = L ⋅ e(a,
H1(Serv_A))x and Rk3 = KIS-1 ⋅ H2(T).We take random x ∈ Z *p . and L ∈ GT.
• Re_encrypt: We have the re-encryption key Re_enc_KIS->ServA = (Rk1, Rk2, Rk3).The cipher-
text CIS = (C1,C2) is re-encrypted by service A and a new ciphertext is calculated as CServ_A =
(C1,C2,e(C1,Rk3),Rk1,Rk2).
• Decrypt_Service: Let CservA = (C1’, C2’, Rk1’, Rk2’) = (C1, C2 ⋅ e (C1, Rk3), Rk1, Rk2).

Since we have KservA = H1(Serv_A)u, the service A calculates L = RK2’ / e(Kserv_A, Rk1’). Later, we
calculate M = C2’ / e(C1’, H2(L)).

Authentication Service

CDH Problem and CDH Assumption: We have a three tuple (f, fi, fj), where f is a generator of G0 and
i, j are random numbers from Zp, the CDH problem is to find fij. It is said that ( ∈ ,t) CDH assumption
holds if there is no algorithm that executes with the time at most t and with the probability at least ∈ is
able to solve the given CDH problem.
ID based Proxy Signature Scheme (IDBPS): An ID based Proxy Signature Scheme is used. It
contains five components: P_Setup, P_Extract, P_Delegate, Proxy Sign and P_Verify.
P_Setup: The generator P_KG randomly take g’ ∈ G0 and b ∈ Zp* and calculates g1=g’b. Then at
random we pick g0, g2, g3, g4, g5 ∈ G0 and t0, t1 ∈ Zp* and then set e(g’, g’) = S. Additionally, we define
three collision resistant hash functions H0: {0,1}* → Zp ; H1: {0,1}* x {0,1}* x G0 → G0 ; H2: {0,1}* x
{0,1}* x G0 x G0 → Zp. The public parameter is (G0, GT, e, g0, g2, g3, g4, g5, S, H0, H1, H2) and the master
key is g2b.
P_Extract: P_KG produces a private key for a given identity ID ∈ Zp* by using the following pro-
cedure:

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•
Random elements y0, y1 ∈ Zp* and a random D ∈ G0 are selected.
•
Calculate k=e(D, g4g’IDg5y0). The value k is checked k = S then ψ =1. And tψ denotes t1, or if k ≠ S
then ψ = 0 and tψ denotes t0.
•
Calculate dID = (d1, d2) = (g2b(g0g2 tψ g3ID)y1, g’y1). The private key of ID is (d1, d2, y0, D).

P_Delegate: We assume IDo as identity of original signer (Osigner) and private key is dIDo, and the
IDp is the identity of proxy signer (Psigner) and private key is dIDp .For delegating the signing capabil-
ity of Osigner to Psigner, a warrant Wr ∈ Zp* is first defined by Osigner which includes the Osigner’s
identity and Psigner’s identity as well, and the relation of delegation. Then it does as follows.

1. Osigner calculates So=H1(Wr, T, dIDo).Here T is a time stamp. Sends (So,W, T) to Psigner.

2. If the delegation of Osigner is accepted by the Psigner, then Psigner calculates sp=H2(Wr, T, So,
dIDp). Sends (Wr, T, sp) to PubKG. However, if the delegation request is rejected by Psigner, then it
is aborted.
3. After PubKG receives (Wr, T, sp), it calculates So’ = H1(Wr, T, dIDo) and verification is done if sp =
H2(Wr, T, So’, dIDp). If the equation does not hold, then it is aborted. Else, W is made as a delegation
identity by PubKG and uses the PExtract algorithm to calculate a private key dWr = (dWr1, dWr2 ) of
the identity Wr.
4. Then, PubKG calculates SWr=dWr1 +H1(Wr, T, dIDp) and (SWr, dWr2 )is sent to Psigner.
5. After receiving (SWr, dWr2 ), Psigner calculates dWr1 = SWr − H1(Wr, T, dIDp).

In the end, Psigner receives the proxy private key dwr = (dwr1, dwr2) of the delegation Wr. It is to be
noted that since H1 and H2 are both collision resistant hash functions, all the transmission of above in-
formation do not need secure channel. It is important to use ordinary channel.
Proxy_Sign: Psigner uses the following algorithm. We have ID ∈ Zp*, (d1, d2, y0, D) of ID and msg
∈ {0,1}* which is the message that is being signed. The signature is calculated by the signer as follows:

• Select at random y2 ∈ Zp*.

• Calculate ∂1 = d1. (g4g5H0(msg))y2, ∂2 = d2= g’y1, ∂3 = g’y2, ∂4 = D.
• The signature is ∂ = (y0, ∂1 , ∂2 , ∂3 , ∂4 ).

P_Verify: We have the signature (y0, ∂1 , ∂2 , ∂3 , ∂4 ) on ID and the msg. Using these, the algorithm
is explained as:

• Calculates e( ∂4 , g4g’IDg5y0) to get the value of ψ .

• Calculate: e( ∂1 , g’) = e(g2, g1) e(g0g2 tψ g3ID, ∂2 ) e(g4g5H0(msg), ∂3 ).

The signature is accepted if the above equation holds true.

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SECURITY ANALYSIS

IBE scheme

The IBE scheme’s correctness can be proven easily. The correctness of IDBPS scheme is proved as fol-
lows. Let CServ_A = (C1’, C2’, Rk1’, Rk2’) = (C1, C2, e(C1,Rk3), Rk1, Rk2).
Rk2’/e(Kserv_A, Rk1’) = Rk2’/ e(H1(Serv_A)u, Rk1)
= L ⋅ e(a, H1(Serv_A))x / e(H1(Serv_A)u, Rk1)
= L ⋅ e(gu, H1(Serv_A))x / e(H1(Serv_A)u, Rk1)
= L ⋅ e(H1(Serv_A)u, gx)/e(H1(Serv_A)u, Rk1)
=L
C2’/e(C1’, H2(L)) = C2.e(C1,Rk3)/e(C1,H2(L))
= C2.e(C1, KIS-1. H2(L)) / e(C1, H2(L))
= C2 . e(C1, KIS-1)
= M.e(a, H1(IS))v . e(C1, KIS-1)
= M.e(gv, H1(IS)u).e(C1, KIS-1)
=M

For ID Based Proxy Signature Scheme

The correctness of IDBPS scheme can be proved as:

e( ∂1 , g’) = e(g2b(g0g2 tψ g3ID)y1 e(g4g5H0(msg))y2, g’).
= e(g2b, g’) e(g0g2 tψ g3ID, g’y1) e(g4g5H0(msg), g’y2).
= e(g2, g1) e(g0g2 tψ g3ID, ∂2 ) e(g4g5H0(msg), ∂3 ).

Security Analysis

In this section, we analyze the security aspects related to IDPSE-CDH. The proposed methodology
restricts the delegator attacks without random oracles completely (Fang et al, 2009). On the other hand,
there may be a possibility of attacks with random oracle restrictions. In order to restrict the random
oracle instances, a related scenario has been framed to give constant overlay. These factors are analyzed
in the below manner.
Section 1: Preliminaries and definitions
Group G1 belongs to a cyclic additive group. It maps to a cyclic multiplicative group G2 by Weil
pairing. The order of G1 and G2 is not necessarily prime. In this chapter, we consider the case where the
order q of G1 and G2 is a product of some large primes.
Definition 1: (CDH problem) Let a; b be chosen from Zq at random and P be chosen from G1 at
random. Given (P; aP; bP), compute abP ∈ G1. G1 is referred to as a gap Diffie-Hellman (GDH) group
if DDHP can be solved in polynomial time and no polynomial algorithm can solve CDHP with non-
negligible advantage within polynomial time (IEEE et al, 2011; Chu et al, 2013; Wei et al, 2010).

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Definition 2: Let a polynomial time probabilistic algorithm ϒ be a GDH parameter generator. Tak-
ing a security parameter , ϒ ( 1 ) generates two cyclic group G1 and G2. For a sufficiently large an
algorithm A has advantage ∈ () in solving the CDHP problem for ϒ , if is sufficiently large,

Advγ = Pr[ A(G1 , G2 , eÆ

, P, aP, bP)
= abP | (G1 , G2 , eÆ
) ← γ (1 ), P ∈ G1 , a, b ∈ Z q ] >∈ ()

Setup of a Proxy key: Assume that Alice is the original signer and Bob is her proxy. Alice delegates
a signing right to Bob by issuing a proxy tuple containing a proxy signing key. A sound proxy signature
protocol must meet the following requirements.

• A proxy signature recipient is convinced of the authenticity of a proxy, i.e., the proxy signer Bob
is authorized for proxy signing on behalf of the original signer Alice.
• Alice cannot sign on behalf of Bob.

Setup: (Alice) Run ϒ ( 1 ) with the input ∈ Z and set (G1 , G2 , eÆ

) as the output. Pick strong hash
functions H1: {0, 1}* → G1, H2: {0, 1}* x G1 x G1 → G2.
KeyGen1: (Alice) Choose s ∈ Zq as Alice’s secret key and then compute the associated public key
P’ ← sP, where P ∈ G1 is public.
Extract: (Alice) Input: the IDA ∈ {0,1}* of Alice and the IDB ∈ {0,1}* of Bob.
Output: QIDA ← H1 ( IDA ), QIDB ← H1 ( IDB ) , and QID = QIDA + QIDB .
KeyGen2: (Bob) Input: x ∈ Zq and QID. Output: X ← xQID. X is sent to Alice.
KeyGen3: (Alice) Input: u ∈ Zq, s, QID, a, where a ∈ {0,1}* is the proxy agreement.
Output: proxy public key U ← uP’, v ← H2 (a, U, X) and proxy signing key K ← s (uX +vQID).
The proxy tuple consists of (IDA, IDB, a, X, K). Send the tuple to Bob. Make U public.
Lemma 1. If algorithm A0 is defined for an adaptively chosen message and ID attack to our proxy
signature protocol with running time t0 and advantage ∈01 . Then, there is an algorithm A1, for adap-
tively chosen message attack and a given ID, that has the running time t1 ≤ t0 and advantage
∈01
∈1 ≥ (1 − 1 / φ ) where φ H1 denotes the number of queries to random oracle H1 asked by A0 .
qH 2
Proof: Now, we infer that for any ID, algorithm A0 queries G(ID) and Extract(ID) at maximum once,
with none lack of generality. Our algorithm A1;

• Selects a random s ∈ {1,2,…, qH 2 }, further algorithm A0 asked the ith query to hash function H2
and denote it by IDi. Let IDi! be a ID, if it holds i=s and IDi else, H2( IDi! ), Extract( IDi! ), Proxy_
sign( IDi! ,msg) respectively.
• Then, execute algorithm A0 with the given system parameters; algorithm A1 responds to A0 queries
to H1, H2, Extract and Proxy_sign by computing H1! , H 2! , Extract!, Proxy_sign! respectively. Now,
the output of algorithm A0 is (IDout, msg, ∂ ) .
• If it holds IDout = ID and (IDout, msg, ∂ ) is valid, then the output values would be (IDout, msg, ∂ )
else reject.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

However, the allocations produced through hash function, H 2! , Extract! and Proxy_sign! are distinct
from those produced by H2, Extract and Proxy_sign of proposed model. Further, algorithm A0 doesn’t
extract any knowledge from queries result. So,

Pr [(IDout, msg, ∂ ) is valid] > ∈0 .

As H2 represents a random oracle functionality, the output of probability from algorithm A0 is valid
without the help of any queries from H 2! ( IDout ) =IDi is insignificant. Especially,

Pr[ IDout =IDi for some i |(IDout, msg, ∂ ) is valid ] > 1 - 1\ φ

As, s is randomly chosen, so we have;
Pr [IDout = IDs| IDout =IDi for some i] > 1/ qH 2 , on associating all these values together,

Pr [IDout = IDs = ID and (IDout, msg, ∂ ) is valid] > ∈01 (1 − 1 / φ ) ⋅ (1 / qH 2 ) as wanted.

With this we state that the algorithm A1 may be regarded as an adversary to the non-ID based method
obtained by using solving an ID in ID based proxy signature scheme, that is allowed to get right of entry
to the extraction oracle to achieve secret keys related to identities specific from the fixed one in addition
to the signing oracle and hash features.
Lemma 2: If A1 launches an adaptively chosen message attack with a fixed ID against our scheme
for a running time t1 by querying random oracle H2 and the signer at most φ H2, and φ S times, respec-
tively, and advantage ∈1 ≥ 10(φS + 1)(φS + φH 2 ) / φ , then the CDHP can be solved with probability ∈2
≥ 1/9 with running time t2 ≤ 23φH 2t1 / ∈1 .
Theorem 1: An adaptively chosen message attack and an ID attack can be launched by an algorithm
A0 against our system by querying random oracles H1, H2 and the signer at most φH1 , φH 2 , and and φS
times, respectively, and has running time t0 and advantage ∈1 ≥ 10(φS + 1)(φS + φH 2 ) / (φ − 1) , then Com-
putational Diffie-Hellman Problem can be solved with probability ≥ 1 / 9 and with running time
23φH 1φH 2t0
≤ ≡ T1.
∈01 (1 − 1 / φ )
Proof of security for our protocol: We now prove security of our proxy signature scheme based on
the lemmas above. Assume that there present an original signer in the Regional Cloud (Alice), a proxy
in the Regional Cloud (Bob), and a signature recipient in the top cloud (Chris). There exist three pos-
sible attacks against our protocol.

Scenario 1: Proxy Signer Against Original Signer

Proxy signer plays a game with original signer and tries to extract Original Signer’s secret key that can
be used to authorize proxy signers. The proxy signing key is constructed by using a variant of Schnorr’s
signature algorithm. Actually, both a and X (see ‘Setup of a Proxy key’ explained in Section 1 as pre-

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

liminaries) are signed by Alice using her private key sQID . The attack by algorithm A0 should now be
an adaptively chosen message plus adaptively chosen IDA and IDB. We now denote A0 by A0 ' . Therefore,
in the implementation of query, A0 ' has to ask random oracle H1, qH1 querying questions for each of
chosen IDA and IDB. A1 needs to randomly replace an adaptively chosen ID in each of two separate sets
of queries. This game is referred as Game B. As a result a new security proof and a lemma has been
generated.
Lemma 3: Assume that A0 ' queries H 1 for ID A and ID B with r unning time t 0
respectively, and has advantage
∈02 . Then, there is an algorithm A1, for adaptively chosen message attack and the given IDA and IDB,
∈02
which has the running time t1≤t0 and advantage, where ∈1 ≥ (1 − 1 / φ ) 2 where (φH1 , φH '1 )
φH1φH '1
IDA and IDB ) asked by A0 ' , respectively. It can be proven straightforward from Lemma
are the numbers of queries to H w.r.t (
1
1, by noting that the queries for IDA and IDB are independently processed. Accordingly, we need to amend
Theorem 1 in the below manner.
Theorem 2: An algorithm A0 ' can launch an adaptively chosen message and ID attack against our
system by querying H1 for IDA and IDB at most qH1, qH1’ times, and H2 and the signer at most qH2, and
10(φS + 1)(φS + φH 2 )φH1φH '1
qS times, with running t0 respectively and advantage ∈02 ≥ , then CDHP can
φ (1 − 1 / φ ) 2
23φH1φH '1φH 2 t0
be solved with probability ≥ 1 / 9 and with running time ≤ ≡ T2 .
∈02 (1 − 1 / φ )
The algorithm A0 ' gives the output as a proxy tuple (IDout, ID’out, a, X, K). If (IDout, ID’out) happens
to be (IDA, IDB) and it satisfies Verify 1, then the proxy tuple is valid. According to Forking Lemma
(Cha et al, 2003; Pointcheval et al, 2000), we can obtain two valid proxy tuples, (IDout, ID’out, a, X, K)
and (IDout, ID’out, a’, X, K’), where uX in K, K’ is treated as a signature commitment. As a result, A1
finds two equations K = s(uX + vQID) and K‘= s(uX+v’QID), with the probability and time described
in Theorem 2. The secret key can be found: sQID = (K–K’)/(v − v’). This implies the correctness of
Theorem 2 in this security proof.

Scenario 2: Original Signer Against Proxy Signer

Original signer plays a game with Proxy signer with an aim on extracting Proxy signer’s secret key xQID.
The success in this game will gain the right to sign on behalf of Proxy Signer. The game is played on
the SKP. We can still apply the proof model that has been used in Game B. Lemma 3 and Theorem 2
are still correct to the SKP. As a result, A0 ' outputs a proof tuple, (IDout, ID’out, m, X, Θ, C), which is
valid if (IDout, ID’out) = (IDA, IDB) and it satisfies Verify2. Again, based on Forking Lemma, A1 can find two valid proofs, (IDA, IDB, m, X, Θ, C
) and (
IDA, IDB,m’ , X, Θ, C’), with the probability and running time, described in Theorem 2. The equations w.r.t
the proofs are C=(θ −cx)QID and C’ = (θ – c’ x)QID, from which we can find the secret key xQID..

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Scenario 3: Signature Recipient Against Proxy Signer

Signature recipient plays a game with Proxy signer to extract Proxy signer’s secret proxy key. Our proxy
signature is more secure than a normal signature, because to break our scheme, Signature Recipient
needs to extract two secret keys K and xQID. A0 ' and A1 should now play two separate games against K
and xQID, respectively. The game against K is the same as that proposed by Cha and Cheon (2003) as
summarized in the preceding subsection. The game against xQID is the same as that of Scenario 2.
Remark1: Scenario 3 can be considered as an attack which is carried out through two independent
attacks or two independent approaches to solve two CDHPs respectively. From Theorems 1 and 2, in Scenario 3 if there are A0 and A0 '
satisfying the conditions in Theorems 1 and 2 then the probability of solving two Computational Diffie-
Hellman Problems respectively is at least 1/81 with running time ≤ max (T1, T2).
Lemma 4: If there may be an algorithm A1, for an adaptively chosen message attack and given ID
attack to our proposed model, which queries H1, H2, Proxy_sign and Extract at maximum qH1 , qH 2 and
qE times respectively and has execution time t1 and advantage ∈01 > 10(qs + 1)(qs + qH 2 ) / (φ ) then

CDHP may be solved within desired time > (12068 qH1 t1 ) / ∈01 .

Lemma 5: If there may be an algorithm A0, for an adaptively chosen message attack and given ID
attack to our proposed model, which queries H1, H2, Proxy_sign and Extract at maximum qH1 , qH 2 and
qE times respectively and has execution time t0 and advantage ∈01 > 10(qs + 1)(qs + qH 2 ) / (φ − 1) then

CDHP may be solved within desired time > (12068 qH1 t0 ) / ∈01 (1- (1/ φ )).

VALIDATION AND PLATFORM USAGE

In this section, we provide a particular scenario through the usage of platform. We have participating
entities as Top cloud, entities in the Regional Cloud and End-user. The scenario shows private key
generation of the entities, Signature Generation and Encryption, Decryption and Signature Verifica-
tion, Acknowledgment sent by a sender and received by the receiver. Let the confidential message be
“SM8||75KW||Kolkata”. The below mentioned executed scenarios illustrate the operational possibilities
w.r.t the message applied at various services. All the considered operations are depicted in Figure. 7
(a, b, c, d, and e).

1. Figure. 7 (a) -First Step: The entities of top and regional cloud and the end users are registered
and their private keys are generated.
2. Figure. 7 (b) -Second Step: The smart meter makes use of the regional center identity to encipher
its confidential message with respect to the daily consumption of electricity. Along with this, a
signature is also generated based on IBS scheme and both the encrypted message (cipher text) and
the signature are sent to the Regional center (server).
3. Figure. 7(c) -Third step: The received message is decrypted by the regional center using its gener-
ated private key and also verified for authentication using verification process of IDBPSE scheme.
4. Figure. 7(d) -Fourth Step: The regional center sends an encrypted acknowledgement to the sender
(here smart meter).The encryption and decryption process is done by using the same IBE scheme.

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

Figure 7(a). Registration of entities in Regional Cloud, Top Cloud, End-user, Service A

Figure 7(b). Signature Generation and Encryption by sender

Figure 7(c). Decryption and signature verification by the receiver

Figure 7(d). Acknowledgment sent by the receiver to the sender

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

5. Figure. 7(e) -Final Step: The smart meter receives the acknowledgment by decrypting the received
data.

Performance

We may observe that the verification process is most expensive and the signing procedure is less expen-
sive by assuming that the pairing operation PO costs more expensive than a point multiplication M of
E(Fw). Note that the infeasible security of the ID based signature scheme relies upon on the scale of ω β
as long as φ has a small cofactor. Since, the pairing operation PO is comparable to an exponential
operation Ep in Fω β , so the signing value remains constant on changing the curve. Apart from this, the
size of signature also remains small as the signing operation doesn’t execute any pairing operation.
Table 1 shows the comparison metrics in terms of performance of the proposed model with other exist-
ing models.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

This chapter introduces a smart model which is a general framework used for managing data informa-
tion in smart grids. The proposed framework is based on cloud computing technology and is formulated
at three levels of hierarchy, i.e. top, regional and end-user levels. The top cloud manages the regional
cloud whereas every regional cloud handles data received from various front-end intelligent devices.
Additionally, we applied acknowledgement scheme so that the sender receives the feedback from the
destined receiver to ensure that the data are not lost and has been delivered successfully.
We have also described the architecture showing that how entities in regional cloud, top cloud and
end-user interact and transfer confidential data, signature and acknowledgement within the system.
Furthermore, we utilize Identity-based Proxy Signature scheme in the standard model based on Compu-

Figure 7(e). Acknowledgment received by the sender

Table 1. Performance metrics

Scheme Total computation overhead Integrity Validation Adaptability

Wang (2013) 6 ⋅ PO +(2C + 1) ⋅ M + 3⋅ E + C⋅ H

p No

Zhang (2014) 5 ⋅ PO + (4 ⋅ C + 1) ⋅ M + 3 ⋅ E + (C-1) ⋅

p
H No

Proposed model 4 ⋅ PO + 4 ⋅ M + 1 ⋅ E + 6 ⋅ H
p yes

(PO= pairing operation, M= point multiplication, Ep = exponential operation and H = hash function)

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Secure Identity-Based Proxy Signature With Computational Diffie-Hellman

tational Diffie-Hellman Problem. This provides tight security reduction and complete security, including
resisting the delegator attack. It has more efficient performance and less computational cost than other
similar existing schemes. As a future work, the efficiency of this framework can be further extended by
using Identity-based Conditional Proxy Re-encryption. This scheme is secure against the chosen cipher
text and identity attack in the random oracle model. Furthermore, in place of the standard model, random
oracle model can be used to secure our IDBPS scheme from various attacks.

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Chapter 5
Cloud Computing Adoption:
A Scale Development Approach

Pragati Priyadarshinee
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1408-0577
CBIT, India

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to develop a cloud computing adoption scale for Indian manufacturing,
service, and process industries. The scale development procedure has been followed from the previous
studies and is refined further for clear understanding to adopt easily. In the first step, the authors have
conducted a qualitative study for item selection. The second step includes pilot testing of 110 responses
for measurement scale purification, and finally, they are validating the scale with 660 sample respondents
through convergent validity and discriminant validity. The initial result showed very poor threshold
values for the items “top management support” and “marketplace establishment,” which have strong
literature support. This measurement scale will help managers to evaluate the level of cloud adoption
to increase the business performance. The study is a first attempt to develop a validated scale for cloud
adoption that can be used in Indian industries.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch005

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Cloud Computing Adoption

INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift that needs to understand how to adopt a new technology.
It is important to understand companies’ perceptions of cloud computing and technology adoption
because it can be used to determine the factors those are likely to influence the business performance
(Budriene & Zalieckaite, 2012). To be competitive in the current business world, many companies need
to use cloud technologies to increase their performance. Many micro businesses and SMBs are still sit-
ting on the fence and are contemplating whether to move to or not to move to the cloud computing trend
(Gupta et al., 2013). Industries normally follow developments in the technology market place to define
how well associated the developments are with their own budding business strategies. The business-led
adoption of cloud computing forms a further key area of which the most persistent business welfares at-
tributed to cloud relate to the perceived occasion to extremely reduced cost and difficulty for firms(Venter
& Whitley,2012).Cloud computing adoption for the organization is just like a smooth innovation process.
New businesses are increasingly looking into to start with cloud computing. Cloud adoption is equally
being driven from the top level organizations as well as bubbling up from the bottom level organizations.
Business becomes faster, cheaper, and better when they go in for cloud adoption (Trivedi, 2013). The low
costs, minimum technical expertise requirements, flexible and dynamic applications of cloud comput-
ing makes it easier for technology adopters to make the switch to cloud computing. Business operations
also become more agile and effective when they can scale their IT infrastructure which makes entering
markets faster as well as meet customers’ demands (Nkhoma& Dang, 2013).
Ziebell et al. (2019) researched on e-HRM (Electronic Human Resource Management) that includes
Information technology and human resource management. Zheng et al. (2018) stated that with the
rapid development cloud technology, there is a need for security to avoid unauthorized access to cloud.
Huge volume of data is generated by different organizations through the usage of cloud computing and
internet of things. An efficient storage is required with minimum cost. Data sharing and collaboration
is the current area of research (Sambrekar et al., 2019). Jeba et al. (2019) identified there is a rigorous
need of an energy efficient cloud technology which is known as green cloud computing. The computing
technologies can be arranged with a rare impact on the environment.
The virtualization is the technology, which all providers employ in cloud computing, and provides
abilities for resources through the network infrastructure. Moreover, instead of having only one system
on a physical server, several systems with different OS (Operating System) can be run on that hardware.
This is a special advantage of using cloud computing allowing sharing hardware and software, which
it leads to reducing cost. The Customers only pay for what they have to use not for all other resources
(Azarnik et al., 2012). The references of whether to adopt cloud services depend on the technological
expertise, company’s size, and corporate culture but not on the kind of process or data to be transferred
(Brender & Markov, 2013).We will empirically examine the determinants of cloud adoption through
the conceptual framework, which has been extensively used to explain enterprise IT adoption, and ask
whether it can appropriately explain not only adoption decisions but also the modalities of adoption
offered by cloud platforms. Thus, we could understand what factors can influence companies’ business
performance when choosing/considering cloud services from adopters’ point of view and what factors
will influence companies choice of cloud deployment models (Hsu et al., 2014).

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We did not find any existing scale for SMEs sectors from the cloud computing literature which can
measure adoption rate in the developing Countries like India. Hence, the present study is a first attempt
for developing Countries to generate, purify, and validate a measurement scale for cloud computing
adoption in the context of the Indian manufacturing, service and process sector to complete this major
research gap. The paper is organized into five major sections. Theoretical background of cloud computing
adoption is presented in the first section, the problem description is in second section, scale development
methodology is explained in third section, the results and discussion in fourth section and the paper
concludes with directions for the future research and managerial implications.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The main purpose of the literature review is to know the salient work was done previously in the area of
cloud computing adoption and its usability challenges at present. It also projects the intention to adopt
cloud computing and its various advantages for Industry. Opportunities and challenges are emerging for
cloud providers, technology adopters, and industries from the increasing availability of low-cost cloud
computing solutions. In order to determine the current state of knowledge and research, an extensive
review and synthesis of the literature in cloud computing adoption had been undertaken. The literature
covers various definitions of cloud computing, existing models, research gaps and factors to be consid-
ered for the Study.

Basic Concepts and Definitions

The term ‘cloud’ is metaphorical and usually points to a huge pool of working resources such as hard-
ware and software that are simply available by the Internet. Features of cloud computing are somewhat
well-defined by the existing computing concepts such as network computing, utility computing, grid
computing, and service computing(Lin and Chen,2012). According to Buyya et al. (2008), traditional
system-centric resource management architecture is measured by the supply and demand of cloud re-
sources at market equilibrium. Market-oriented cloud computing is linked to the vision, hype, and reality
for supplying its services as computing utilities.
Different types of descriptions of cloud computing are available in the literature. Usually, we use the
definition given by NIST which talks about different types of computing resources, characteristics of
cloud computing, associated service modes and deployment models. Gartner’s definition of cloud dis-
cusses scalability, elasticity, and delivery as a service. IDC has discussed cloud computing as an evolving
IT model. Forrester defines cloud as an abstraction, scalability, hosting and billing mechanism. IBM
definition of cloud computing states that it is a platform for dynamic provisions and reconfigurations of
servers as required. According to AMR Research, “cloud computing is the next generation of software
as a service, in which a complete software environment is licensed as a subscription from a software
vendor and low-cost, secure and dependable IT hardware infrastructure is ‘rented’ from a utility comput-
ing provider on demand”. Burton Group says cloud computing as “The set of disciplines, technologies,
and business models used to render IT capabilities as on demand services” (Madhavaiah et al., 2012).

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Horrigan and John (2008) observed “cloud computing as an evolving computing paradigm where data
and applications exist in the cyberspace, permitting users to access their data and information through
any web-connected device be it fixed or dynamic”. Buyya et al. (2008) explained cloud computing as
“a type of equivalent and dispersed system consisting of a group of inter-connected and virtualized
computers that are provisioned dynamically and accessible as one or more unified computing resources
based on service-level agreements established through cooperation between the service provider and
customers”. Kim (2009) defined cloud computing as “a Web browser via the Internet that is hosted by
a third party provider and paying only for the computing resources and services recycled”. Marks and
Lozano (2010) states, “cloud computing is on-demand access to the virtualized IT resources, shared by
others, paid for via subscription, accessed over the Web, and simple to use”.
There are 3 Service models (SAAS, IAAS, and PAAS) and 4 Deployment models (Private, Community,
Public, and Hybrid) for cloud computing adoption according to the NIST definition of cloud computing.

Recent Studies on Cloud Computing

Marston et al. (2011) stated Cloud computing adoption needs attention from the Government organiza-
tions. A SWOT analysis could be recommended, when studying the mix of internal and external factors
concerning the adoption of Cloud computing by SMEs (Neves et al., 2011). Priyadarshinee et al. (2017)
proposed a new paradigm by extending the Technology Organization Environment (TOE) framework
with external factors, ‘perceived IT security risk’ and ‘risk analysis’ for the first time along with ‘trust’.
Al-Somali and Baghabra (2017) tested a model of Cloud computing adoption that is influenced by in-
dividual characteristics, organisational context, technological context and social context. Ouf and Nasr
(2015) stated that cloud computing is the best solution for managing Big-Data. Hence, there is no doubt
that the future belongs to the cloud computing. Bhushan and Gupta (2017) discussed the taxonomy of
security issues in cloud, taxonomy of DDoS (Distributed denial of service) attacks, and taxonomy of
DDoS defence mechanisms in cloud computing. Yaokumah and Amponsah (2017) found that facili-
tating conditions, habit, performance expectancy, and price value had positive and significant effect
on behavioural intention to adopt cloud computing with a sample from five Industries. Arpaci (2017)
investigated the antecedents’ and consequences of cloud computing adoption in education to achieve
knowledge management.

Related Studies

Gupta and Badve (2017) presented an overview of distributed DoS attack that can be applied on Cloud
computing and required tool were also explained. Stergiou et el. (2018) integrated IoT and Cloud com-
puting focussing on the security issues to derive the benefits. Negi et al. (2013) proposed a modification
to the confidence based filtering (CBF) method that is investigated for cloud environment. Gupta (2018)
emphasized on emerging issues in computer security for which different techniques can be combined.
Gupta et al. (2016) featured the theoretical perspectives of cryptography and cyber threats in a hand-
book. A cloud server can be used for data collection to manage and control from distance by a remote
(Plageras et al., 2018).

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Research Limitations and Gaps

Brender and Markov (2013) defined the restricted nature of the study whose drive was to assist as a
preliminary survey of the risk analysis with respect to cloud adoption. Khanagha et al. (2013) stated it
is vital to recognize which variables affect the time between the generation of an administrative prob-
lem and the real acknowledgment of such a problem by the executives. Gaurangkumar and Minubhai
(2012) defined the lack of confidence in entrusting the sensitive information in Cloud computing service
provider is one of the obstacles to cloud adoption. Nkhoma and Dang (2013) explained that their data
quality (secondary data) could be the most challenging limitation of the study. Alshamaila et al. (2013)
examined cloud computing adoption in dissimilar sectors and industries in various Countries in both a
qualitative and quantitative way. Based on this research gaps the factors were identified and instrument
was developed for the survey.

Factors Identified for the Study

The items selected necessarily represent the concept about which generalization has to be made to ensure
the content validity of the scales. The best way to ensure content validity is to identify and adapt items
from earlier validated instruments. To the extent possible, we attempted to borrow items from prior re-
search. The items and questions in the proposed questionnaire for the study have been adopted from the
previous research; as mentioned earlier, Questionnaire was sent to three experts from Academic and three
experts from Industry in a related area. Their comments were asked and incorporated so that respondents
will understand the statements and its context. The scales administered to collect the primary data with
regard to various constructs used for the study are presented in table 1 below.
Lee et al. (2013) used a two-factor theory based on the Cloud adopters and barriers to analysing the
newly recognised SAAS market in Korea. Total 32 factors are analysed using AHP-Matrix. The data was
collected from 35 IT Consultants for the Survey. PEST Analysis is used for this study in which economic
factor is the most important factor for cloud adoption and social, political and financial factors are the
most important barriers for SAAS adoption.
Low et al. (2011) examined eight factors for a questionnaire-based survey for collecting data from
111 high-tech industries in Taiwan. The hypotheses were tested using logistic regression analysis. The
result signifies cloud computing service providers a better understanding of what influences cloud
adoption more.
Sobragi et al. (2014) applied a SMEs Case-Study method for a large retail corporation, a medium sized
mobile marketing company, and a small IT Services businesses in Brazil to verify the factors influencing
cloud computing adoption. The findings show cost, reliability and scalability affect cloud adoption. The
factors sustainability, interoperability, and network access are irrelevant for cloud adoption.
Alshamaila et al. (2013) studied 15 different SMEs in North-east of England through a Survey with
a semi-structured questionnaire to develop a cloud adoption model for SMEs which is based on TOE-
framework. The result shows that apart from competitive pressure all other factors influence cloud adoption.
Gaurangkumar and Minubhai (2012) tried to give a preventive (Security & Privacy), detective (Ac-
countability & Auditability) and corrective (Fault Recovery) measure to achieve trust on Cloud computing
adoption. Khanagha et al. (2013) examined the effect of Management innovation on a large telecom-
munication firm through grounded theory approach. The findings show the innovation in administrative
aspect can favour Cloud computing adoption.

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Table 1. Factors with number of items

Factors Operational Definitions Items Sources

PITSR captures an organization’s perception or attitude
related to risks that are affecting the safety and security
Perceived IT Security Risk 6 Ackermann(2012)
of a company’s IT when Cloud Computing is used as a
sourcing model.
It refers to possible damages or potential losses of an
investment-without taking potential profits into account.
Risk Analysis 6 Dutta et al.(2013)
Therefore, they can be categorized as shortfall-oriented
views of risk.
It is an idea that relates to introduce new management
Management Style practices, procedures, or structures planned to future 3 Khanagha et al.(2013)
organizational goals.
In Cloud Computing, it will be defined as a unit of
Gaurangkumar and
Trust consumer confidence to adopt the cloud computing 3
Minubhai(2012)
strategy.
An invention should be an original solution which should Utterback(1971);Wu (2011);
Technology Innovation 6
have benefit in economic aspects. Alshamaila et al.(2012)
Lee et al.(2013); Low et
It is important to know how customers buy and sell a new
Usage of Technology 5 al.(2011) ; Nkhoma et
technology that is an important aspect of business tactics.
al.(2013)
Lee et al.(2013);Low et
It is to facilitate the intra-firm cloud computing
al.(2011); Alshamaila et
Industry Usage adoption to maximise the rate of return in the business 6
al.(2012) ; Godse and Mulik
environment.
(2009)
Low et al.(2011); Guptaa
It is the combined effect of Perceived IT Security Risk, et al.(2013); Alshamaila
Cloud Computing Adoption 9
Risk Analysis, Industry Usage and Trust. et al.(2012); Morgan and
Conboy (2013)
Low et al. (2011);Lee et
al.(2013); Venters and
It is the outcome of Cloud Computing Adoption
Business Performance 10 Whitley (2012); Sobragiet
technology.
al.(2014);Godse and Mulik
(2009)

Ackermann (2012) proposed a comprehensive conceptualization of Perceived IT Security Risks

(PITSR) in the context of cloud computing adoption which is based on six distinct risk factors. The
data collected from 356 organizations is found to support the study through a second-order Structural
Equation Modelling analysis. The findings contribute to IT security and ITO research, help adopters to
assess risks, and enable cloud providers to develop targeted strategies to mitigate risks.
Gupta et al. (2013) did a questionnaire survey on Singapore SMEs using Partial Least Squire tech-
nique. The findings of the five-factor model show SMEs do not rely on Cloud computing and SMEs
do not want to use Cloud for Sharing and collaboration. Ease of Use and Convenience is the biggest
favourable factor for SMEs to adopt Cloud computing. There is a need to study the research problem
carefully before adopting any methodology. Hence, this section constitutes the problem statement, in-
strument development and survey administration and the need of measurement scale development to
check the reliability and validity.

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Relating to the problem statement, this study will focus on Industries who want to adopt or already
adopted cloud computing. Understanding the relationships between the different factors will help us
identify which ones influence more the business performance. This study will build on tested theories in
technology acceptance to determine which factors play an important role in determining cloud comput-
ing adoption. In view of how different factors relate to business performance through cloud computing
adoption, this study has the following objectives: Identify variables to measure business performance
through cloud computing adoption; Examine the variables impacting the business performance through
cloud computing adoption; Validate the scale developed to measure business performance through cloud
computing adoption; Calculate the reliability of the scale.

Instrument Development and Survey Administration

Survey based method is used to measure business performance through cloud computing adoption. A
survey instrument which questionnaire is designed to operationalize the measures of 9 constructs of
cloud computing adoption. Both qualitative and quantitative questionnaire is prepared. To measure each
of the constructs, items are prepared for each construct.
The survey instrument was planned for contributors to indicate agreement on selected statements
on a 7-point scale. The questionnaire also had sections for demographic facts such as: Name, E-mail
Id, Organizational Position, Years of Experience, Annual Turnover and Type of Industry. In the first
stage, the descriptions of the factors, as well as the dimension items for each factor, were established.
In this stage, a tentative indication of reliability and validity was also provided. This stage comprised
item generation, pre-pilot study, and pilot study. The second phase will be the final survey and model
validation. Based on the validated scales the questionnaire for the final survey will be modified. The
measurement items are listed in table 2 below.

Need for the Study

The need of this study is to check the validity and reliability of the constructs used in the instrument.
Validity is the measure of the accuracy of an instrument used in a study. Construct validity refers to
“the vertical correspondence between a construct which is at an unobservable, conceptual level and a
purported measure of it which is at an operational level” (Peter, 1981). It seeks agreement between a
theoretical concept and a specific measuring procedure. It establishes relationships between latent (un-
observed) variables and SMEs observable items. One way to check construct validity is to determine
the convergent validity and discriminant validity. Convergent validity means an indicator of a defined
construct should share a high percentage of variance. Convergent validity was checked by ensuring all
average variance extracted values greater than 0.5 and factor loading (Hair et al. 1998, Fornell & Larcker,
1981). Discriminant validity was achieved by linking the shared variance between factors with the aver-
age variance extracted from the individual factors (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Cronbach’s coefficient alpha is the maximum used estimator of the reliability of tests and scales.
However, it has been criticized as being a lower bound and hence understanding true reliability. A popular
alternative to coefficient alpha is composite reliability, which is usually calculated in conjunction with
structural equation modelling (Peterson & Kim, 2013). The average composite reliability value is always
higher than the average corresponding coefficient alpha.

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Table 2. Measurement items

Variable Description

The assurance of privacy increases the Cloud computing adoption rate.

A secured cloud service is more convenient for Industries.

Simpler Cloud is easy for sharing.

Social media helps in improved collaboration within their companies.

Cloud is a quite familiar term for your organization.

Cloud Computing Adoption(CCA)
Top management support/Internal Business Process makes a supportive climate by providing adequate resources for the adoption of new
technology.

Your firm takes into consideration the advantages that stem from adopting innovations.

The level of pressure from competitors is reduced by adopting a new technology.

Market place establishment helps to establish an online marketplace for Cloud adoption.

The complexity of an innovation is a barrier to evaluating a new technology.

Technology compatibility helps in Cloud computing adoption.

Reduced cost helps in superior performance.

Social media is an option for enhanced marketing for your cloud business.

Economies of scale help the organization to gain profits in the long term.

Adopting a new technology should help users to be more efficient economically.

Business Performance(BP)
A new technology should provide a variety by increasing customer value.

Interoperability helps in coordination between organizations.

Sustainability helps the Cloud’s ability to be energy efficient.

Your manager has a strong understanding of how technology can be used to increase business performance (Managerial Capability).

The availability of your internal systems is decreased.

Your organization can detect unauthorized data on your internal systems.

Your data is manipulated during transfer.

Data transfer to a provider lessens the speed of your internal systems.

Perceived IT Security Risk(PITR)
It is difficult to import existing data.

Personal detail is accessed without individual authorization on the system.

User companies lack disaster recovery to deal with unpredicted technical problems in the cloud.

Challenging for user companies to transfer data across different cloud providers.

User companies have limited control on testing applications in Cloud.

Technology innovation will lead to Uncertainty.

Risk Analysis(RA)
Legal disputes between enterprises are possible if they overlap.

Fault recovery finds solution for any dispute in the system (Fault Recovery).

Global distribution network helps the suppliers to widen the range of targets.

Partnerships help the suppliers to work together to develop their services.

Trading partner pressure helps with the adoption of new technology.

Large firms are efficient enough to adopt new technology.

Industry Usage(IU)
Market scope is the horizontal extent of a company’s operations which helps in Cloud adoption.

Vender reputation/Supplier Reputation depends on the number of clients.

Access to the latest software helps the clients to access the latest versions.

Rapid deployment helps customers to install any software packages.

Easy maintenance helps customers to own any IT resources to maintain the system.

Usage of Technology(UT) Technology readiness helps with the adoption of Cloud computing.

Lack of IT standards has a lesser effect on Cloud computing adoption.

Mass media affects the firm for using a new technology.

continued on the following page

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Table 2. Continued
Variable Description

Your firm experiments on new technologies and services.

Innovativeness helps a client to adopt innovations of the same social context.

Prior experience with similar technology helps the user.

Technological Innovation(TI)
Firms taking innovation strategy are more likely to adopt cloud computing.

Your organization has the ability to quickly integrate new innovation into your existing infrastructure.

Guarantee for privacy of data increases cloud adoption rate.

Accountability gives the details about unexpected error during cloud application.

Trust(T) Auditability helps to find any unexpected behaviour of the system.

Learning routines help to assign resources.

Resource allocation mechanisms help in coordination.

Management Style(MS) Your organization Incentive system encourages you to reach organization goals.

(Standard RegressionWeight )
2

Composite Reliability (CR ) =

(Standard RegressionWeight ) + Error
2

Square MultipleCorrelation
Convergent Validity (AVE) =
Squared MultipleCorrelation + Error

Discriminant Validity = √ AVE

The thresholds for Composite reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity are as follows:
Reliability: CR>0.7
Convergent Validity: AVE>0.5
Discriminant Validity: √ AVE > Inter-construct correlations

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Exploratory study approach is used for this scale development. Qualitative and quantitative research
approaches will be used to enhance the validity of findings. Constructs and variables are identified from
the literature. Expert opinions are invited to confirm whether the identified constructs are best suited to
measure business performance through cloud computing adoption. A two-step research methodology
was used for this study. An authentic instrument should cover the content domain of every construct.
The items that measure a factor should agree with each other, and the items of one factor should
disagree with measures of the other factors. Each factor should be reliable and short and easy to use.
Scale development and improvement is a three-phase approach.

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In the first step, the definitions of the factors, as well as the measurement items for each factor, were
recognised. In this step, a tentative indication of reliability and validity was also provided. This step
comprised item generation through qualitative enquiry.
The second phase is the scale purification based on the findings of the reliability and validity of 110
respondents. Based on the validated scales the questionnaire for the final survey will be modified. The
third phase will be the final survey of 660 sample data through EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) and
CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) to validate the questionnaire/scale.
Validation of survey questionnaire is necessary before applying any statistical test in the research.
(Straub, 1989; Straub et al., 2004) provides excellent guidelines for conducting survey questionnaire
validation in the area of Cloud computing adoption. In their guidelines, these authors consider reliability
and construct validity as mandatory for survey questionnaire validation. Reliability and construct valid-
ity of the questionnaire instrument were checked by calculation of Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory
factor analysis. In order to test the reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire and to further
reduce the number of items to a manageable size, a pilot study had been conducted before the main
survey was implemented. The pilot study allowed for evaluating the planned data collecting methods,
alternative measures, statistical and analytical procedures for this study. The pilot test was conducted
within a group of managers. Pilot participants did not participate in the subsequent study. Based on the
pilot test results, the survey items were minimally revised. A reliability and validity test using SPSS was
performed and successfully achieved.

Sample Characteristics

The demographic profile of the 660 respondents by title, industry and cloud structure are shown in
table 3. It provides descriptive statistics on the demographic profile of the present study. It is clear from
this table that highest qualified respondents are from PG and lowest are from Ph.D. The organizations
having 500-1000 employee size and more than 1000 are the highest targets for data collection. The
organizations having employee size of 100-250 and less than 100 are the lowest targets for data collec-
tion. It is clear from the table that the highest number of respondents is having 7 years of experience
which is more than our minimum criteria of 5 years of experience. The lowest number of respondents
is having 11 years of experience. Out of three targeted sectors, 296(45%) sample data is collected from
manufacturing sector, 261(40%) sample data is collected from the service sector and 103(15%) sample
data is collected from process industry.

Data Analysis

After collecting the data from the interviews, transcripts were prepared from the extensive notes were
taken from the researchers. The reliability was improved by sending the transcripts to the respondents
for verification and feedback. The transcripts were modified in case of interpretation.
The second round of interviews is a deeper question for Cloud Computing adoption. Based on the
final 660 refined responses, we performed data screening for purification of the data. The data collected
was analysed using EFA and CFA to examine structure, reliability and validity of the factors. The data
was tabulated in Microsoft Excel sheet and then imported in SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences version 20) for analysis.

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Table 3. Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents

Turnover(Revenue in 50-100 103 16

Crore) 500-1000 134 20.3
More than 1000 197 30
Manufacturing 296 45
Type of Industry Process 103 15
Service 261 40

Data Screening

Data screening (sometimes referred to as data screaming) is the process of ensuring your data is clean
and ready to go before conducting further statistical analyses. Data must be screened in order to confirm
the data is suitable, reliable, and valid for testing the causal theory. In table 4, six specific issues are
discussed that need to be addressed when cleaning the data.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

EFA is a statistical method for defining the correlation among the factors in a dataset. This type of study
delivers a factor structure. Overall, an EFA organizes the factors to be recycled for cleaner structural
equation modelling. Table 5 gives the steps of EFA. An EFA performs three functions:

1. Explores data for patterns

2. Determines relationship among patterns
3. Data reduction

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Table 4. Steps followed for data screening

It was ensured that the all the 3 parts were collected from all the respondents, thus, no
1. Missing Data
data was missed.
2. Outliers To detect outliers on each variable, we produced boxplots in SPSS.
Normality was assessed in two different ways: skewness and kurtosis (flat/peaked)
following the rules as:
If your skewness value is greater than 1 then you are positive (right) skewed, if it is
3. Normality less than -1 you are negative (left) skewed, if it is in between, then you are fine.
If the absolute value of the skewness is less than three times the standard error, then
you are fine; otherwise, you are skewed.
The data was found to be normal.
Linearity was assessed by examining the relationship between the independent
variables and dependent variables by forming composites. The significance value for
4. Linearity
deviation from linearity for each combination of independent variables and dependent
variables was found to be greater than .05, thus indicating that all relationships were linear.
Homoscedasticity means that the variable’s residual (error) exhibits consistent
5. Homoscedasticity
variance across different levels of the variable. Our data showed homoscedasticity.
Multicollinearity is not desirable. It means that the variances our independent variables
explain in our dependent variable are overlapping with each other and thus not each
explaining unique variance in the dependent variable. The way to check this is to calculate
a Variable Inflation Factor (VIF) for each independent variable after running a multivariate
regression. The rules of thumb for the VIF are as follows:
6. Multicollinearity ▪ VIF < 3: not a problem
▪ VIF > 3; potential problem
▪ VIF > 5; very likely problem
▪ VIF > 10; definitely problem
The VIF value in case of our data was found to be less than 3, thus indicating no
multicollinearity.
Source: Encyclopaedia of Research Design, Volume 1 (2010), Sage Publications

Table 5. Steps of EFA

The appropriateness of data is measured through KMO Statistics and Bartlett’s test of
Appropriateness of Data
sphericity. Usually the KMO value >= 0.7 is always acceptable.
There are three types of factor extraction methods.
1. Principal Component Analysis (PCA): Considers all available variances.
Factoring Methods
2. Principal Axis Factoring (PAF): It considers only common variances.
3. Maximum Likelihood (ML): It provides the model fit estimates.
The rotation type is of two types; Orthogonal and Oblique. Usually, we use Varimax
Rotation types which comes in Orthogonal rotation type which is most commonly used for verifying a new
scale.
Communality is the degree to which an item correlates with all other items. Higher
Communalities communalities are better. Low communalities value (<0.4) indicates items to be removed after
the examination of pattern matrix.
Factor structure/Pattern Matrix refers to inter-correlation among the variables being
Factor Structure
tested in EFA. Variables group into factors, more precisely load onto factors.
Correlation Matrix It measures the linear relationship between variables.

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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

CFA is an integral part of structural equation modelling. It requires developing an understanding of

presumed constructs in using structural equation modelling for confirmatory factor analysis (Chan et
al., 2007). It is useful to depict the pattern of observed variables for which latent construct hypothesized
model and validates their measurement. It assesses the reliability and validity of the measurements
through the careful specification of constructs and their indicators prior to their actual testing with data.
For the present study, we have multiple goodness-of-fit indices and validity and reliability as present in
the above table.

Goodness of Fit Indices

The main advantage of structural equation modelling for validating the factors is multiple goodness-of-fit
indices. Chan et al. (2007) explained several goodness-of-fit indices to evaluate how well the structural
model fits the data. The chi-square goodness-of-fit test is popularly used in confirmatory factor analysis.
A non-significant chi-square value indicates a good fit of the hypothesized model with the data though
the test results are highly sensitive to sample size. Also, for well-fitted hypothesized models, the chi-
square value should approximate the degree of freedom. Anotherimportant index is relative chi-square
value that is determined by dividing the chi-square value by the degrees of freedom. This ratio should be
2:1 or 3:1 for an adequate fit between the hypothetical model and the sample data. The other prevalent
measures of fit in structural equation modelling are the goodness-of-fit index (GFI), the comparative fit
index (CFI), and the root means square error of approximation (RMSEA). For a good fit, GFI should be
equal to or more than 0.90 and CFI should be equal to or more than 0.95. For RMSEA, the value should
range from 0.04 to 0.07 where a value less than .05 predict close fit, values between .05 and .08 predict
a fair fit, values between .08 and .10 predict a mediocre fit, and values more than .10 predict a poor fit.

Model Fit

There are specific measures that can be calculated to determine goodness of fit along with their threshold
values as mentioned below:
Chi-square test/DF = <3 good; <5 sometimes permissible
GFI= Goodness-of-fit index =>.95
AGFI=Adjusted Goodness of Fit index=>.80
NFI=Normed Fit Index=>.80
CFI=Goodness-of-fit index=>.95 great; >.90 traditional; >.80 sometimes permissible
RMSEA=Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation <.05 good; .05-.10 moderate; >.10 bad

Combined Approach of EFA and CFA

The combined steps of EFA and CFA are presented in the following section. The nine variables are
tested individually through EFA-CFA. Here, we have explained one variable, Cloud computing adoption
(CCA) for clear understanding out of all nine variables.

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For Cloud Computing Adoption (CCA)

The KMO value is given in table 6 as above.

1. Total Variance Explained: 67.396

2. Factor Extraction: Only one component is extracted in rotated component matrix
3. Model Fit (Path Diagram):

The CFA model for CCA factor is given in figure 1. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed where
all the items of each model such as nine items of Cloud computing adoption (CCA), ten items of Business
performance(BP),six items of Perceived IT security risk(PITR), six items of Risk analysis(RA), three
items of Management style(MS), three items of Trust(T), six items of Technology innovation(TI),five
items of Usage of Technology(UT) and six items of Industry usage(IU) were checked individually. There
are total nine path diagrams drawn individually for nine variables in AMOS 20 to check the model fit
of each variable. Figure 1 shows the Cloud computing adoption (CCA) model in Confirmatory Factor
Analysis (CFA) which initially having nine items. But two items ‘Top management support’ and ‘Market
place establishment’ are removed in the second phase of pilot testing as it showed the threshold value
below 0.5. As these two items are having strong literature support, it again verified with large sample of
660 in the third phase of scale validation and included in the validated final questionnaire. The model
fit values of CCA are given in table 7.
The result shows KMO above 0.7 which is satisfactory. Similarly Bartlett’s test of sphericity signifi-
cance value is 0.000 which is below 0.05 that is significant at 95%age confidence level. All the values
of total variance explained are above 60%age and so satisfactory for further analysis. For a good fit,
GFI should be equal to or more than 0.90 and CFI should be equal to or more than 0.95. For RMSEA,
the value should range from 0.04 to 0.07 where a value less than 0.05 predict close fit, values between
0.05 and 0.08 predict a fair fit, values between 0.08 and 0.10 predict a mediocre fit, and values more
than 0.10 predict a poor fit.
The entire CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis) model with 9 factors and 54-items is shown which
is drawn in AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) 20.0 version. The model shows the residual errors,
measurement errors along with the Squired multiple correlations.

Table 6. Determining the appropriateness of data: KMO

KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .850
Approx. Chi-Square 572.691
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Df 21
Sig. .000

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Figure 1. CFA model for cloud computing adoption (CCA)

Table 7. Model fit values for CCA

CMIN/df GFI AGFI CFI RMSEA

2.573 .941 .817 .975 .120

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Table 8 identifies the significance of each hypotheses in the study. Trust negatively influences perceived
risk in e-commerce transactions (Kim et al., 2009). In the context of cloud computing, where uncertainty
and interdependence are present, it is believed that trust helps users to overcome these concerns and
encourages adopting cloud computing (Dimoka, 2010).So, out of remaining five factors Trust (T: 0.493)
is having highest significant effect on Cloud computing adoption to measure the business performance.
Cloud computing and business performances are given equal value in organizations (Saha & Theingi,
2009). So, cloud computing adoption (CCA: 0.138) supports business performance in organizations.
The reliability was improved by sending the transcripts to the respondents for verification and
feedback. The transcripts were modified in case of interpretation. The second round of interviews is a
deeper question for Cloud Computing adoption. Based on the final 660 refined responses, we performed

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Table 8. Significant hypotheses

Serial Standardized
Regression Relation Supported(Yes/No)
No. Estimate
1 Perceived IT Security risk is negatively related to Cloud Computing adoption. -0.062 Yes
2 Risk Analysis is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. 0.084 Yes
3 Technology Innovation is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. 0.125 Yes
4 Usage of Technology is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. -0.139 No
5 Industry Usage is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. -0.085 No
6 Management Style is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. 0.085 Yes
7 Trust is positively related to Cloud Computing adoption. 0.493 Yes
8 Cloud Computing adoption is positively related to Business Performance. 0.138 Yes

exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine structure, reliability
and validity of the factors. The data was tabulated in Microsoft Excel sheet and then imported in SPSS
(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20) for analysis. The combined result of EFA and
CFA are presented in the following tables (table 9, table 10, table 11 and table 12).
The reliability of each factor is obtained by calculating its Cronbach’s alpha which should be more
than 0.7. In the above table 10, all the factors Cronbach’s alpha is more than the threshold value.
The composite reliability is the alternative to Cronbach’s alpha which is obtained by the standard
formula given by Fornell and Larcker (1981) and the threshold values should be more than 0.7. In the
above table 11, all the factors threshold values are satisfying the limit.
Convergent validity and discriminant validity are evaluated as per the formula is given by Fornell
and Larcker (1981) in table 9 and table 10. The study revealed adequate convergent validity (AVE>0.5)
and discriminant validity (√AVE) of all the measurement tools. From table 10, it can be referred that
the square root of the AVE values of each factor is greater than the inter-construct correlations which
support the discriminant validity of the study.

CONCLUSION, FUTURESCOPE AND IMPLICATION

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the scale for Cloud computing adoption in Indian
Industries. Analysing data from 660 respondents yielded important findings for the scale generation,
purification, and validation. Li and Xie (2012) stated that firms taking innovation strategy are more likely
to adopt cloud computing as a corporate strategy. Organizations have the capability to rapidly integrate
new innovation into the current infrastructure. Managers have a strong understanding of how technology
can be recycled to raise business performance (Garrison et al., 2015). Thus, from the extensive literature
review three more significant items; corporate strategy, technical capability and managerial capability
were identified and added to the study.
During the second phase of pilot data analysis with 110 responses two items; ‘top management sup-
port’ and ‘marketplace establishment’ in the construct Cloud computing adoption (CCA) showed the very
poor result. So, to get significant output, these two items were dropped in the second phase. According

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Table 9. Reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) calculation

Variables Cronbach’s Alpha(>0.7)

Business Performance(BP) 0.927
Cloud Computing Adoption(CCA) 0.916
Trust(T) 0.854
Industry Usage(IU) 0.874
Technology Innovation(TI) 0.938
Perceived IT Security Risk(PITR) 0.915
Management Style(MS) 0.911
Risk Analysis(RA) 0.889
Usage of Technology(UT) 0.892

Table 10. Composite reliability (CR) calculation

Variables CR(Composite Reliability)>0.7

PITR(Perceived IT Security Risk) 0.9765
T(Trust) 0.9716
CCA(Cloud computing adoption) 0.98658
BP(Business Performance) 0.9858
UT(Usage of Technology) 0.983
RA(Risk Analysis) 0.9829
TI(Technology Innovation) 0.99
IU(Industry Usage) 0.966
MS(Management Style) 0.9759

Table 11. Convergent validity (AVE) calculation

Variables AVE(Convergent Validity)>0.5

PITR(Perceived IT Security Risk) 0.874
T(Trust) 0.8969
CCA(Cloud computing adoption) 0.9098
BP(Business Performance) 0.8864
UT(Usage of Technology) 0.924
RA(Risk Analysis) 0.9218
TI(Technology Innovation) 0.9449
IU(Industry Usage) 0.836
MS(Management Style) 0.91

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Table 12. Discriminant validity (√AVE) calculation

Variables MS IU T CCA RA BP UT PITR TI

MS (0.953)
IU 0.911** (0.947)
T 0.243* 0.348** (0.914)
CCA 0.658** 0.851** 0.385** (0.9538)
RA 0.566** 0.660** 0.183 0.628** (0.96)
BP 0.848** 0.932** 0.348** 0.951** 0.647** (0.941)
UT 0.470** 0.547** 0.198* 0.520** 0.620** 0.539** (0.961)
PITR 0.0313 0.0355 0.038 0.0126 0.0245 0.0135 0.0509 (0.934)
TI 0.377** 0.469** 0.246** 0.446** 0.457** 0.455** 0.841** .0384 (0.972)
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

to Low et al. (2011), ‘Top management support’ creates a supportive environment by providing suitable
resources for the adoption of new technology. Lee et al. (2013) state that ‘Market place establishment’
helps to establish an online market for Cloud Computing Adoption. Hence, we verified these two items
in the third phase with the final sample size of 660 and found a valid result for the measurement scale.
In future, the academicians should examine the consistency of their theoretical models and relation-
ships with those that have been previously validated in traditional sampling frames before accepting the
results at face value. We examined only the use of a pilot survey questionnaire through EFA and CFA
analysis. Our results thus are specific to questionnaire studies, although researchers can run with more
sample size as well as in another part of the region and may conclude similar findings from the study.

Managerial Implications

The results of this study have vital implications for managers. Firstly, the large-scale industries in the
developing Countries can easily rely on this measurement scale for measuring the business performance
through Cloud computing adoption. Secondly, this scale suggests that large-scale industries can evaluate
the statistical link between Cloud computing adoption and business performance. Thirdly, this scale will
be very important from a strategic point of view. The managers can find out the relative importance of
all 9-factors for predicting the performance. Fourthly, this scale can be used to evaluate the strengths
and weaknesses of the large-scale industries. Accordingly, sufficient resources need to be provided to
the industries in order to achieve the success rate of cloud computing adoption.
Survey and online experimental designs developed by researchers could lead to improved tool inte-
gration to allow for easier development of such scale in future research. Further studies may comprise
other measurement tools like ANN, Fuzzy-TOPSIS, and others in the measurement model to get more
concrete results. In future, the researcher should measure the real influence of cloud adoption on firm
performance (e.g., sales, profit and process efficiency). The researchers should examine inter-firm as-
sociated factors as well as other firm-specific competencies and how they impact technology success.

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Chapter 6
A Computational Approach
for Secure Cloud Computing
Environments
Mouna Jouini
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9623-7226
SMART Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management, Tunis University, Tunisia

Latifa Ben Arfa Rabai

SMART Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management, Tunis University, Tunisia & College of
Business, University of Buraimi, Oman

ABSTRACT
The recent emergence of cloud computing has drastically altered everyone’s perception of infrastructure
architectures, software delivery, and development models. Projecting as an evolutionary step, cloud
computing encompasses elements from grid computing, utility computing, and autonomic computing
into an innovative deployment architecture. Cloud computing systems offer a lot of advantages like pay
per use and rapid service provisioned on demand, while it suffers for some concerns specially security.
In fact, a number of unchartered risks and challenges have been introduced from this new environment.
This chapter explores the security issues in cloud computing systems and shows how to solve these
problems using a quantitative security risk assessment model.

INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing is an emerging technology which recently has shown significant attention lately in the
word. It provides services over the internet: users can utilize the online services of different software
instead of purchasing or installing them on their own computers. The National Institute of Standard and
Technology (NIST) definition defines cloud computing as a paradigm for enabling useful, on-demand
network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (Mell, & Grance, 2010).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch006

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Computational Approach for Secure Cloud Computing Environments

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing services, servers, storage, databases, networking,
software, analytics using the Internet to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of
scale. It reduces your operating costs by paying just the services used, runs your infrastructure more
efficiently, and scales as your business needs change. It presents a new model for IT service delivery.
Cloud computing has, as well, the potential to improve the way businesses and IT operate by offering
fast start-up, flexibility, scalability and cost efficiency. As well in n last decades, cloud services adoption
haw increased and which has, also, followed consumer confidence with the security of cloud providers.
As providers invest in the security of their platforms, a McAfee survey (Intel Security, 2017) showed
complete trust in public cloud offerings increased 76 percent in 2017.
Moreover, Intel Security reports that in 15 months, 80% of all IT budgets will be committed to cloud
apps and solutions. In fact, Cloud Computing being a global urgency for organizations that choose de-
ploying applications in the cloud. The study found that the percentage of IT professionals who stated
they don’t think their IT budget will ever be 80% cloud dropped by 50% from 12% in 2015 to 6% in
2016 (Intel Security, 2017).
It offers several services presented in three models: Software as Service (SaaS), Platform as Service
(PaaS), and Infrastructure as Service (IaaS). Software as Service (SaaS) provides services existing in
the cloud or applications to end users, Platform as Service (PaaS) provides access to platforms and
Infrastructure as Service (IaaS) offers processing storage and other computing resources. Thus, CC
provides compelling benefits and cost-effective options for IT hosting and expansion, new risks and
opportunities for security exploits are introduced. So, many are moving to the cloud to take advantage
of the on-demand nature of documents, applications and services.
An area of cloud computing that is starting to garner more attention is security risks, as well as it
presents a serious problem for this environment. In fact, these security threats are increasing in last few
years like cyber thieves, data and confidential information loss, data privacy, data mobility, quality of
service and service levels, bandwidth costs, data protection, and support.
Moreover, data users’ externalization makes hard to maintain data integrity and privacy, and avail-
ability which causes serious consequences. Security is the big challenge in cloud computing systems.
In fact, Intel security survey shows that the biggest security cloud concerns in 2018 are data loss and
leakage (67%), threats to data privacy (61%), and breaches of confidentiality (53%) as compared to the
previous year. Moreover, cloud computing accidental exposure issues are jumped from 26% in 2017 to
47% in 2018 (Intel Security, 2017).
This environment is threatened to several threats and the survey shows that there are three main serious
threats types public cloud in 2018 which are: Misconfiguration of the cloud platform by a rate of 62%,
unauthorized access through misuse of employee credentials and improper access controls by a rate of
55%, and insecure interfaces/APIs by a rate of 50%. In addition, Intel Security shows that there are three
main barriers for cloud computing adoptions which are due to people and process and to technologies.
These three aspects are: Staff expertise and training by 56%, data privacy concerns by 41% and lack of
integration with on premises technology by 37% (Intel Security, 2017).
Additionally, McAfee reports that security is a major obstacle. In fact, 1 in 4 of Cloud users have
experienced data theft from the public cloud and 1 in 5 of them have experienced an advanced attack
against their public cloud infrastructure (McAfee, 2018).
In addition, organizations recognize several key advantages of deploying cloud-based security solu-
tions. In fact, 47% of respondents cloud time to deployment is so fast and 47% of them estimate that the
cost is very lower when using a cloud solution (McAfee, 2018).

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However, many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen
the cloud security and helping protect your data, and infrastructure from potential threats. Indeed, secu-
rity risk managements models exist to understand and analyse cloud computing risks in order to protect
systems and data from security exploits. The focus of this chapter is on mitigation for cloud computing
security risks as a fundamental step towards ensuring secure cloud computing environments.
In this chapter, we will show how to solve security problems in cloud computing systems using a
quantitative security risk assessment model. We aim to present a generic framework that evaluate firstly
cloud security by identifying unique security requirements, secondly to identify architectural components
affected by this risk, thirdly to make out security threats that damage these components and finally to
attempt to present viable solutions that eliminates these potential threats.
The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 presents related work. Section 3 pres-
ents related technologies. Section 4 presents security issues in cloud computing environments. Section
5 illustrates a quantitative security risk model that we will use in our new approach. Section 6 presents
our security framework that solves security problems in Cloud Computing environments in a quantitative
way. Finally, conclusions and a direction for future work are given in section 7.

RELATED WORK

Literature review was shown that there are many works that studied cloud security issues. All works
provide a qualitative discussion of security related issues in CC environments submitting a quick analy-
sis and survey of security issues. In fact, they develop and deploy a qualitative security management
framework on cloud computing environment by proposing some security strategies (countermeasures).
Arijit Ukil et al, have analyzed in (Ukil, Jana & De Sarkar, 2013) security problem in cloud com-
puting. They proposed a framework for satisfying cloud security ensuring the confidentiality, integrity
and authentication of data. In fact, they provide security architecture and necessary support techniques
for securing cloud computing infrastructure. The presented architecture incorporates different security
schemes, techniques and protocols for cloud computing, particularly in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) systems. This would facilitate to manage the cloud system more ef-
fectively and provide the administrator to include the specific solution these security problems. Hu et
al (Hu, Wu & Cheng, 2012) presented Law-as-a-Service (LaaS) model for automatic enforcing of legal
policies in the super-peer to handle queries for consumers and clients. The law-aware super-peer acts as
a guardian providing data integration as well as protection. They (Kantarcioglu, Khan & Thuraisingham,
2010) presented a dynamic multidimensional trust model with time-variant comprehensive evaluation
multi-dimensional method. With this backdrop, we present our proposed architecture and security model
towards better protection of confidentiality, privacy in a public domain cloud infrastructural backbone.
Velumadhava et al., highlight in (Velumadhava Raoa, & Selvamanib, 2015) data related security
challenges in cloud-based environment and solutions to overcome. Gururaj et al., present an overview
of security threats in cloud computing and the preventive methods (Gururaj, Mohsin & Farrukh, 2017).
It presents security issues in CC and gives as well emerging solutions that may potentially mitigate
the vulnerabilities in this environment. Avram analyses the positive and negative aspects or factors of
cloud computing adoption. The article presents an informative analyse that need to be considered by an
enterprise when making the decision of using cloud computing. These factors include the integration

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with existing IT infrastructure and existing software, cloud adoptions costs, return on investment, cloud
service performances, and cloud security issues (Avram, 2014)
Zissis et al., identify in (Zissis & Lekkas, 2012), firstly security requirements that can be damage
when a security problem rises. Then, they present a security strategy based on encryption technique to
eliminate security threats in cloud systems. The proposed solution ensures the authentication, integrity
and confidentiality of involved data and communications. The solution presents a horizontal level of
service available to all implicated entities and maintains a trust between customers and cloud provid-
ers. In (Malik & Nazir, 2012), Malik et al., list the most common security threats that damages cloud
computing environments and develop a methodology for cloud providers that will protect users’ data and
information. They provide countermeasures to protects users’ data, messages, information against various
attacks that are the major issue for anyone when they want to adopt cloud services for their work. They
study the major threats arising in cloud environments, then propose countermeasures to them. The work
in (Wang, Wang, Ren, & Li, 2011) studied the integrity problem of data storage in Cloud Computing.
In particular, the authors considered the task of allowing a third-party auditor (TPA), to cloud client,
in order to verify the integrity of the dynamic data stored in the cloud. The TPA allows eliminating the
involvement of the client through the auditing of whether his data stored in the cloud are indeed intact.
The work aims to ensure remote data integrity that supports public auditability and dynamic data opera-
tions. The authors constructed a verification scheme for the integration of these two salient features in
their protocol design. In particular, to achieve efficient data dynamics, they improved the existing proof
of storage models by manipulating the classic Merkle Hash Tree construction for block tag authentica-
tion. To support efficient handling of multiple auditing tasks, they explored the technique of bilinear
aggregate signature to extend their main result into a multiuser setting, where TPA can perform multiple
auditing tasks simultaneously. In (Băsescu, Carpen-Amarie, Leordeanu, Costan & Antoniu, 2011), the
authors proposed a generic security management framework allowing providers of cloud data manage-
ment systems to define and enforce complex security policies. They designed a framework to detect and
stop a large number of attacks defined through an expressive policy description language and to be easily
interfaced with various data management systems. They showed that they can efficiently protect a data
storage system by evaluating their security framework on top of the BlobSeer data management platform.
Several frameworks have been carried out relating to security issues in cloud computing in a quan-
titative way. In fact, they do not propose a quantitative approach to analyze and evaluate privacy, and
security in cloud computing environment. This chapter primarily aims to analyze and evaluate the most
known cloud computing security issues using a quantitative security risk analysis model called as the
Multi-dimension Mean Failure Cost (M2FC).

RELATED TECHNOLOGIES

Cloud computing appears after to the emergence of information technologies (IT) like distributed sys-
tem, and virtualisation and after the emergence of several related aspects with cloud computing which
is discussed in this section (Liang, Sherif, Anna & Athman, 2014).
Grid Computing: Grid computing is a distributed computing concept that coordinates networked
resources to achieve a common computational objective. Cloud computing is similar to Grid comput-
ing in that it also employs distributed resources to achieve application-level objectives. However, cloud

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Table 1. Features similarities and differences between cloud computing and related technologies

Differences Similarities
Cloud computing allows allocating computing resources to Both isolate and abstract the low-level
Virtualization
manage concurrent resources demands of the customers. resources for high-level applications.
Cloud Computing aims is to focus on reducing resource cost
Both interconnect and integrate
Autonomic computing rather than falling system complexity as it is in autonomic
distributed computing systems.
computing.
Cloud computing use virtualization to achieve on-demand
Grid computing Both employ distributed resources.
resource sharing.
Utility computing Cloud computing is a use of utility computing. Both offer better economic profits.

computing takes one step further by leveraging virtualization technologies at multiple levels (hardware
and application platform) to realize resource sharing and dynamic resource provisioning.
Utility Computing: Utility computing represents the model of providing resources on-demand
and charging customers based on usage rather than a flat rate. Cloud computing can be perceived as a
realization of utility computing. It adopts a utility-based pricing scheme entirely for economic reasons.
With on-demand resource provisioning and utility-based pricing, service providers can truly maximize
resource utilization and minimize their operating costs.
Virtualization: Virtualization is a technology that abstracts away the details of physical hardware
and provides virtualized resources for high-level applications. A virtualized server is commonly called
a virtual machine (VM). Virtualization forms the basis of cloud computing, as it provides the capability
of pooling computing resources from clusters of servers and dynamically assigning or reassigning virtual
resources to applications on-demand.
Autonomic Computing: Originally coined by IBM in 2001, autonomic computing aims at building
computing systems capable of self-management, i.e. reacting to internal and external observations with-
out human intervention. The goal of autonomic computing is to overcome the management complexity
of today’s computer systems. Although cloud computing exhibits certain autonomic features such as
automatic resource provisioning, its objective is to lower the resource cost rather than to reduce system
complexity.
To summarize, cloud computing leverages virtualization technology to achieve the goal of providing
computing resources as a utility. It shares certain aspects with grid computing and autonomic comput-
ing but differs from them in other aspects. Therefore, it offers unique benefits and imposes distinctive
challenges to meet its requirements.

SECURITY ISSUES IN CLOUD COMPUTING SYSTEM

Security is a major problem for cloud computing system and providers also falls into their ability to quickly
detect, contain, and mitigate an attack (Cloud Security Alliance, 2018). Additionally, cyber-attacks are
making headlines every day and organizations are expected to stay up to date and protect against the lat-
est threats, and vulnerabilities. For example, Ransomware attacks like WannaCry affected over 250,000
computers in 2017. Additionally, Bad Rabbit, Petya, and Not Petya also stormed the industry in 2017.
Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDOS) attacks like the one on Dyn DNS affected over 70 major online

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services. Other malware like the Mirai botnet in 2016 was responsible for multiple DDOS attacks on
credible sites due to unsanitary security practices. Misconfigured cloud services such as the S3 bucket
leaks by Alteryx that exposed information on 123 million Americans and one at Verizon impacting 6
million individuals. Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities exploited almost every modern processor to
leaky data and passwords (Cloud Security Alliance, 2018).
There are numerous security issues and challenges in cloud computing because it encompasses
many new information technologies like networks, databases, operating system, virtualization, resource
scheduling, transaction management, concurrent control and memory management (Sarddar, Sen &
Sanya, 2016). In fact, cloud users resit in the cloud data centers which cause serious security concerns
for example a malicious user may pretend to be the legitimate users and infecting the data cloud.
Literature review was shown that there are many works that studied cloud security issues (Ukil, Jana
& De Sarkar, 2013; Hu, Wu & Cheng, 2012; Liang, Sherif, Anna & Athman, 2014; Hamlen, Kantarcio-
glu, Khan & Thuraisingham, 2010; Jouini & Ben Arfa Rabai, 2013, Jouini, & Ben Arfa Rabai, 2016;
Kadhim, Yusof, Mahdi, Ali Al-shami & Selamat, 2018; An, Zaaba, & Samsudin, 2016). For example,
in our previous work (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2013; Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Ben
Aissa 2014; Jouini & Ben Arfa Rabai, 2013; Jouini, & Ben Arfa Rabai, 2016), we survey the major se-
curity issues in present existing cloud computing environments and help users and cloud service provider
recognize security threats that cause these problems and security requirements associated with them. We
presented a detailed survey of cloud security problems and identified nine security problems: network
security issues, data security issues, privacy issues and applications issues.

Network Security Issues

Cloud Computing allows convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable net-
works that can be quickly provisioned and free with negligible management effort or service provider
communication (Soofi & Khan, 2014). Due to the fact that the Cloud Computing embodies a compara-
tively new computing model, there is an important deal of vagueness about how security at network can
be attained and how applications security is progressed to Cloud Computing (Rajesh & Sharma, 2015).

Data Security Issues

Users may store all their private, or even sensitive data in the cloud which can be accessed by anyone
anywhere which let to many problems like data theft. Moreover, some cloud service providers even don’t
provide their own server because of the cost effectiveness and flexibility. Data loss which might be also a
grave concern for the cloud subscribers. For example, the server may swiftly shut down and causes data
loss of the users. Additionally, natural disaster might also cause data corruption. Besides, the cloud data
storage is a model of data storage in which the integrity data is stored in logical pools. It allows cloud
users to store their data in a remote server to get rid of expensive local storage and managing brand cost
and then flexibility access data of interest anytime and anywhere (Dinh, Lee, Niyato, & Wang, 2013).

Privacy Issues

Many security issues let to privacy problems in the cloud. In fact, cloud providers must impose efficient
policies in the cloud system to ensure the security of subscribers’ data. They must know who is actually

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accessing the cloud stored data. They must ensure that these data are used only by authorized users.
Cloud service provider should provide a good layer of security protection for the users while the users
should not tampered with the other user’s data. The cloud computing is a good way to reduce the cost
and provide more storage if and only if the security is done by both provider and user (An, Zaaba, &
Samsudin, 2016).

Application Issues

Malicious code can be uploaded by hackers to the cloud to steal private and sensitive information and
damage cloud user’s data and applications. Cloud providers must, so, protect the cloud services (ap-
plications) by monitoring and maintenance of their cloud programs.

THE M2FC MODEL

In (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Khedri, 2015), Jouini et al., introduced a quantitative security risk as-
sessment measure that quantifies this risk in terms of financial loss per unit of operation time (for
example dollars per hour ($/h)) due to security threats considering several dimensions within the
threat world. The measure is called as the Multidimension Mean Failure Cost (M2FC). The M2FC is a
stakeholder-based security threats assessment model. It estimates the security of a system in terms of
the loss that each stakeholder incurs due to security breaches considering several dimensions within
the threat world. In fact, the world of security threats is a segmentation of this world according to each
of its dimensions where a dimension can be defined as an elementary aspect or extent of the threat
word. The domain or world of threats can be perceived as having several dimensions like architectural
components, environmental elements, time, deployment site…For example, when considering the
deployment dimension, we give the mean failure cost per deployment site where a security breach
occurs. The basic idea is to consider threat perspectives to estimate security failure. To better explain
the usage of the proposed M2FC model, we apply on a case study to estimate the security of a system
in terms of loss incurred by each stakeholder.
The M2FC model takes into account the stakeholders’ assessment of the cost related to their require-
ments with regard to the elements of two security threats dimensions. That is why, in the following model,
the set H of stakeholders and the set R of their requirements are distinguished from the set of the leading
dimension (where we called a leading dimension a dimension that is used to guide our decomposition
of the multidimensional threat world into several slides of two dimensions each) and the set of the other
considered dimension.
Model: Let S be the set of elements in the leading dimension, D be the set of elements of the other
considered dimension, H be the set of stakeholders, R is a set of requirements, and T be a set of threats.
For every element s ϵ S, we define the Multidimension Mean Failure Costs M(s;D) of elements as fol-
lows (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Khedri, 2015):

M s; D V s  PFR s  C sP s

Where:

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Figure 1. A framework for secure cloud computing environments

• We denote  by the matrix multiplication operation

• Vs is a matrix of size H × R that each entry (i; j ) represents the value of the stake that stake-
holder Hi has in meeting requirement Rj. We denote by H (resp. R ) the size of the set H (resp.
R ).
• PFRs is a matrix of size ( H ; R ) that each entry (i; j) represents the probability of failing re-
quirement Ri due to a failure originating from element dj ∈ D .
• Cs is a matrix of size ( D ; T ) that each entry (i; j) represents the probability that an element di
∈ D fails once the threat tj has materialized.
• Ps is a column vector of size ( T ) that each entry i represents the probability that threats material-
ize during unitary period of operation.

The M2FC model is a formula in the form of a hierarchical linear system composed of stakehold-
ers, security requirements (such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability), and two perspectives
(architectural components, and environmental entities). In fact, an information system has its stake-
holders which have its own issues in the proper functioning of the system. The proper functioning
requires certain attributes of dependability which called as security requirements. If we consider the
architecture of the system that has several components, a failure exhibiting a security requirement
essentially is relative to a particular component. These components fail because of vulnerability due
to a security threat. Finally, a threat has several dimensions like source, users and location that affect
information systems.
We applied the Multi-dimension Mean Failure Cost model (M2FC) is a practical application namely
a Cloud Computing environment (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Khedri, 2015). We computed the M2FC
model for three kinds of stakeholders (bronze, silver and gold stakeholders) considering the following
threats dimensions: partner application, time, components and connectors.

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A NEW APPROACH FOR SECURE CLOUD COMPUTING SYSTEMS

We show in this section how to use a quantitative security risk analysis model to suggest our framework
for secure Cloud Computing environment. We used the Multi-dimensional Mean Failure Cost model
(M2FC) presented in previous section to propose an approach for secure CC systems.
After introducing security issues in cloud computing system, we need to make approach that allows
analyzing and making relation between security problems and their solutions. We notice that some in-
vestigators proposed solutions to threats but, they didn’t relate solutions to security issues. We propose,
in this section, an approach that uses quantitative analysis in order to ensure that our results are more
logical and efficient. We will present framework that identifies security and privacy challenges in cloud
computing. It highlights cloud-specific attacks and risks and clearly illustrates their mitigations and
countermeasures. Our proposed architecture is modular because we consider the threats individually and
seek solution for that. This helps to manage the cloud system more effectively and provide the security
analysts to include the specific solution to counter the threat. For example, in some cases or for some
users, confidentiality is the only requirement whereas for some users other security requirements are
also required. Based on the requirement like security strength, latency, bandwidth, the administrator can
choose the appropriate primitives.
Figure 1 shows our framework for secure cloud computing. It consists of four main security steps
which are (Jouini, & Ben Arfa Rabai, 2016):

• Associate Security Requirements to Security Problems: For each issue, we will choose the
security requirement affected by this problem.
• Associate Security Problems to System Components: For each security requirement, we ana-
lyze the probabilities of failure requirements matrix (PFRs) in order to select architectural compo-
nents with the higher probabilities where system fails to meet this requirement if a C component
fails.
• Associate Threats to the Components: For each component C, we analyze the probabilities of
failure requirements matrix (Cs) to choose security threats that materialized where the probability
when C is compromised is high.
• Mitigation: Propose countermeasures per security threat.

Using Methodology to Solve Security Problems

in Cloud Computing Environment

We applied in this section our framework to an illustrative example of cloud computing system. We
applied the M2FC model to quantify cloud systems and estimate the financial cost for each stakeholder
regarding the architectural component and deployment site dimensions. In fact, we take into account
the architectural perspective in which we consider the deployment sites dimension and the compo-
nents dimension. Our assessment varies according to the stakes that each stakeholder has in meeting
each security requirement per system site. We opt, as well, for using the deployment dimension (i.e.,
sites dimension) as the leading dimension. For each site of the considered system, we have the lists
of stakeholders, security requirements, components, and threats as we mentioned above (Jouini, &
Ben Arfa Rabai, 2016)

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Security Requirements

This step identifies security requirements related to each cloud computing security problem cited above.
Based on our quantitative assessment security model, we identified in previous work the following
security requirement:

• Availability
• Integrity
• Confidentiality

Next, we will present security requirements associated to security problems in CC environments.

Network Security Issues

Services availability problem poses a devastating impact on the brand and the reputation of organizations
by causing unavailability of cloud services. Moreover, VM-based malware affects the confidentiality, the
integrity and the availability security requirements of cloud computing systems (Băsescu, Carpen-Amarie,
Leordeanu, Costan & Antoniu, 2011; Ben Arfa Rabai, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012). In fact, confidentiality
is at risk because the customers’ data could be intercepted by malware. Integrity is at risk because the
operation of the VM can be changed by malware which could lead to loss of integrity of the customers’
data. Availability is at risk because by malware can potentially erase, or obfuscate the customers’ data.
Therefore, the security requirements related to this issue and can be affect in case of attack are in-
tegrity, confidentiality, availability

Application Security Risks

Reliance on a weak set of interfaces and APIs in cloud computing system exposes organizations to a
variety of security issues related to confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentification and autho-
rization and accountability (Băsescu, Carpen-Amarie, Leordeanu, Costan & Antoniu, 2011; Ben Arfa
Rabai, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012)
The security requirements related to this issue and can be affect in case of attack are integrity, con-
fidentiality and availability.

Data Breaches

Many security threats can compromise data and provide losses and corruption and it provoke a serious
problem related to integrity, confidentiality and availability of data.
The security requirements related to this issue and can be affect in case of attack are integrity, con-
fidentiality and availability.

Privacy Issues

Privacy breaches allow confidentiality problems and data leakage which leads to serious financial im-
plications to organization. Therefore, the security requirement related to this issue and can be affect in
case of attack is confidentiality.

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Table 2. Probabilities of failure requirements for sites (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Khedri, 2015)

Components
Site 1 Site 2
Web_ Proxy_ Web_ Proxy_
Browser No_failure Browser No_failure
server server server server
Security Requirements
Availability 0,2 0,1 0,3 0,4 0,2 0,3 0,3 0.5
Confidentiality 0,1 0,1 0,2 0,6 0,3 0,3 0,3 0.7
Integrity 0,1 0,2 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,2 0,2 0.6

Table 3. Probabilities of failure components matrix for sites (Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai & Khedri, 2015)

Threats
Site 1 Site 2
Data_Bases_ No_Threat Data_Bases_ Denial_of_ No_Threat
Virus Virus
Attacks (NoT) Attacks Servive (DoS) (NoT)
Components
Browser 0 .2 0 .5 0 .3 0 .2 0 .2 0 .1 0 .5
Web_Server 0 .5 0 .4 0 .1 0 .2 0 .35 0 .1 0 .35
Proxy_Server 0 .3 0 .6 0 .1 - - - -
No_Failure (NoF) 0 .1 0 .3 0 .6 0 .11 0 .2 0 .09 0 .6
• In confidentiality cases, we find that the higher probabilities of impact of attack with the following components: Browser, Proxy server
and Web server.

Architectural Components

Since the failure of security requirement depends on which component of the system architecture is op-
erational, we will identify in this step using probabilities of failure requirements matrix (PFRs) for each
security requirement components causing this failure. We take for each security requirement the higher
probability of failing this requirement Ri once component Ck has failed as show in table 2:

• In integrity case, we find that the higher probabilities of impact of attack with the following com-
ponents: Browser, Proxy server and Web server.
• In availability case, we find that the higher probabilities of impact of attack with the following
components: Browser, Proxy server and Web server.

Security Threats

Components of the architecture may fail to operate properly as a result of security break sdowns brought
about by malicious activity. Therefore, we specify, in this step, the catalog of threats that causes com-
ponents failure. We select for each component, the higher probabilities that in which a component Ck

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fails once threat Tq has materialized. We will present threats that affected components above, through
an analysis of probabilities of failure components matrix (table 3):

• Denial of service (DoS): Browser, Proxy server, Web server.

• Account, service and traffic hijacking: Web server, Proxy server.
• Malicious insiders (MI): Browser, Web server, Proxy server.

We will make synthesis of our analysis in the three steps. For example, we take “Regulatory compli-
ance” has seven security requirements: Integrity, Confidentiality, and Availability. Each security require-
ment related to some components. The components are: Browser, Web Server, Proxy server.
Each component affected by some threats. The threats are: Denial of service (DoS), Malicious insid-
ers, and Account, service and traffic hijacking.
According to the analysis, we can conclude that all threats presented by MFC are the cause of security
issues, because of the threats’ distribution which is uniform for cloud computing system. We propose to
focus on each threat and suggest solutions. These threats are: Denial of service (DoS), Malicious insid-
ers, and Account, service and traffic hijacking.

Mitigation

In this part, we will describe threats related to security issues and we will give countermeasures to prevent
against them. The aim of this step is to propose solutions to security problems.

Denial of Service

The denial of service attack (DoS) (Ben Arfa Rabai, Jouini, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012) is a critical problem
for virtual machines (VMs) used on cloud components. In fact, it indicates that the hypervisor software
is allowing a single VM to consume all the system resources and thus starving the remaining VMs and
impairing their function. Because the VMs and the host share CPU, memory, disk, and network resources,
virtual machines may be able to cause some form of denial of service attack against another VM (Qaisar,
& Khawaja, 2012; Priyadharshini, 2013).
As a countermeasure for this attack, you can reduce the privileges of the user that connected to a server.
This will help to reduce the DOS attack. Furthermore, the best approach to prevent a guest consuming
all the resources is to limit the resources allocated to the guests. Current virtualization technologies of-
fer a mechanism to limit the resources allocated to each guest machines in the environment. Therefore,
the underlying virtualization technology should be properly configured, which can then prevent one
guest consuming all the available resources, thereby preventing the denial of service attack (Qaisar, &
Khawaja, 2012; Priyadharshini, 2013).

Malicious Insiders

The malicious insider threat (Ben Arfa Rabai, Jouini, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012; Jouini, Ben Arfa Rabai,
Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012) is one that gains in importance as many providers still don’t reveal how they
hire people, how they grant them access to assets or how they monitor them. Transparency is, in this
case, vital to a secure cloud offering, along with compliance reporting and breach notification.

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To confront this threat, one should enforce strict supply chain management and conduct a comprehen-
sive supplier assessment. Another effective measure is to specify human resource requirements as part
of legal contracts, and require transparency into overall information security and management practices,
as well as compliance reporting. Another useful step to take is to determine security breach notification
processes (Qaisar, & Khawaja, 2012).

Account, Service and Traffic Hijacking

Account service and traffic hijacking (Ben Arfa Rabai, Jouini, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012; Jouini, Ben Arfa
Rabai, Ben Aissa & Mili, 2012) is another issue that cloud users need to be aware of. These threats range
from man-in-the-middle attacks, to phishing and spam campaigns, to denial-of service attacks. Account
hijacking (Barron, Yu & Zhan, 2013) is usually carried out with stolen credentials. Using the stolen
credentials, attackers can access sensitive information and compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and
availability of the services offered.
As solution, (Qaisar, & Khawaja, 2012) one should prohibit the sharing of account credentials
between users and services. Another effective measure is to leverage strong two-factor authentication
techniques where possible, and employ proactive monitoring to detect unauthorized activity. Another
useful step to take is to understand cloud provider security policies and SLAs (Qaisar, & Khawaja, 2012;
Priyadharshini, 2013).
In (Hashizume & Rosado, 2013), we find a presentation of two approaches to confront this threat.
The first is identity and access management guidance. However, the second is dynamic credentials
(Hashizume & Rosado, 2013). It presents an algorithm to create dynamic credentials for mobile cloud
computing systems. The dynamic credential changes its value once a user changes its location or when
he has exchanged a certain number of data packets.

CONCLUSION

Cloud Computing trend is rapidly increasing that has a technology connection with Grid Computing,
Utility Computing, and Distributed Computing. Security problems present a major issue in informa-
tion systems adopting and especially in cloud computing environments in which sensitive applications
and data are moved into the cloud data centers. Cloud computing poses many novel vulnerabilities like
virtualization vulnerabilities, data vulnerabilities and software vulnerabilities.
Furthermore, with advancement of cloud computing technologies and increasing number of cloud
users, security dimensions will continuously increase. In this chapter, we primarily classify and highlight
the major security problems in cloud computing systems and help users recognize threats associated
with their uses. We propose a framework that analyzes and evaluates security issues in cloud comput-
ing environment by a quantifiable approach. Our proposed framework is modular in nature that is we
consider the threats individually and seek solution for that. This helps to manage the cloud system more
effectively and provide the administrator to include the specific solution to counter the threat.
We envision develop a complete security evaluation and management framework as a part of cloud
computing services to satisfy the security demands and then deploy this framework on really cloud
computing environments.

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Chapter 7
Security Threats and
Recent Countermeasures
in Cloud Computing
Anupama Mishra
Gurukul Kangri Viswavidyalaya, India

Neena Gupta
Gurukul Kangri Viswavidyalaya, India

Brij B. Gupta
National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

ABSTRACT
The cloud is an appealing innovation that has driven, in record time, an extraordinary interest. It is
right now one of the busiest regions of research in IT, due to its adaptability, vigor, and capacity to
altogether lessen the expenses of administrations to clients on the web. Additionally, cloud stores all
client information in server farms dispersed the world over. In this manner, security has turned into a
foremost worry that anticipates numerous organizations to receive its administrations. Clients should
store their information, a few of which are ordinarily secret or individual; in this way, the authors are
exceptionally mindful to information honesty and classification amid exchange to a cloud server. This
exploration chapter plans to build up an investigation on the different security threats engaged with
distributed computing along with their recent countermeasures.

INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing basically referred to applications and service that are offered over the internet from
the data centers all over the world. So it is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product,
whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a
utility over a network.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch007

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

As per NIST (Mell et al, 2010), the cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three
service models, and four deployment models. As shown in figure 1, the Essential Characteristics are
On-demand self-service, broad network access, Resource pooling, rapid elasticity, Measured Service.
Services of cloud computing is offered on the basis of three models i.e Infrastructure as a service (IaaS),
Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). Cloud computing is a model for enabling
convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.,
networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with
minimal management effort or service provider interaction (Rittinghouse et al, 2016).

The Cloud Services Models

1. SaaS: Software as a Service (SaaS) constitutes all applications running on a cloud infrastructure,
and made available to consumers as a service, accessible from various devices through either the
web or a program. Maintenance, updating and security of SaaS are managed by the suppliers.

Example: Google Doc, Mobileme, Zoho

2. PaaS: Platform as a Service(PaaS) is a service category for companies. It consists in providing

the environment and a favorable platform for developers and administrators. This allows them to
develop, configure and even set up their various services and tools on the internet in a few clicks,
without any programming knowledge.

Example: Microsoft Azure

Google App Engine
Force.com

3. IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) represents all of on demand delivered software and hardware
resources such as (operating systems, server, storage and network) in a virtualized environment.

Example: Amazon EC2, S3

Figure 1. Definition of cloud computing provided by NIST

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Rack space Moss Offering

Sun’s Cloud Services
Terre mark cloud Offering

The Cloud Deployment Models

1. Private cloud is a cloud platform dedicated to a single organization.

2. Public cloud is a cloud platform accessible by public users.
3. Hybrid cloud is a combination of two or more deployment models interconnected (public, private).
4. Community cloud is a platform shared between different organizations forming a community with
the same concerns.

The Cloud Characteristics

1. On Demand Self-Services: The user can book the services without any human interaction with
the supplier, processing and storage capabilities as needed.
2. Broad Network Access: User resources are available and accessible through a wide range of de-
vices connected to the network.
3. Resources Pooling: The supplier provides a pool of common computing resources (storage, memory,
bandwidth, virtual machine) to satisfy multiple users through physical and virtual resources that
can be assigned and reassigned according to users demands.4) Rapid Elasticity: Resources can
be quickly sized up or down according to demand of the user.
4. Measured Service: Cloud Computing automatically measures resource usage (CPU, storage,
bandwidth, etc.) made by a user to enable him to calculate the invoices automatically.

SECURITY OBJECTIVES

Security means prevent our information or hardware or software from the unauthorized access and fab-
rication of the data by providing security mechanism such as Authorization, Digital Signature, Access
Control, Non-Repudiation, Authorization, Data Integrity and Data Confidentiality. The objective of
security (Chang et al, 2016; Sethi et al, 2016) is to maintain confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of
the data. Figure 2; show that by the help of these three objectives, the secure information can be achieved.

1. Confidentiality: Our aim to protect our information from unauthorized access. In the confidential-
ity, the transmission media is important where the information is floating. For example, In the era
of e-business, hiding some company information from competitors is crucial to the operation of
the company.

Threat to Confidentiality: Data Breach, snooping, traffic analysis, phishing and Social Engineering.

2. Integrity: Information keeps changing and to maintain the integrity only the authorized entity
can modify the information via some authorized mechanism.For example: Modification of any
employee details can be done through the authorized members such as HR of the company.

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Figure 2. Security objectives

Threat to Integrity: Data Loss, Modification, Replaying, Repudiation, data-diddling, Man-in-the-

middle and Salami Attack.

3. Availability: As per the need of the information, it must be available to the authorized members;
it is just garbage if it is unavailable when the information is required by the authenticated entity.

Threat to Availability: DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services), Electric Power attack, Server Room
Environment attack, SYN flood attack and ICMP flood attack.

SECURITY ISSUES IN CLOUD SERVICE MODELS

Although the cloud fulfills all the resource requirement of the client on the optimum cost whenever the
requirement occurs but as it provides large amount of sharable resources online and that in turn leads
to many security issues related to data, identity and access. There are many issues (Sehti et al, 2016;
Fernandes et al, 2014) in cloud service models IaaS, PaaS and SaaS but in this chapter we focuses on
Data Breach, Shared Technology Vulnerability, Distributed Denial of Service, Outdated Versions &
Patching, Abuse &Nefarious Use of Cloud as shown in Table1.

Data Breaches

Data breaches (Bradford et al, 2017) can disclose the confidential information to competitors, criminals,
terrorists, rogue nation states and other malevolent users. It occurs on all the three service models(IaaS,PaaS
and SaaS) of cloud. It is an event when private, protected and sensitive information is stolen or leaked by

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Table 1. Security issues in cloud service models

Infrastructure as a Platform as a Service Software as a Service

Security Issues
Service (IaaS) (PaaS) (SaaS)
Data Breaches ✓ ✓ ✓
Insecure Interface API ✓ ✓ ✓
Shard Technology Vulnerability ✓  
Distibuted Denial of Service ✓ ✓ ✓
Outdted Versions & Patching  ✓ ✓
Abus & Nefarious Use of Cloud ✓ ✓ 

a third party who is not authorized to access it. This kind of attacks can be targeted or could be a result
of human mistake or vulnerabilities of system. These issues mainly impact data which is not intended to
be made public, intellectual property, financial information or personal information. An incidence of data
breach had occurred in 2010, Microsoft faced a breach issue with Business Productivity Online Suite,
where unauthorized cloud access was detected in their offline employee address books. These issues
mainly impact data which is not intended to be made public, intellectual property, financial information
or personal information. As per Cloud Security Alliance, There was a potential violation of confidential-
ity regarding company intellectual property; furthermore, (Bradford et al, 2017) a swing of brute force
attacks was identified after this incident. In 2012, LinkedIn revealed that six million passwords were
stolen, yet changed the number to 167 million in 2016. This break prompted account commandeering
episodes in different administrations because of secret key reuse. In such cases attacker(who has per-
formed the attack), threat (an attack) and vulnerability(loopholes through which the attack can happen)
are identified as below:
Threat actor (Attacker): An internal, disgruntled employee/team leader (a malicious insider) in
research and development.
Threat: The malicious insider downloaded highly confidential business documents—in accord with
his designated access rights and the need-to-know-principle—and removed them from a company laptop
(and premises) before “defecting” to a competitor.
Vulnerability: No document-level data loss prevention controls were applied; no security controls
alerted a distributed bulk folder/file download from the company cloud storage; and no physical data
loss prevention controls were practiced.
From figure 3, it can be seen that every year data breaches are increasing like anything which are
needed to be taken care by some strong security mechanisms.

Insecure Interface API

Cloud computing service providers uses a set of software user interfaces (Gunjan et al, 2013) (UIs),
application interfaces and virtual infrastructure that is build up on some hardware. Thus, unsecure or
compromised hardware or interfaces can cause accidental and malicious breaches to the security of overall
system. An example of this threat was noted in Home Depot in 2014, when an attack had self-checkout
lanes for several days before detection, affecting around 56 million credit card numbers. As per Cloud
Security alliance report (Fernandes et al, 2014), an attack occurs on MangoDB database in 2016 and the
attacker has compromised the insecure interfaces. The details of the attack are:

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Figure 3. Cyber crime: number of breaches and records exposed 2005-2018

Threat Actor: A threat actor could be any malicious actor who discovers an unprotected default
installation of a MongoDB database.
Threat: A default installation the MongoDB database could be accessed without any authentication
or access control when browsing the open MongoDB 27017 port issue. Cyber security expert Chris
Vickery found data stored in an Amazon Web Services (AWS) MongoDB database—including person-
ally identifiable information (PII) and voting records of 93 million Mexican voters—to be at-risk.
Vulnerability: An unsecured MongoDB port 27017 allowed an outside network attack, and no au-
thentication or access control was
enforced for the backend database MongoDB. All data could be manipulated (added, removed, modi-
fied and queried) by anyone.

Shared Technology Vulnerability

Many of the security issues on cloud are result of lax authentication, poor key management and weak
passwords (Radhan et al, 2012). It is essential for a consumer to know about the secure identification
measure used by their cloud service provider. In addition to this, centralization of identities on a solitary
repository is also a potentially high risks factor, as it can become an easy target for attackers. In 2012
such an issue occurred at LinkedIn when 6 million user passwords were published online by attackers.
In 2015 Attacker compromised the vulnerable Cloudflare site and the details are:
Threat actor: An external malicious actor could send HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests
to Cloudflare’s vulnerable services. The vulnerability was dubbed “Cloudbleed.”
Threat: To trigger the vulnerability, the following requirements had to be met: (1) the final buffer
had to finish with a malformed script or .img tag; (2) the buffer had to be less than 4KB in length; (3)
the customer had to have either e-mail obfuscation enabled or
automatic HTTPS rewrites/server-side excludes in combination with another feature that utilized the
old parser; and (4) the client IP must have a poor reputation.
Vulnerability: In a buffer over-read vulnerability, more memory was returned to the requester than
was desired, resulting in memory leakage. Furthermore, Cloudflare is a shared technology, so the vul-
nerability affects more than just one tenant in a cloud service.

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Distributed Denial of Service

This is not a new threat, the methods of attack include fraud, exploitation of software bugs and phish-
ing. With cloud platform, by compromising your credential information attacker can intrude on your
every web activity and transaction. It can result into distribution of falsified information, redirecting
to illegitimate sites, manipulation of data and consumes inordinate amounts of finite system resources
such as processor power, memory, disk space or network bandwidth . Such incident had occurred in
2012, when hackers hacked into 68 million accounts of Dropbox and sold stolen credentials on dark
web. In 2016, On the Dyn website has reported about DNS DDoS attack and the details are (Bradford
et al, 2017)
Threat actor: Malicious externals targeted attacks through connected IoT devices, causing a Dis-
tributed Denial of Service (DDoS) in October 2016.
Threat: The mastermind behind the attack utilized Mirai malware to infect IoT devices to create a
botnet. The botnet was then used to launch the DDoS attack.
Vulnerability: IoT devices were compromised due to the use of default credentials. These compro-
mised devices were then incorporated into a botnet. This botnet was later configured to launch the DDoS
attack on Dyn, a domain name system (DNS) provider.
Customers of Dyn who did not have a backup DNS provider were impacted, as DNS queries to their
sites couldn’t be resolved.

Outdated Versions and Patching

This threat includes exploitation of bugs in the program, poorly configured database, illegal software use.
It enables attackers to infiltrate into cloud system for stealing data or controlling system or disrupting
operations. In addition to this, multi-tenancy in cloud computing and shared pool of resources adds to
this issue (Gunjan et al, 2013). An example of this threat was noted in 2016, when confidential data of
voters from National Electoral Institute of Mexico was compromised, due to poorly configured database
by illegally hosting Amazon cloud server (Bradford et al, 2017). Also, in 2017 Equifix, an organization
failed to get the alert and apply the available patch, which later compromises the system vulnerability.
The attack details are:
Threat actor: Malicious externals targeted attacks through default patches which are available publicly
Threat: Poorly configured database, Patches flaws are in the knowledge of public domain.
Vulnerability: If the alerts are not pop up or may be ignored then the automated update will install
all the flaws available in the default patch.

Abuse and Nefarious Use of Cloud

This threat arises due to relatively weak registration systems present in the cloud computing environment.
(Ashraf et al, 2018) In cloud computing registration process (Hamza et al, 2013), anyone having a valid
credit card can register and use the service. This facilitates anonymity, due to which spammer, malicious
code authors and criminals can attack the system. In 2016 (Bradford et al, 2017), The company Zepto
faced this attack, the details of attacks are given below:
Threat actor: An ignorant employee opened a spam message with a “.wsf” or “.docm” file attachment.

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Threat: The .wsf file included detection evasion scripts combining multiple programming languages,
allowing it to pass through emulation engines that rely on a single language. The malicious file also
used sharing and collaboration in Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud services—including Microsoft
OneDrive, Google Drive, Box and Dropbox—to infect other systems.
Vulnerability: Windows changes a .wsf file icon to look like a valid spreadsheet file. Furthermore,
collaboration software made the .wsf file look like a local file to employees with inadequate training.

LITERATURE SURVEY

Summary of Proposed Security Solutions

In the paper (El-Yahyaoui et al, 2018) Authors presented a new fully homomorphic encryption scheme
from integers. Which uses a large integer ring as cleartext space and only one sharable key for encryption
and decryption for symmetric encryption. Due to Fully homomorphic the scheme was able to compute
on any type of data. In this scheme they have almost achieved data security but unable to control the
noise which was introduces at the time of encryption.
The paper (Ashraf et al, 2018) focused on the protection of client data. In this author have presented
a Transparency Service Model which provides a mechanism where cloud provider configures the ser-
vice on the cloud by giving the service information about the cloud storage devices that would exist the
data. It is then responsibility of the TSM to store data on those devices and cloud providers no longer
direct access to data storage on those devices. Also they have used access control policies along with
the authentication mechanism towards having a secure cloud API.
In the paper (Hamza et al, 2013) authors explored and investigated the scope and magnitude of one
of the top cloud computing security threats “abuse and nefarious use of cloud computing” and pres-
ent some of the attacks specific to this top threat as it represents a major barrier for decision makers to
adopting cloud computing model.
Insecure interface API is an violation against integrity and confidentiality, in paper (Jabir et al, 2016),
author discussed a strong authentication mechanisms along with access control to protect the information.
Cloud is all about sharing the resources but what about the security when sharing is itself became
a vulnerability, therefore the authors in paper (Musa et al, 2016) presented access control mechanism
along with the strong service level agreements between the users and vendors to provide and maintain
the security.
In the paper (Mondal et al, 2017)Author presented a Fuzzy based mechanism, which is helpful for
the detection of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in cloud computing environment. In the
system they have taken three inputs and calculated one output. In the input section, entropy of source
IP, port address and packet arrival rate are considered. Using these parameters they have shown attack
status based on Fuzzy IF-THEN rules.
In the paper (Bhushan et al, 2018) proposed an approach to detect DDoS attacks in SDN-based cloud
by utilizing the features of SDN. The proposed approach can detect the DDoS attacks with very low
communicational and computational overhead.
All the safety measures against the security issues in cloud computing having some limitations also,
therefore along with their research context, used technique in the paper, advantages and limitations are
mentioned in a summarized form in the below table 1.

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Table 2. Summary of most popular attacks and their recent countermeasures

References Research Context Technique Used Advantages Limitations

Work on any type
(El-Yahyaoui et al, Fully Homomorphism Encryption
of computation over Control of noise
2018) from Integers
encrypted data
The mechanisms is
Data Breach responsible to store data
on
(Ashraf et al, 2018) Transparency Service Model The devices via TSM and Not implemented yet
the access of those devices
are not given to the cloud
provides
Provides security to Auto & default
Through Authentication &
(Jabir et al, 2016) Insecure Interface API data and grant access to options are still there
Access Control
authorized person for some API.
Access control to the
authenticated administrator or
users as per their need.
Remove all the user data after SLA are not being
Shared Technology Providing authentication
(Musa et al, 2016) use. updated as per the
Vulnerability and integrity
Evaluating the unauthorized technology updated
environment
A strong service level agreement
for vulnerability remediation
-Quality of Service,
Cost and Performance
are not being
Information distance was
considered as a
-Used openFlow from SDN created between attack and
[(Mondal et al, Distributed Denial of parameter at the time
non attack flow
2017) Service of testing.
-False Alarm generate
d very frequently
Better Results in case of Less no of inputs for
A Fuzzy based mechanism
only three inputs calculating Entropy
Even for a small
Heterogeneous platform support
requirement, the
-Perform Application patching
Outdated Versions & Platform Independent entire patch will be
(Hamza et al, 2013) -Patch every week
Patching patches downloaded instead
-Be agaentless in the data center
of that single resource
-Mitigate after exceptions
file requirement
Tto check the reputation of
the CSP along with the SLAs
that they offer. The CSP can
implement various compensatory
Processing so many
controls, for example limiting
Abusive & Nefarious SLA, Filtering and checks checks for security
(Hamza et al, 2013) per instance bandwidth, or
Use of Cloud at many levels increases the
implementing reputation based
overhead.
IP filtering, and choose a
subscription model that makes it
harder for a criminal to abuse the
services on offer.

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Critical Evaluation

There are a series of research on various security Issues such as data breaches, Insecure Interface API,
DDoS, Outdated Patches & versions, Abuse & Nefarious use of cloud and shared technology over the
cloud computing. Many tools, Models and approaches have been proposed to address and handle those
issues. Table I presents the summary of the proposed mechanisms along with their advantages and
limitations against those issues.
Also from figure 4, it can be concluded easily that there are lots of other reasons which make the
system vulnerable such as traditional security mechanisms are still exists but they are not capable enough
to fight against the vulnerability. Businesses have good visibility of all critical data but this factor has
very less number. Even in this era, databases are not encrypted and people are using it. Many organiza-
tion are still keeping the user inforamation such as name, password and profile information in plain text
which can be captured by the attacker any time. Figure 4 shows commonly used factors for cloud ecurity.

THREAT MODELING

In the definition of information security, a threat is a potential violation of the security of system (Ver-
burg et al, 2016; Hassan et al, 2019) but on the other hand, the vulnerability can be defined as a defect
that makes a system vulnerable to attack. An attack is the exploitation of vulnerability. The counter-
measures are defensive mechanisms used to combat against the vulnerabilities. Threat modeling for cloud
computing platforms can help to identify the events of the threat, its attack surface and access points on
the assets of the Cloud. Modeling is used to analyze threats and associated risks in order to developing
defensive strategies for them.

Figure 4. Cloud security statistics

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

The Classification of Security Issues

The classification of security issues in cloud computing can be done into six classes, which are summa-
rized in Table 2. In paper (Chitchyan et al, 2015) which has a similar approach, the authors addressed a
small set of issues in cloud computing but all those issues are covered partially in four category.
The Data Breaches (C1) represents the violation of data integrity and data privacy issues in all three
service models. The Insecure Interface API (C2) covers all the operations with poor authentication mecha-
nisms by which users interact with the resources, it is also break the integrity. The (C3) class which is
shared technology works on the basic infrastructure resources. The DDoS (C4), can also be categorized
in network category is all the means by which users connect to the cloud infrastructure to perform the
desired calculations. It includes browsers, network connections and information exchange but this class
make the service unavailable for the user. The Outdated Versions and patching (C5) is a user-oriented
class and includes issues of installation of a new patch or having the older version only. The Abuse &
Nefarious use of cloud category (C6) includes cloud security issues in SaaS, PaaS and IaaS and it is
particularly related to unwanted use of a cloud in a improper manner. These six categories are illustrated
in Table 2. In fact, (C1) is considered as the greatest security challenge in the cloud as well as big data.
Cloud computing is more prone to attacks linked to networks over traditional computing paradigms. In
addition, cloud operations are closely coupled and highly dependent on the network implementation.

Table 3. The classification of security issues

Name Classification Explanation

This issue is a violation of the Security goal-confidentiality. The confidential
C1 Data Breaches information is disclosed to attackers. In the data breach, the information can be either
stolen or leaked by an un authorized person who is not authorized to access it.
Users on the cloud computing are managing their resources through API only and
insecure interface API means there is a trap in which user give their useful and
C2 Insecure Interface API confidential information to the attacker or a third party. Also, these insecure API has
a weaker authentication methods or static methods which in turn grant access of the
resources to an unauthorized person.
Shared Technology Describes sharing of the cloud infrastructure. It makes the system vulnerable based on
C3
Vulnerability weak key management and poor authentication systems.
Distributed denial of service attacks means exploitation of the resources such as
C4 DDoS Network Bandwidth, Power and other resources so that the authorized user can not
access the resources for which he/she is authorized.
Outdated versions can be compromised by the attacker by compromising the loopholes
Outdated Versions &
C5 available in that older versions so users are advised to always have the updated
Patching
software and also install the patches through the authentic sources.
The common and multi-occupancy nature of distributed computing makes a rich
ground for insider danger and advances danger of “benefit misuse” to private client
Facilitating delicate data from various customers on the equivalent physical machine
absolutely
lures clients with high benefit jobs, for example, framework directors and data security
Abuse & Nefarious Use
C6 chiefs to
of Cloud
misuse their special access to customers’ touchy information and the likelihood of
spilling or selling that data to contenders or different gatherings of intrigue. The
likelihood, and subsequently sway, of this hazard can be further intensified if cloud
supplier does not uphold severe meaning of jobs and obligations or does not apply the
“need to know” guideline

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Analysis of Security Issues

Table 3 represents the factors of classification in security issues in Cloud Computing. Factors are marked
with questions with “Q1, Q2, . . ., Qn” where Qx is the number of security problem x. In the classification
of Data Breaches, there are many questions raised such as Data redundancy (Q1), Data loss and leakage
(Q2), Data Privacy (Q3), Data Protection (Q4) and Data availability (Q5). All these issues are talking
about breaching against data integrity. While in the another classification Insecure Interface API, there
are Browser Security (Q6) which led the attacker inside the system, it is the first step where security
measures have to be taken into account because its vulnerabilities open the window to many attacks.
Here the question is about vulnerabilities in the set of APIs in the cloud, customers view that use these
APIs to connect to platforms which can expose an organization to several threats such as unauthorized
access, transmission of content, and data logging. A client can access data and compose services of
multiple cloud providers, using a mobile application or a browser. This kind of access brings a level of
inherent risk and this risk has been called the access of privileged users (Q7). The conventional Authen-
tication Mechanisms (Q8) are not sufficient now a days to deal with security. Malicious insiders (Q9),
like administrators, can seriously damage the security organizations, due to their high level of access,
and cause considerable losses to both the organization finance and production. Therefore, it is essential
for cloud customers to clearly identify the policies that their cloud providers use to detect and defend
against internal threats.
A simple error in the configuration of a cloud component may lead to serious consequences because
the cloud configurations could be shared by many services. Technical defects of the shares (Q10), also
known as sharing the fate, in which errors are transferred from a corrupted server to each virtual ma-
chine created on the server. So, it is extremely important to identify and correct problems of sharing
also implementing best practices to prevent them from reproducing.
The reliability of suppliers (Q11) is an important factor that requires verification of personal history
to control data and access to the material. It is strongly recommended that companies assess its staff in
order to protect its assets, data and gain customer trust. The servers in the cloud are the backbone of its
infrastructure that provides many services such as directory services, data storage. Attackers can access
the system if the servers of security attributes are not configured correctly, security miconfiguration
(Q12). This misconfiguration could occur in the web server and platform. The Cloud is used to serve
multiple concurrent users through virtualization, which allows sharing the same hardware and software
resources by different users. This multi tenancy capability (Q13) could result in a leak of information
from a tenant to other companion servers.
In terms of server location (Q14), it is important to keep in mind that the room should have an anti-
seismic protection and should have no window for safety reasons.
The rate of network attacks increases dramatically especially when the migrating data to the cloud.
The possible lack of suitable network firewall facilities (Q15) and poor network security configurations
(Q16) make it easier for attackers to impersonate a legitimate system user to gain access to the cloud.
They can make cloud resources unavailable by generating false data, or injecting and execute mali-
cious code on the server in question. A Dos attack can be launched by exploiting vulnerabilities in the
identification of internet protocols (Q17), which would highlight the insecurity of the internet. Cloud
adoption will increase dependence to internet (Q18), since it is the primary means to access the cloud.
Consequently, if internet is deactivated, because of some attacks, it means that cloud services become
unavailable and the cloud severely paralyzed. This implies all network reliability issues.

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

The hijacking of accounts and services (Q20) is a frequent security risk due to phishing, which is a
technique used by hackers to steal identifying information in order to gain unauthorized access to serv-
ers. This unauthorized access is a threat to data integrity, confidentiality and availability. Unauthorized
access can be launched from inside or outside the organization.
Cloud computing lacks of proper security controls (Q21). Even if the safety measures are set correctly,
many safety problems are still associated with compliance risk (Q22) mainly because of the location of
data and identification of corresponding law. One of the most important aspects of the security in cloud
is auditability (Q23) to ensure traceability of access and the preservation of these traces in case of need.
However, we do not have verification tool of standards for cloud services providers. If a supplier
subcontracts a service to a third party where the feature is not transparent, users should be able to inspect
the entire process. Security Controls(Q21) and the governing bodies are defined in SLA (Q24), but the
legal aspects are not taken in the practices of cloud computing.
The service level agreement (Mahmood et al, 2011; Abghour et al, 2018; Ahuja et al, 2018; Kashif
et al, 2019; Li et al, 2018; Yin et al, 2018) is a contract that defines the relationship between the par-
ties clients and suppliers, which is extremely important for both of them. It includes the definition of
customer needs, simplifies complex problems, encourages dialogue in the event of disputes, provides a
framework for understanding, reduces and eliminates conflict area.
In Table 4 we categorized the most popular attacks in the cloud and their recent countermeasure .
Table 4 presents the cause of attack and also the classified class as per Table 1 and Table 3 along with
their references.

Table 4. Factors for classification of security issues in cloud computing

Classification Label Issues

Q1 Data redundancy
Q2 Data loss and leakage
Data Breaches Q3 Data privacy
Q4 Data protection
Q5 Data availability
Q6 Browser Security
Q7 Privileged User Access
Insecure Interface API
Q8 Authentication Mechanisms
Q9 Malicious Insider
Q10 Sharing technical flaws
Q11 Reliability of suppliers
Shared Technology Vulnerability Q12 Security misconfiguration
Q13 Multi tenancy
Q14 Server Location and Backup Data
Q15 Improper installation of network firewalls
Q16 Poor Network security configurations
DDoS
Q17 Internet protocol vulnerabilities
Q18 Dependence of Cloud on Internet Access
Q19 Cloud infrastructure
Outdated Versions & Patching
Q20 Account and service hijacking
Q21 Lack of security standards
Q22 Compliance risks
Abuse & Nefarious Use of Cloud
Q23 Lack of auditing
Q24 Lack of legal aspects (service level agreement)

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

Table 5. The most common attacks and proposed countermeasures in the cloud

Class of
References Attack Countermeasures Vulnerability
Attack
(El-Yahyaoui et Fully Homomorphism Encryption from
Malicious Insider Q2,Q3,Q4,Q5,Q9 C1
al,2018) Integers
(Ashraf et al, Malware
Transparency Service Model Q1,Q2,Q3 C1
2018) Injection
Insecure Interface Through Authentication & Access
(Jabir etal, 2016) Q6,Q7,Q8 C1,C2,C4
API Control
Access control to the authenticated
administrator or users as per their need.
Shared
(Musa et l, Remove all the user data after use. Q11,Q12,Q13,Q14,Q15,
Technology C3,C4
2016) Evaluating the unauthorized environment Q20, Q21,Q23
Vulnerability
A strong service level agreement for
vulnerability remediation
(Moundal et al,
-Used openFlow from SDN Q6,Q7,Q8,Q9,Q10 C1,C4
2017) Distributed
(Bushan et al, Denial of Service
A Fuzzy based mechanism Q20,Q21,Q23 C1,C4
2018)
Heterogeneous platform support
Outdated -Perform Application patching
(Radhan et al,
Versions & -Patch every week C2,C4,C5
2012)
Patching -Be agaentless in the data center
Q6,Q16,Q17,Q19,Q20
-Mitigate after exceptions
There is not much a cloud consumer can
do, other than to check the reputation
of the CSP along with the SLAs that
they offer. The CSP can implement
Abusive &
[(Hamza et al, various compensatory controls, for
Nefarious Use of C4,C5,C6
2013) example limiting per instance bandwidth,
Cloud
or implementing reputation based IP Q18,Q21,Q22,Q23,Q24
filtering, and choose a subscription model
that makes it harder for a criminal to
abuse the services on offer.

CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE

Cloud computing is a relatively new concept that offers many benefits such as storage capacity, cost
reduction, processing power, scalability and more. In fact, the cloud encompasses several technologies
like traditional web applications, data hosting as well as virtualization. It also inherits their security
problems, the reason that prevent most organizations from adopting it. The cloud security is the main
concern, a lot of security solutions in this area have been proposed but most of these are immature while
some risks remain unresolved.
This chapter performs an analysis on current cloud security challenges, so we have specified security
issues such as data breach, insecure interface API, shared technology vulnerability, Distributed Denial
of service attacks, outdated versions & patching and abuse & nefarious use of cloud. Then we classify
these problems into six security categories. We also summarized the most popular attacks against the
cloud, for each type of attack we specify the security category to which it belongs, the vulnerabilities and
issues it can lead, as well we discussed some recent countermeasures against the security issues along

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Security Threats and Recent Countermeasures in Cloud Computing

with their advantages and limitations. It can be seen from the critical evaluation that alone the security
scheme is not enough to maintain the security goals therefore there is a need of an integrated approach
which will take care of the information by preserving its confidentiality, integrity and availability.

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Chapter 8
A Framework Strategy to
Overcome Trust Issues on
Cloud Computing Adoption
in Higher Education
Mohammed Banu Ali
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5854-8245
Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK

Trevor Wood-Harper
Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK

Ronald Ramlogan
Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT
Cloud computing has the potential of adding strategic value to the higher education domain owing to
exemplary growth in ubiquitous data and communication services ranging from student access to edu-
cational materials to developing teaching and research practices. Despite the wide adoption of CC in
HEIs, there is a paucity of research that specifically addresses the issue of trust in cloud adoption in the
UK HEI context, as well as identifying smarter and more efficient strategies to overcome the existing
CC trust issue in this domain. The authors propose a five-stage strategic roadmap to address the trust
issues impacting the uptake of cloud services in UK universities. They conclude that IT and management
participation and support are the keys to the success of the strategic framework.

INTRODUCTION

Given the exemplary growth in ubiquitous data and communication services ranging from student ac-
cess to educational materials to developing teaching and research practices, cloud computing (CC) is a
potential game changer in the higher education sector (Ali, 2019a; Jawad et al., 2017; Tariq et al., 2017;
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch008

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Framework Strategy to Overcome Trust Issues on Cloud Computing Adoption in Higher Education

Wasilah et al., 2017). This affirms the enormity of IT support needs for innovative teaching and research
activities. However, stakeholders such as IT staff and administrators in higher education institutions
(HEIs) are expected to address various challenges in the form trust and security (Rao & Selvamani,
2015), which the cloud can potentially manage effectively. Therefore, there is a need to find more in-
novative ways to manage the increasing demand for data and communication services while controlling
costs and keeping stakeholders happy.
A 2014 Compuware study suggests that over 70% of companies do not trust their cloud vendor and
that IT professionals perceive service contracts that are designed by the cloud vendors regarding avail-
ability fail to mitigate the potential risks pertaining to the management of cloud applications (Compu-
ware, 2014). Despite the abundance of cloud adoption studies in the wider HEI context (Ali, 2019b;
Muriithi et al., 2016; Odeh et al., 2017; Tariq et al., 2017; Yuvaraj, 2016), research on smarter strategies
to overcome the existing CC trust issue to increase the uptake of cloud in HEIs have been ignored (Ali,
2019c; Mohammed Banu et al., 2019; Chiregi & Jafari Navimipour, 2017; Kouatli, 2016). Therefore, the
motivation of this paper stems from the lack of key stakeholders’ trust in making their adoptive decision
of CC. In order to tackle this problem, this paper develops a strategic framework Universities can use
to work collaboratively with cloud vendors, maximise the use of cloud services to enhance institutional
practices and more importantly, build stakeholders’ trust in cloud services.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section, the key literature pertaining to cloud computing (CC) issues are reviewed. Here, a logi-
cal connection between various secondary sources are drawn, including journals, books, white papers
and other scholarly resources. In particular, our review also focuses on the trust issues of CC adoption
in the higher education domain.

Cloud Computing (CC)

There are number of CC definitions cited in the existing body of literature. A well-known definition
cited by Sultan (2010) refers to CC as a cluster of data centers that offers a range of on-demand resources
and services over the internet. CC also refers to the scalable IT resources that are offered to users over a
network as an alternative to hosting these resources in-house. Therefore, there is a much wider concept
of unified and centralised technology and shared services (Metheny, 2017).
Supporters of CC claim that organisations do not have to face burden of upfront infrastructure costs
and allows them to focus their attention towards their core business practices if they adopt the technol-
ogy (Armbrust et al., 2010; CSA, 2011; Hesarlo, 2014; Thilakarathne & Wijayanayake, 2014). CC is
also a good method to rapidly deploy applications with minimal management and maintenance. This
allows organisational information communication technologies (ICT) to be rapidly adapted to meet an
organisation’s changing and unanticipated business needs and demands (Willcocks et al., 2014). For
higher education, it can exploit this opportunity to enhance IT agility and ultimately facilitate a number
of institutional practices such as teaching, research and innovation activities via the cloud (Encalada &
Sequera, 2017).

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Table 1. CC components (Mell & Grance, 2011)

Cloud Components
Characteristics Service Models Deployment Models
SaaS grants consumers the ability to
On-demand self-service: A consumer is able
utilise software applications running on the Private cloud deployment model
to provide themselves computing capabilities
vendor’s cloud infrastructure and can be is the location in which the cloud
like network storage and server time without
accessed via any client device with internet infrastructure operates on or off the
the need for other human interaction, anytime
access and a web browser (e.g. SalesForce, organisation’s premises.
anywhere.
CRM).
PaaS offers a development environment
Broad Network Access: network capabilities
that grants users the freedom to create Community cloud is a cloud which is
which are access via standard mechanisms that
and run their own custom applications shared by a number of organisations
promote heterogeneous client platforms such
using programming languages and vendor that have a shared goal. The community
as workstations, mobile devices, tablets and
provided tools such as Google App Engine cloud is run by the cloud vendor.
laptops.
and MS Azure.
Resources pooling: resources are centralised Iaas enables users to manage processing Public cloud model is the most common
or pooled on the cloud to serve multiple power, networks, storage and other and cost-effective model which is
consumers according to their level of demand computing resources on demand (e.g. available to the general public, which
(e.g. storage, processing, memory and network cloud EC2, Amazon Elastic Compute and is owned and managed by the cloud
bandwidth). Rackspace). vendor.
Hybrid cloud combines the best
Rapid elasticity: capacities can be elastically
of private, public and community
released and provided. In other words, cloud
clouds, which are all bound by
features can be scaled up and down to meet
standardised technologies that allow for
user/organisational demand.
communication between these models.

Cloud Service/Deployment Models

Mell and Grance (2011) identified five vital CC characteristics, as well as several key service and de-
ployment models. On-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and
measured (pay-per-use) service make up the five essential CC characteristics, whereas Software as a
Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) make up the service
models and finally private, community, public, and hybrid models make up the deployment models (Mell
& Grance, 2011). Table 1 summarises the aforementioned CC components, while Table 2 summarises
the application of a trust model to the CC components mentioned in Table 1.

Trust Issues in CC Adoption in Organisational and HEI Contexts

Trust can be seen as a sign of recommendation and service selection in the CC domain, and is still an
emerging phenomenon in information systems research (Alhanahnah et al., 2017; Matthew & Md, 2017).
According to Muchahari and Sinha (2012), trust is closely attached to the CC phenomenon, and plays a
significant role in its growth and adoption. Although the trust phenomenon has been widely studied in
different research domains, there is no universal definition of the term in the existing literature (Filali
& Yagoubi, 2015), with most definitions considering the impact of security on trust in facilitating the
decision making process (Moyano et al., 2013). Walterbusch et al. (2013) identified that trust occurs
between individuals and other parties. For the cloud, Fan et al. (2012) established that trust is gradually
attracting the attention of stakeholders, particularly in the community cloud given its very open environ-
ment to external users.

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Table 2. Application of trust in cloud service/deployment models (Zargari & Smith, 2014; Kshetri, 2013;
Weis & Alves-Foss, 2011; Mell & Grance, 2009)

Service Models Deployment Models

SaaS is a software distribution model, where users or institutional
stakeholders (e.g. academic staff, students and admins) are offered The private cloud, this is a cloud infrastructure for exclusive use
specific pieces of software to support their teaching, learning and by the HEI, hosted either internally or externally and managed by
research practices. However, trust in SaaS will depend on the user’s a third-party, internally or a combination of them. Although the
experience of using the software or whether they can trust that the private cloud may sound more trustworthy as the name suggests,
software is not malicious. Another trust issue rests on the cloud the fact that it can still be controlled by the cloud vendor is a
provider who runs the software and enables the user to access it, and cause for concern, and thus defeats the purpose of a private cloud.
thus SaaS users are burdened with less responsibility.
The community cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is shared
between several communities or customers that can be hosted
IaaS is an on-demand service of computing power and storage and managed internally or externally by a third party or even
space, and the main trust issue rests on the users’ inability to a combination of the two. However, the community cloud
manage the underlying cloud infrastructure. can pose several common trust concerns for HEIs, such as
security requirements, mission, compliance considerations and
jurisdiction.
The public cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is made for open
PaaS offers users an application environment. The applications are
use by the general public and can be owned by HEIs. However,
developed and executed by cloud vendors and the platforms. This
the greatest trust concern is that the public cloud is that it is
presents a further trust issue as users cannot control and are unaware
hosted on the cloud provider’s premises and is open to the general
of the cloud vendor’s activities of the applications that are being
public. For HEIs, public clouds run the risk of exposing sensitive
installed on the platform, and thus in many cases, users take the risk
institutional data to potential hackers and attackers, not to mention
to trust the cloud vendor.
the vendor’s full control of the public cloud.
The hybrid cloud combines at least two of the aforementioned
deployment models, and thus has the greatest trust issue as it can
adopt a combination of the aforementioned trust issues.

Trust can be defined as an entity that relies on someone or something to execute a given action e.g.
leaving confidential information in the hands of a reliable individual who is expected not to view this
information or disclose it to another party. Similarly, Ko et al. (2011) defines trust as “the confidence levels
in something or someone” e.g. a user trusting a cloud vendor with their private data (Rathi et al., 2015).
Trust also considers security in terms of communication, data storing and resource distribution among
other CC determinants (Ding et al., 2015). Khan and Malluhi (2010) explains that establishing trust in
CC calls for security measures such as encryption, which helps to maintain data integrity, identity, and
data privacy (Stergiou et al., 2018). Therefore, trust provides a good means to enhance system security.
Despite the benefits of the cloud being associated with scalable, flexible and agile services offered
by the cloud vendor, high exposure on data privacy and security persists thereby impacting stakeholders’
trust in these cloud vendors (Pearson & Benameur, 2010). This lack of trust presents an even greater
challenge for institutions of higher learning (e.g. Universities) since these institutions handle large batches
of sensitive information or data. Failing to efficiently control data would leave institutions powerless to
secure their data from unauthorised parties (Chiregi & Jafari Navimipour, 2017).
CC is also impacted by users’ perceptions of trust in the cloud. There are two key determinants that
can impact users’ trust in cloud services, and these are lack of control and transparency, which in turn
impacts the adoption of cloud services (Khan & Malluhi, 2010). According to Sun et al. (2011), trust in
distributed computing environments involves soft security elements, which are responsible for handling
security in the cloud, and helps to combat malicious entities, thus helping to keep the CC environment

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safe and secure. However, without a proper security mechanism can lead to data loss and exposure to
unauthorised third parties (Abbadi & Martin, 2011; Chiregi & Jafari Navimipour, 2017; Mohammed
Banu et al., 2018). Another problem with trust in the cloud is that the contractor can decide to subcontract
leading to business exposure since the sub-contractor may have no existing data protection standards in
place (Pearson & Benameur, 2010).
The user’s perceptions of the cloud are highly significant in cloud adoption. This aligns with the idea
that the cloud provider has the ability to safely manage and host cloud data without being involved in the
business side. Khan and Malluhi (2010) identified a number of elements that directly affect users’ degree
of trust, including security, control, ownership and prevention. In addition, lack of trust and transparency
are also identified as contributing determinants of limited uptake of the cloud (Khan & Malluhi, 2010).
As a means to improve users’ trust in cloud services, service providers have to be transparent about their
actions and their role in protecting users’ data (Ismail et al., 2016).

Measuring Trust in Cloud

When measuring trust relations, there are two significant parties: the trustor and trustee. In the CC con-
text, a trustee refers to the cloud vendor who offers the required services to the trustor. In other words,
the trustor utilises the services that the trustee provides. Huang and Nicol (2013) argue that the trustee’s
expected behaviour is out of the control of the trustor, but a core set of values should be defined as a
means to guide them and thus establish a trustee and trustor relationship. As a result, the trustor will
depend on the goodwill, capacity and integrity of the trustee to ensure that secure and reliable services
are offered to the trustor. Huang and Nicol (2013) identified a number of trust mechanisms that enable
cloud users to rate cloud provider’s services:
It can be deduced that measuring cloud trust covers a number of specific areas, including evidence,
policy, service quality, vendor reputation, service level agreement and transparency. These areas are
considered on the cloud trust model presented in section three. In short, it can be deduced that cloud

Table 3. Trust mechanisms of cloud

Trust Mechanism Description

This can help cloud users to assess a given provider’s performance and operations. The criticism of
Cloud Transparency Tool this tool is that it is provided by the cloud service provider which creates an element of bias as they
can easily manipulate the data in their favour.
This is based on sources of trust, including competence, goodwill and integrity, as well as the
Evidence based trust trustor’s envisaged goals in a specific domain (e.g. quality of service for higher education learning
systems).
This revolves around Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication, which allows two parties
Policy based trust to share data over networks via authentication enablers such as digital signatures and public key
certificates.
This reflects the perceptions of an entire community towards cloud service providers, as well as
Reputation based trust gathering large groups of peer users rating as means to establish the trustworthiness of the cloud
provider. Higher response rates are essential for accurate and meaningful feedback.
Quality of service (QoS) monitoring helps to verify trust by tracking the provider’s performance
SLA Verification and QoS whereas the service level agreement (SLA) helps to adjust trust based on the agreed service metrics,
Monitoring where it tracks and penalizes vendors in the event of breaching these service metrics. However, the
SLA and QoS cannot observe invisible issues such as security and privacy.

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Table 4. Summary of key trust concepts

Concept(s) Author Trust Element

Trust in Service/Deployment Model Concepts
Users’ experience
Malicious software Zargari and Smith (2014)
SaaS Service Model
Lack of trust in cloud provider Weis and Alves-Foss (2011)
Lack of transparency
Lack of management of cloud infrastructure Zargari and Smith (2014)
IaaS Service Model
Lack of transparency Weis and Alves-Foss (2011)
Lack of control
Zargari and Smith (2014)
Lack of transparency PaaS Service Model
Weis and Alves-Foss (2011)
Unsafe platform
Kshetri (2010)
Cloud vendor control Private Deployment Model
Mell and Grance (2009)
Cloud vendor control
Kshetri (2010)
Open to anyone Public Deployment Model
Mell and Grance (2009)
Disclosure of sensitive institutional data
Security requirements
Kshetri (2010)
Compliance issues Community Deployment Model
Mell and Grance (2009)
Lack of transparency
A combination of other service model Kshetri (2010)
Hybrid Deployment Model
concepts Mell and Grance (2009)
Trust in Cloud Uptake Concepts
Chiregi and Jafari Navimipour (2017)
Data management Ding et al. (2015) Availability/integrity
Chiregi and Jafari Navimipour (2017)
Evidence trust Huang and Nicol (2013) Confidentiality
Huang and Nicol (2013)
Policy trust Integrity
Okai et al. (2014)
Scalable, agile and flexible services Pearson and Benameur (2010) Availability
Khan and Malluhi (2010)
Security Sultan (2010) Availability
Krauss and Van der Schyff (2014)
Service Level Agreement (SLA) & Quality Huang and Nicol (2013)
Confidentiality
of Service (QoS) Almajalid (2017)
Huang and Nicol (2013)
Transparency Khan and Malluhi (2010) Confidentiality
Ismail et al. (2016)
Huang and Nicol (2013)
Vendor reputation Integrity
Sultan (2010)

trust covers a number of areas including confidentiality, availability, integrity and resources. Table 4
summarises the key concepts derived from the literature review.

Conceptual Model

The trust model developed by Mayer et al. (1995) inspires the conceptual model. This trust model helps
to determine organisational trust by the trustee, trustor and perceived risks. Availability, integrity and

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confidentiality are the main elements of trust that make up the trust model and some of these elements
have emerged from the existing literature. In particular, these elements affect users’ acceptance of cloud
services. A fourth element was also added, which is resources as this is an influencing factor in cloud
adoption, which reflects the human and technical resources needed to fully benefit from cloud services.

Model Description

This section describes each element included in the conceptual model. Mayer et al. (1995) stated that
ability reflects the trustee’s competence in a given context; benevolence reflects the trustee’s intention
to look out for the trustor’s best interests; and integrity reflects the core set of values that influence the
actions of the trustee. In the context of CC, trust is split into three security elements that reflect trustees’
characteristics. Ability was changed to availability (discretion), since the trustee has to ensure that ac-
cess to information is granted to only authorised parties and benevolence was changed to confidentiality
(convenience), since the trustee has to ensure that access to information is prohibited to unauthorized
users or is not disclosed to the public.
Some risks will be perceived by the trustor based on their own degree of trust of the cloud and the
cloud vendor. Therefore, the risk outcome (based on individual behaviour, perceived risk and willingness
to take risk) determines the uptake of cloud services, since there will be varying degrees of trust among
the trustors, thereby influencing cloud service adoption (Mayer et al., 1995).
The trustor’s propensity to trust exhibits degrees of comfort to collaborate with trustees. This means
that some trustors will require some assurance to gain their trust, whereas others will not require it. A
number of key barriers of CC adoption were identified and categorised based on key security elements,
such as availability, integrity and confidentiality they affect. Another element known as resources or as-
sets was added to help understand and capture the trustors’ capabilities and experiences. This also helped
to give insight of the different stakeholder views that affect the uptake of cloud services in HEI settings.
Based on the main themes derived from the literature review, which are incorporated in our conceptual
model, this paper proposes the following research questions:
RQ1: To what extent can a trust framework improve the uptake of cloud services in UK higher
education?
SRQ1: What are the barriers of trust in existing CC models in HEIs?
SRQ2: What are the barriers of trust affecting the uptake of CC in HEIs?

METHOD

Design

For the research design, a descriptive research design was employed. Here, a descriptive design is valu-
able, since it enables the researcher to gather data from relevant secondary research sources in order to
develop a trust model that reflects a potential adoption strategy to improve the uptake of CC in HEIs,
and the identification of key barriers pertaining to CC adoption by the key stakeholders in HEIs. For
the empirical study, variables in the form of barriers or trust elements of CC were assessed to determine
the existing state of the uptake of cloud services from the perspective of key HEI stakeholders. Both
dependent and independent variables were used (Cater-Steel, 2008; Willcocks et al., 2016). The depen-

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Figure 1. Conceptual model of cloud trust issues

dent variable reflects the current state of CC adoption in HEIs from the perspective of key stakeholders,
namely IT security personnel, administrators and IT managers, whereas the independent variable reflects
the three security elements that influence trust that were identified in the research model, namely data
confidentiality, integrity and availability. Moreover, a quantitative approach was used to obtain data
reflecting users’ feedback of cloud trust via a questionnaire (Hai-Jew, 2014). Several Universities with
key stakeholders were asked to complete a questionnaire.

Population/Sample

The research population was drawn from a list of the top 100 ranked Universities situated in the UK.
This included 24 known Russell Group Universities in the UK, all of which are ranked in the top 25
of UK Universities (The Guardian, 2018). The rationale for choosing top raking and Russell Group
Universities in the UK was on basis that these Universities have some of the country’s top innovation

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schools and leading experts in the field of information systems and technology, and having varying IT
infrastructures. Out of the 100 Universities, a sample of roughly 50% (50 Universities) were selected.
The sampling method was systematic random sampling (Cochran, 2007). The sampling constant K =
N/n was used to determine a sizable sample, where N represents the total population and n represents
the sample size, namely K = 100/50=2. Therefore, 1 in 2 Universities were selected. Lastly, the sampled
population were made up of various respondents who were University admins, IT managers and security
managers, as well as non-IT stakeholders such as students and lecturers.

Data Collection

Both primary and secondary data were collected. Secondary in the form of journals, company reports,
news articles, websites, IT Magazines, white papers and analysts’ reports, and primary in the form of
empirical data. Therefore, the researcher was able to gain insight into the adverse factors of the re-
search topic obtained via these sources of information (Cohen et al., 2017; Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
Questionnaires were used as the primary data collection technique. According to Creswell and Clark
(2011), questionnaire enables the researcher to gather a vast quantity of objective information within
a restricted time period. The Likert Scale was used in the questionnaire, and mainly focused on the
security elements derived from the research model, namely availability, integrity, confidentiality and
resources. The researcher distributed the questionnaires via email and served to obtain data reflecting
users’ feedback of cloud trust in order to obtain quantifiable facts on the current state of cloud service
trust among University stakeholders.

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

This section presents the analysis, findings and discussions on CC adoption in UK higher education,
namely UK universities. Survey questionnaires were administered to key IT stakeholders of the selected
universities in UK. Selected employees were to respond on the adoption of CC based on trust elements,
such as availability, integrity, confidentiality and resources to manage CC services. The data was analysed
with the help of Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and presented using tables, charts, frequencies, percent-
ages and some statistical summaries.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Response Rate

The current study issued 375 questionnaires. The respondents responded to questions on availability
and reliability of infrastructures and productivity levels, and resource skills capability, whether there are
plans to adopt CC and their current adoption level. They also responded on confidentiality and integrity
of the policies for purchasing CC resources by the universities in UK. The employees also ranked the
CC services and their efficiency for service delivery.

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Table 5. Respondents summary

Position
Institution Admin ITM SM Total Institution Admin ITM SM Total
1 2 3 3 8 26 2 3 3 8
2 1 3 3 7 27 4 1 1 6
3 2 4 2 8 28 3 3 1 7
4 3 5 1 9 29 1 2 3 6
5 3 4 2 9 30 3 2 1 6
6 2 2 3 7 31 2 5 1 8
7 3 2 4 9 32 1 3 4 8
8 2 4 2 8 33 1 4 2 7
9 2 3 4 9 34 2 2 3 7
10 3 3 2 8 35 1 2 4 7
11 1 3 2 6 36 4 2 1 7
12 2 3 4 9 37 2 4 2 8
13 2 3 2 7 38 1 3 5 9
14 2 2 3 7 39 5 3 1 9
15 3 4 2 9 40 1 2 2 5
16 1 4 2 7 41 2 3 2 7
17 2 3 3 8 42 3 3 2 8
18 5 2 2 9 43 2 3 3 8
19 2 4 2 8 44 3 3 2 8
20 3 2 4 9 45 3 3 3 9
21 1 3 3 7 46 4 2 1 7
22 3 2 2 7 47 2 2 2 6
23 1 2 1 4 48 3 3 2 8
24 4 2 1 7 49 2 1 4 7
25 4 1 1 6 50 2 3 2 7
Total 375

From Table 5 and figures 2 and 3, IT managers made up the majority of the population, standing at
140 of the 375 respondents surveyed (37%) with admins (118/375) and security managers (117/375)
slightly lagging behind.

Availability

Availability was measured based on three fundamental aspects: cloud services, features or functionality
hosted on the cloud and the impact of cloud services on productivity. Therefore, availability reflects the
trustee’s tendencies to check whether information is always available or accessible to permitted users. This
is consistent with the security and reliability aspects of cloud systems, and the results are presented below.

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Figure 2. Percentage of sampled participants

Figure 3. Percentage of sampled universities

System security and infrastructure in terms of reliability were highly ineffective. IT managers and
security managers ranked these areas ineffective in terms of security, whilst admins were unaware of
the system’s security. Most respondents reported infrastructure availability in terms of reliability as ef-
fective (244/375) and in terms of security, 232 deemed it effective. Respondents who reported highly
effective systems held a similar view concerning the availability of infrastructure in terms of reliability
and security. Therefore, infrastructure reliability and system security are effective, thereby affirming the
ubiquitous and efficient nature of the University cloud.
With regards to identifying any cloud service(s) that could potentially be hosted on their network,
majority strongly agreed that some services are hosted on the cloud (211/375). However, very few re-
spondents (44/375) were aware of the type of cloud service model the University had adopted. Regarding
the presence of cloud service functions, functions such as mail or file based storage, faculty, student and
information management systems, Google apps and virtualized services were highlighted.

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Concerning whether cloud services can increase institutional productivity, the majority disagreed
(22/375), whilst others were unsure about cloud services increasing institutional productivity (34/375).
However, the majority strongly agreed (201/375) that cloud services can increase institutional productivity.

Integrity

This helped to determine whether the trustee held any core values that encourage behaviour in order to
formulate a strategy to resolve any trust issues concerning the uptake of cloud services in UK Universities.
This included a set of sub variables, such as strategic integrity, barriers to the uptake of cloud service
adoption and emphasis on cloud service providers.
Cloud services were rated, comments about the relationship between cloud service adoption and
operational efficiency and views on security in terms of hosting sensitive information on the cloud were
deliberated. The results were measured using the Likert scale.
The rating of cloud services to UK Universities yielded a mean of 3.75, indicating its effectiveness.
The small deviation of .25 indicates that cloud services are effective in University settings. Regarding
cloud services offering operational efficiency, this yielded a mean of 1.82, indicating a moderate agree-
ment. The small deviation of 1.049 indicated that the acceptance of cloud services can improve operation
efficiency. With respect to the security of sensitive data stored on the cloud, this yielded a mean of 2.29,
indicating a moderate agreement. The small deviation of 1.098 indicated a wide acceptance of the data
stored on the cloud is secure.
Concerning the loss of control of data, data privacy, data loss and other general security issues,
this yielded a mean of 4.295, 4.041, 3.714 and 3.998 respectively, indicating that these particular
factors are a barrier to cloud service adoption. In terms of migration issues, data portability, per-
formance, availability and contractual issues, all these factors yielded a mean score of 3.5 and over,
indicating further barriers to cloud service adoption in University settings. For the legal issues af-
fecting the cloud, this yielded a mean score of 3.5 and under, indicating that this particular factor
is somewhat of a barrier to cloud service adoption. Moreover, all of the factors under investigation
yielded a significant value at p<.05, indicating that they had a significant impact on cloud service
adoption. Other results indicated that cost (33/375) and trust (54/375) were the least significant
barriers to cloud service adoption.
Views on cloud service providers’ capability and skills to effectively manage institutional data. The
results indicate that 87 out of 375 respondents strongly agree with cloud vendors being fully capable of
managing intuitional data, whereas 233 out of the 375 respondents felt unsure.

Confidentiality

This particular variable helped to determine the issues concerning cloud service confidentiality in UK
Universities, including factors such as cloud adoption process, service level agreement (SLA), respond-
ing to security threats and the cloud vendor’s privacy policy.
Views on how the privacy policy impacts the University’s purchasing decision were given. The results
indicate that majority of respondents (288/375) agreed that the privacy policy has a high or significant
impact on cloud purchasing decision, indicating that the privacy policy can be a dissuading factor in the
University’s cloud purchasing decision.

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Next, the respondents gave their perception on security threats concerning cloud services.
Data loss, unavailability of cloud services and data, privacy and vulnerability of shared technology,
yielded a mean of 3.795, 4.088, 3.634, 3.701 respectively, indicating that these factors pose a serious
security threat. In terms of vendor lock-in and application security and controls, these yielded a mean
of 3.5 and over, also indicating that these factors pose a serious security threat. Other factors, such as
legal issues and other cloud vulnerabilities e.g. hypervisor, yielded a mean of 3.5 and under, indicating
that these factors pose a moderate security threat. Moreover, all of the respondent’s perceptions on cloud
security threats yielded a significant value at p<.05, thereby suggesting that this particular variable has
significant influence on the uptake of cloud services.
Thereafter, respondents gave their perception on how cloud security threats are remedied or how they
respond to such threats at their respected University.
In terms of reporting security instances, managing threats and vulnerabilities and managing identity
and system access, these yielded a mode of 5 (very frequently), indicating that such incidences are a
very common means to how these Universities lever security threats. For managing incidence response,
this yielded a mode of 4 (frequently), indicating that such incidences are a common means to how these
Universities lever security threats.
The respondents then gave their perceptions on the visibility and transparency of cloud vendors.
The results indicate some visibility over cloud services provided by the cloud vendor, yielding a mean
of 2.07, indicating that the majority of respondents somewhat agreed. Regarding the cloud vendor’s re-
sponsibility of signing the SLA, this yielded a mean of 1.06, indicating that the majority of respondents
strongly agreed that cloud vendors should be accountable for signing the SLA. However, concerning
the impact of the transparency of cloud service operations on the uptake of cloud service adoption, this
yielded a mean of 1.47, indicating that the majority of respondents strongly agreed that cloud vendors’
provision of transparency over the cloud services has a significant impact on the rate of uptake of cloud
services in their respected Universities.

Resources

This particular variable deals with the resources used to manage systems within UK HEIs.
In terms of having sufficient resources and skills to effectively manage internal systems, this yielded
a mode of 1, indicating that the majority of respondents agreed. Regarding the average working experi-
ence, this yielded a mode of 2, indicating that the majority of respondents somewhat agreed that UK
Universities have average working experience in terms of handling system resources.
For suggesting the significance of cloud service adoption, this yielded a mode of 1, indicating that the
majority of respondents strongly agreed that CC adds value to their respected Universities. In terms of
plan to fully implement cloud services as a cost cutting solution to enhance operational efficiency, this
yielded a mode of 2, indicating that the majority of respondents somewhat agreed that UK Universities
are planning to fully adopt cloud services as a cost cutting and performance enhancing venture. Finally,
concerning the current state of cloud service adoption in UK Universities, this yielded a mode of 1,
indicating that UK Universities are already using or have implemented some cloud services, thereby
suggesting that they place some degree of trust in cloud services.

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DISCUSSION

Our analysis covered four significant areas of cloud adoption trust, namely availability, integrity, confi-
dentiality and resources. Trust characteristics concerning cloud service and development models were
also measured, such as vendor control, compliance issues, disclosure of sensitive information, lack of
control, lack of management, lack of transparency, lack of trust in cloud provider, malicious software,
open to anyone, security requirements, unsafe platform and users’ experience. These trust characteristics
were found to be consistent with the trust concepts which are discussed below.
Availability was measured in terms of cloud services, features/characteristics or functionality hosted
on the cloud and the impact of cloud services on productivity. Integrity was measured in terms of stra-
tegic integrity, barriers to the uptake of cloud service adoption and emphasis on cloud service provid-
ers. Confidentiality was measured in terms of cloud adoption process, service level agreement (SLA),
responding to security threats and the cloud vendor’s privacy policy. Resources was measured in terms
of the skills and manpower to manage cloud services.
For availability, the respondents came to a consensus about the effectiveness of infrastructure reli-
ability and system security, which affirms the ubiquitous and efficient nature of the cloud that supports
internal services within UK Universities. The findings also indicated that technical staffs in HEIs must
be effectively trained in order to become versed in cloud service and deployment models in order to
boost operational efficiency and draw practical solutions to achieve this (Chiregi and Jafari Navimipour,
2017; Ding et al., 2015; Krauss and Van der Schyff, 2014; Sultan, 2010). Owing to the high availability
of cloud systems, it will improve work performances from University staff resulting in high productivity.
For integrity, the respondents agreed that CC is worthy of potential adoption owing to factors, such
as the provision of operational efficiency and data security. However, the loss of control of data, data
privacy, data loss and other general security issues, were considered barriers to cloud service adoption.
This findings was consistent with the trust characteristics derived from the cloud service and deployment
models in terms of lack of transparency, disclosure of sensitive information and lack of control from the
vendor’s side. Migration issues, data portability, performance, availability and contractual issues, were
identified as additional barriers to cloud service adoption in University settings. Interestingly, general
cost and trust issues were the least significant barriers to cloud service adoption, meaning that they have
very little influence on non-adoption of cloud services (Okai et al., 2014; Huang and Nicol, 2013; Sultan,
2010). However, it was also deduced that respondents may be unsure about the role of the cloud vendor
and how they handle institutional data, thereby suggesting that Universities place very little faith or trust
in the skills and capabilities of cloud vendors to effectively manage institutional data.
For confidentiality, the privacy policy was found to be a dissuading factor in the University’s cloud
purchasing decision, thus indicating a further barrier to the uptake of cloud service adoption in UK
HEIs. Data loss, unavailability of cloud services and data, privacy and vulnerability of shared technol-
ogy, vendor lock-in and application security and controls were found be key factors that pose a serious
security threat that would significantly impact the uptake of cloud service adoption. This is also consis-
tent with the trust characteristics derived from the cloud service and deployment models in terms of a
lack of transparency from the vendor’s side. Concerning the reporting of security instances, managing
threats and vulnerabilities and managing identity and system access, these were found to be common
incidences to lever security threats in UK Universities. In terms of the cloud vendor’s visibility and

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their responsibility of signing the SLA, found that they should be held accountable for this. However,
in terms of the transparency of cloud service operations, cloud vendors’ provision of transparency over
the cloud services plays a significant role in cloud service uptake (Almajalid, 2017; Ismail et al., 2016;
Huang and Nicol, 2013).
For resources, having sufficient resources and skills to effectively manage internal systems was deemed
a significant area to the respondents since this would help to place trust in competent system managers.
In terms of the role of resources influencing the uptake of cloud service adoption, it was found that CC
would add value to their respected Universities granted they had the sufficient internal resources. The
respondents also mentioned that they would adopt the cloud as a cost efficient and production develop-
ment innovation and that they are currently employing some cloud services to test out this perception.
This indicates that some UK Universities do place some degree of trust in the cloud, but will differ across

Table 6. Summary of key trust concepts from empirical study

Trust Element Concepts

Cloud vendor control
Compliance issues
Cloud Models Disclosure of sensitive institutional data
Lack of transparency
Security requirements
Effectiveness of infrastructure reliability
IT training
Availability Performance
Productivity
System security
Availability
Contractual issues
Cost
Data loss
Data portability
Data privacy
Integrity Data security
Lack of cloud awareness
Loss of control of data
Migration issues
Performance
Provision of operational efficiency
Trust
Application security and controls
Cloud vendors’ visibility and accountability
Data loss
Privacy
Privacy policy
Confidentiality Reporting of security instances
SLA
Transparency
Unavailability of cloud services and data
Vendor lock-in
Vulnerability of shared technology
Added value
Efficacy
Resources
Skills
Systems knowledge

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Figure 4. Proposed strategic roadmap to overcome cloud trust issues

these institutions depending on their institutional needs, and how far the aforesaid barriers would impact
their trust in the cloud in order to consider its potential uptake. Table 6 summarises the key concepts
derived from the findings and discussion.
Interestingly, there were some overlapping and recurring themes from the literature review in com-
parison to the empirical findings with security, data issues, vendor issues and transparency being the
most common. Therefore, it can be deduced that the four aforesaid factors play the most significant
role in the trust issues associated with the uptake of cloud services in UK Universities. This deduction
can be affirmed in several existing studies (Krauss and Van der Schyff, 2014; Khan and Malluhi, 2010;
Sultan, 2010).

PROPOSED STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

Our proposed strategic framework is developed based on the conceptual model derived from the exist-
ing literature and the themes derived from empirical findings to overcome the trust issues impacting
the uptake of cloud adoption in UK University settings. This will ultimately support UK Universities
to maximise the benefits of cloud services, whilst informing them of the barriers to cloud services and
how to mitigate them. Our proposed strategy is a 5 stage roadmap or framework that can be applied to
UK HEIs to address the existing cloud uptake problem in terms of trust (see Figure 4).
Our strategic roadmap covers the following stages (Table 7):
The above stages will ensure that UK Universities will trust their proposed cloud solution since they
will be fully informed of the benefits and challenges, and acquiring the necessary skills to adopt, imple-
ment and eventually utilise the cloud service solution. Moreover, conceptual model has been modified
to consider this strategic roadmap to address the trust issues associated with the uptake of cloud services
in UK University settings (see Figure 5):

CONCLUSION AND REFLECTION

On reflection, this paper has developed a strategic framework to address the existing trust issues concerning
the uptake of cloud services in UK HEIs. Based on our findings, the following conclusions can be drawn.
There is a growing interest of CC services in UK Universities, where the majority appear to be
aware of the innovation and only a minority is aware of cloud models. Therefore, there is a need to raise
awareness of cloud services to these institutions to ensure that IT staff are well versed with the rapid
technological trends like CC. How this can be achieved is by training IT staff in-house and encouraging
them to attend a series of CC workshops and seminars to equip them with the necessary knowledge on
cloud deployments. This will help to determine a viable solution to fulfil on demand service require-

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Figure 5. Adapted Conceptual model to address trust issues of cloud uptake

Table 7. Summary of strategic roadmap stages to overcome cloud trust issues

Roadmap Stage Description

Assessing HEIs’ existing
This helps to determine the suitability of the cloud solution by evaluating existing strengths and
resource and infrastructure
weaknesses
capabilities
Raising awareness about the cloud service models via conferencing and workshops that teach about
Building knowledge and cloud services and can encourage collaboration between cloud vendors and UK Universities by
competencies learning about different cloud solutions in a practical environment. Engagement can help to capture
both theoretical and practical experience of potential cloud solutions
This involves several key activities, such as cost benefit analysis, identifying the key benefits of cloud
Choosing a suitable cloud services, specific to the University, involving key University stakeholders and decision makers to keep
model them informed about the proposed cloud solution and a mitigation plan to minimise potential barriers
or risks to the cloud deployment
This enables the University to measure the potential of the proposed solution and cloud vendor
capability in order to determine its feasibility. All important legal issues regarding the proposed
Conducting a risk assessment cloud solution are also considered, such as legal, contractual and compliance issues, the service level
agreement (SLA) between the University and the cloud vendor. This ensures that the availability,
integrity and confidentiality concerns regarding the proposed cloud solution are clearly emphasised
Adoption and deployment of the proposed cloud solution. IT staff would require internal training
to inform them of the nature of the cloud solution and how to use it. After training, preparation for
Actual adoption and eventual
unforeseen issues are carefully planned and all resources are ready to be deployed, the flexible and
implementation
agile cloud solution can then be implemented in order to reduce costs and bolster operating efficiency
and productivity

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ments for UK Universities to ultimately reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. Therefore, it
can be concluded that UK Universities highly regard CC as an innovative solution to enhance operational
efficiency and cut cost.
Statistical analysis indicates a number of key barriers to cloud service adoption in relation to trust,
including: compliance issues, contractual issues, data loss, data portability/migration issues, lack of
standards, legal issues, limited availability, loss of control of data, performance issues, privacy issues and
security issues. The cloud vendor should also be responsible for the cloud service provided to Universities,
clearly emphasising the operations on cloud services and adhering to privacy policy, all of which will
significantly influence cloud purchasing decisions and ultimately increase the uptake of cloud services.
Formulation of our 5 stage strategic roadmap can help to address the trust issues impacting the uptake
of cloud services in UK Universities, and encourage the implementation of cloud services. Our strategic
roadmap (see Figure 4) was developed based on a combination of the barriers identified in our findings
and existing concepts derived from the literature and proposed conceptual framework. This helped to
build our final strategic framework of the trust issues impacting the uptake of cloud service adoption in
the UK HEI context (see Figure 5). We conclude that IT and management participation and support is
the key to the success of our strategic framework.

LIMITATIONS

The limitations of this paper are threefold:

1. Some questionnaires were incomplete and were omitted from the analysis. However, this did not
impact the reliability of the findings as there was an 86.4% response rate, which was a strong rep-
resentation of the total sampled population;
2. Since email was used to distribute the questionnaire to the respondents, this delayed the data analysis
process as it took longer to collect all the data.
3. As this is quantitative study, it failed to fully capture the respondents’ wider perceptions of trust
in cloud services and had to rely on mean and mode scores to capture this information which had
limited detail. Therefore, a qualitative study would help to better capture these trust perceptions.

FUTURE STUDIES

Future studies should consider the following recommendations:

1. Conduct a study on implementation challenges during the adoption phase of cloud services in UK
HEIs;
2. To focus on the cost and trust issues as potential barriers and how they impact the uptake of cloud
services in UK HEIs;
3. Similar to our strategic framework regarding cloud trust affecting cloud adoption, another study
could develop an effective implementation roadmap to raise further awareness of practical CC
cases in the UK HEI context.

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184

Chapter 9
A Proposal of Improvement
for Transmission Channels
in Cloud Environments Using
the CBEDE Methodology
Reinaldo Padilha França
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

Yuzo Iano
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

Ana Carolina Borges Monteiro

State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

Rangel Arthur
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

ABSTRACT
Sharing, transmitting, and storing data has been one of the great needs of today. In the last years, concepts
and developed methodologies of cloud computing systems have been improved. This concept created in
the 1960s today is present in daily life from ordinary users to even large companies. The present study
aims to develop a method of data transmission based on discrete event concepts. This methodology was
named CBEDE (by the acronym). The experiments were matched in the MATLAB software simulation
environment, where the memory consumption of the proposed methodology was evaluated. Therefore,
the CBEDE methodology presents great potential to intermediate users and computer systems, ensuring
speed, low memory consumption, and reliability. Being the differential of this research, the use of discrete
events applied in the physical layer of a transmission medium, the bit itself, being this to low-level of
abstraction, the results show better computational performance related to memory utilization related to
the compression of the information, showing an improvement reaching up to 69.93%

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch009

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Proposal of Improvement for Transmission Channels in Cloud Environments

INTRODUCTION

The roots of the Internet are in the 1960s, but their relevance to business was only first noticed in the
early 1990s. The World Wide Web was born in 1991, and in 1993 a browser called Mosaic was released,
allowing users to view text pages with graphics. This fostered the creation of the first corporate websites
and, not surprisingly, most of them were from computer and technology companies. As Internet connec-
tions became faster and more reliable, a new type of enterprise, called the Application Service Provider
(ASP), began to emerge. ASPs managed existing business applications for their customers. These com-
panies acquired computing power and administered the applications to their customers who then paid
a monthly fee to access the applications over the Internet (Comer, 2018). But it was not until the late
1990s that cloud computing as we know it today began to emerge. Cloud computing is the on-demand
delivery of computing power, database storage, applications, and other IT resources through an Internet-
based cloud service platform with a price-by-use setting (Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017).
In 1997, during an academic lecture given by Ramnath Chellap came to the term Cloud Computing.
However, many consider this concept to be associated with John Mccarthy, he is considered the pioneer
in Artificial Intelligence technology and also the creator of the LISP programming language. This asso-
ciation of the term cloud computing to Mccarthy is due to the fact that in 1960 he stated that “computing
may someday be considered as a public utility.” In addition, since that time he had been discussing the
term time-shared computing sharing. For him could computing allow a computer to be used simultane-
ously by two or more users in order to perform tasks, taking advantage of the amount of time available
between each process. In this way, using the computer together could generate better use and decrease
of expenses, since the user would pay only for the time of use of the equipment or, in this case, the
technology of the Cloud (Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rittinghouse & Ransome,2016).
At that time along with Mccarthy, the physicist and scientist of ARPA (Advanced Research Projects
Agency) Joseph Carl Licklider, was also creating another concept that would revolutionize the world.
Licklider was looking for other useful utilities for the computer and ended up discovering a powerful
way to connect people, allowing the communication and sharing of data on a global scale. He is currently
considered the pioneer in creating the Internet in the form we know today. From this, it was possible to
create a global network of sharing and communication, the ARPANET that evolved to the Internet and
enabled the Cloud Computing to begin to take shape. The origin of its name, the cloud, comes from
the diagrams of the old ISDN (Digital Services Network) and Frame Relay data networks designed
by telephony operators. The interconnection between the two was shown by cloud drawings, to signal
something that was out of the reach of the companies. Therefore, we do not always know which comput-
ers are the applications in Cloud Computing (Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rittinghouse
& Ransome,2016).
Nowadays, more than 50 years after John Mccarthy’s phrase about computing as a public utility, Cloud
Computing technology already has a strong breadth. This technology began to be offered commercially
in 2008, when small, medium and large companies gradually adopted the technology. In the year 2013
already had an immense acceptance by the corporate universe. This great acceptance has been transform-
ing the service, so that the processing and storage of data began to be treated in the same way as a service
of electricity supply, where it is only paid for consumption (de Bruin & Floridi, 2017; Chang, 2015).
Substituting capital expenditures for variable expenses, ie investing substantially in data centers
and servers, in cloud computing, establishes the philosophy of paying only when consuming comput-
ing resources, and paying only for the quantity consumed. Since then the cloud has grown steadily. It

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A Proposal of Improvement for Transmission Channels in Cloud Environments

is estimated that by 2013, global investment in cloud-based services has reached $ 47 billion. And this
number is projected to double and exceed $ 100 billion over the next few years as companies increase
their investment in cloud services as the foundation of their new, more competitive products. In the cloud
computing environment, additional IT resources are within reach in just one click, meaning the time it
takes to make these resources available to developers is reduced, “what used to be weeks to weeks. This
results in a dramatic increase in the agility of the organization, as the cost and time required to experi-
ment and develop are significantly lower (Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rittinghouse &
Ransome,2016).
In this context, many companies have adhered to this new business model, implementing outsourced
services by a cloud computing vendor, or building servers and data centers within the company to meet
customer and process demands. Meanwhile, other companies are gearing up to serve users and corpora-
tions who want to get into the Cloud, be it public, private, or hybrid. With this, Cloud Computing proves
to be a bold technology that has come about to change the way we do business and communicate. This
is because one of the biggest needs of companies around the world is to have constant access to the
company’s strategic information to facilitate and qualify the decision-making process (Jain, Deshpande,
Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rani,Rani & Babu, 2015).
Cloud computing services are changing how businesses and public institutions use information tech-
nology, because the cloud services are available to meet most any existing IT (Information Technology)
needs. Although there is a great variety among cloud computing services, all these services have certain
basic features and benefits in common, and all can be categorized into a few basic cloud service types.
Cloud Computing Services provides Information Technology that can offer a service over the Internet or
dedicated network, with delivery on demand, ranging from full applications and development platforms,
to servers, storage, and virtual desktops among other applications. Cloud services may vary in their
particulars, corporate and government entities. It is may be used as well as colleges and universities to
address a variety of application and infrastructure needs such as a database, computing, and data storage
(Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rittinghouse & Ransome,2016).
Unlike a traditional IT environment, where software and hardware are physically funded, which in
contrast cloud computing services deliver IT resources in minutes to hours and align costs to current
usage. As a result, these organizations have greater agility and can manage their data - information - and
expenses more efficiently. Similarly, consumers who use cloud computing services to simplify applica-
tion utilization like a store, share, and protect content, and enable access from any web-connected de-
vice. In this digitally globalized world, we deal with a huge set of data all the time. Data refers to facts,
events, actions, activities, and transactions which have been and can be recorded, i.e., the raw material
from which information is produced, nurturing the infrastructure and components that enable modern
computing (Jain, Deshpande, Raghu, & Khanaa, 2017; Rani,Rani & Babu, 2015).
Cloud Computing Services associated with information technology (IT) encompasses both the internet-
enabled sphere as well as the mobile one powered by wireless networks, being able to reach technologies
of the type telephones, cellphone, radio, and television broadcast, all of which are still widely used today.
In this ample scope, data are a description of the world, being the Information making meaning from
the data, and based on the data, one can conclude diverse aspects and relative issues in the world. This
conclusion is the information, putting in other words, the information itself is the processed data. Most
of the decisions taken in and around the world by and large scale are based on the data and information.
In short, Information is the key guiding force of the world today (Schneider & Sunyaev, 2016; Botta,
De Donato, Persico & Pescapé, 2016).

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In a few words, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services – servers, storage, databases,
networking, software, analytics, intelligence and more – over the Internet. “The cloud”, popularly called
this technology, to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. Creating a busi-
ness environment of the type: you pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating
costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale your business needs change (Rittinghouse &
Ransome,2016).
Cloud computing is a big shift from traditional business to an increasingly digital and modern world.
There are six common reasons organizations and universities are turning to cloud computing services:
cost, speed, global scale, productivity, performance, and security. No matter the type of cloud computing
service is in use, one thing is certain: large amounts of data will move back and forth between your end
users and the cloud provider’s data centers, over the internet (Mosco, 2015).
The recent innovations and increasing popularity of smart cities, video analytics are by social media,
entertainment, surveillance, smart health monitoring, or even crowd management are used in a range of
application domains highly interconnected devices, sensors, and other smart city stakeholders, and as
this technology grows with the help of the internet, intranet, extranet, there is a need for the creation of
environments that allow the performance of this technology. And with cloud computing this is possible
by creating systems where the resources of the data center are shared using virtualization technology,
such that it provides an elastic technology, as regards demand and instant services to their customers and
charges them based on the resources they use, and its users have developed an innovative era of great
global content sharing, without loss of quality, or low effectiveness, being able to environments with cloud
computing a large storage of information than conventional often still practiced (Hossain,Muhammad,
Abdul,Song & Gupta, 2018; Gou, Z., Yamaguchi, S., & Gupta, 2017; Gupta,2018; Stergiou, Psannis,
Kim & Gupta, 2018).
The market in this area grew 47.4% in 2016, according to a study by ABES (Brazilian Association
of Software Companies) in partnership with IDC (International Data Corporation). This is because the
platforms in the service model are great allies of industry startups to accelerate business and meet the
strong demand generated by emerging technologies. Currently, developers can now shorten the time to
create, test, and distribute creative, quality apps, especially for smartphones. These entrepreneurs can
quickly hire IaaS (infrastructure as a service), SaaS (software as a service), PaaS (Platform as a service),
security and other advanced Technologies (Rittinghouse & Ransome,2016; Assunção,Calheiros, Bianchi,
Netto & Buyya, 2015).
Cloud Computing debuted by offering SaaS, then added to its portfolio solutions such as IaaS and
PaaS, delivered by the Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud. Since Cloud has infinite capacity to provide
services, various solutions are emerging in the service model such as DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a
Service), focused on information security; CaaS (Communication as a Service); EaaS (Everything as
a Service or DBaas) and DBaas (DataBase as a Service or Database as a Service); among others. Due
to its potential for service dissemination, Cloud Computing adoption grows at rates of 20% per year,
according to market consultants. These results are associated with the popularization of broadband and
mobility (Rittinghouse & Ransome,2016; Schneider & Sunyaev, 2016; Assunção, Calheiros, Bianchi,
Netto & Buyya, 2015).
The advantage of IaaS is being able to meet punctual demands, such as sporadic peaks in the use of
IT resources, or eliminate expenses with maintenance and allocation of physical devices, without losing
control over the installation, management, and configuration of enterprise applications. The advantage of
PaaS is that it includes operating systems, development tools, database management systems, business

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intelligence services, and more, as well as all the infrastructure required to run or refine an application.
Another advantage is the need not to worry about capacity planning, acquisition, and maintenance of
licenses and software or the management of secondary applications for the success of your projects and
developments (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2016; Assunção, Calheiros, Bianchi, Netto & Buyya, 2015).
Service (SaaS) is the most common type of cloud service, which the company hires the applica-
tion itself and is only responsible for the use of the resources. The solution provider is responsible for
maintaining the infrastructure, ensuring security and supporting the contracted application. The most
common examples of SaaS are corporate email services and customer relationship management (CRM)
software. Various systems can be found, such as inventory control, cash flow, among other purposes,
totally in the cloud, facilitating the routines of the managers of establishments, companies or institutions
of the most diverse branches of activity (Rittinghouse & Ransome,2016; Assunção, Calheiros, Bianchi,
Netto & Buyya, 2015).
The idea is not just to put files on the internet and access them from any location and any device,
for example. Being in the cloud means turning something that would be restricted to a server and/or
physical space into something that can be built collaboratively through the knowledge and actions of
various people. Centralizing the system of your company in this system has, as a direct consequence,
the integration of the different areas of the company and the increase of the effectiveness of the projects,
consequences of the digital transformation. One of its main advantages is the best use of hardware invest-
ments. Because the heaviest part of the processing is in the “cloud”, the user only needs a browser and
a good internet connection to use the service. Another huge advantage is the elasticity. If more or less
space is needed for storage, simply request an upgrade, without having to change equipment (Stergiou
& Psannis, 2017; Marinescu, 2017).
Some researchers believe that by 2020, not having Cloud will be like not owning the Internet these
days, something that is essential for survival in such a competitive market. In addition, by using this
type of service, it is possible to reduce the space spent on servers and cooling systems, reducing the
consumption of electricity and the emission of carbon dioxide. These actions can generate a positive
image of the company that employs cloud computing in its business, demonstrating that it is engaged in
environmentally friendly policies, making the market and consumers have a positive impression of the
business (Stergiou & Psannis, 2017; Marinescu, 2017; Etro, 2015)
Based on this, the present study aims to develop a model of information transmission based on discrete
event concepts. This methodology aims to increase the speed in sending and receiving data between
cloud computing systems and computers, in addition to consuming less computational memory during
this process. Next, we will discuss the concepts of methodologies that contribute to the development of
the CBEDE methodology (Coding of Bits for Entities by means of Discrete Events).

Cloud Services

A cloud service is any service created on the Internet from a cloud computing provider’s servers as op-
posed to being provided from a company’s own on-premises servers or institutions. Cloud services are
designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and services, and are fully managed
by the cloud services provider, generating greater flexibility. This service can dynamically scale to meet
the needs of its users, and because the service provider supplies the hardware and software necessary for
the service, there’s no need for a company to provision or deploy its own resources or allocate IT staff
to manage the service (de Bruin & Floridi, 2017).

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Once at work, you can use the cloud whether you write code using Github as a code repository, share
a document with a colleague using Box, be it Microsoft or Google. When we go home, we may open up
photos to a friend sent to us on Dropbox without giving it a second thought that we are consuming the
cloud service built on top of another cloud service (Dropbox for example). From relatively new compa-
nies (such as Box, Mega, and DropBox) to even the giants (like Google, Apple, and Microsoft), many
vendors use free offers as a way to attract customers to their clouds. The strategy brings with it the hope
that consumers will pay for larger volumes and also additional services. Examples of cloud services
include online data storage and backup solutions, web-based e-mail services, hosted office suites and
document collaboration services, database processing, managed technical support services and more
(de Bruin & Floridi, 2017; Garg, Versteeg & Buyya, 2013)
Private cloud services, in contrast, are not generally available to the public, or individual or corporate
users, or even subscribers. Private cloud-based services use technologies and approaches associated
with public clouds, such as virtualization and self-service services. But private cloud services run on
an organization’s own infrastructure and are dedicated to internal users, usually specialists or technical
personnel, able to use them with greater vigor and experience rather than multiple, external customers
(Doelitzscher, Sulistio, Reich,Kuijs & Wolf,2011).

Discrete Events

Discrete Events, usually called by the abbreviation DES, is an effective tool to approach a wide variety of
communication issues. The discrete events are used mainly to relates a model that represented a system
as a sequence of operations performed on entities (transactions) of certain types such as data packets,
bits, among others. The discrete events are derived from the results of actions taken in a system, and can
be classified as an occurrence responsible for the change in the state of the system in which they act, and
may be of all kinds, where they are generally capable of producing state changes at random intervals of
time, generating data and consequently the information (Brito, Trevisan & Booter, 2011).
The universe of actions that provide events is subjective and depends on the ability of the modeler/
designer to abstract the events of this universe in which the system is being modeled. These entities are
discrete in a discrete event simulation. This technique has been used to model concepts with a high-level
of abstraction, as patients, nurses, doctors, ranging from the exchange of emails on a server to transmis-
sion of data packets between devices connected in a network, also uses the queuing concept and can be
used to manage people data and so forth, i.e., the entire extent of a communication system (Chahal &
Eldabi, 2010).
This logic can be observed in Figure 1, where from e1 to e4 represent the states of a system. From X1
to X5 the events themselves are presented, and from t1 to t4 the times in which these events occurred.
In this way, it is possible to understand the interaction between events and the state of the system over
time. The events (e1, e2, e3, e4) depend on the actions that cause the state changes (X1, X2, X3, X4, X5)
resulting in the evolution of the states in a certain period of time (t1, t2, t3, t4). Thus, the relationship
between the sequence of events with the components used in the modeling must respect the principle
of operation of each component and its applicability in the modeling system (Chahal & Eldabi, 2010).
In this way, the diversity of applications that the technique of the discrete event provides, showing
its importance in several areas of knowledge, as well as in engineering (area of the proposal of this re-
search), was remarkable, being able to apply it in a telecommunication system, more specifically in the
transmission of data in a channel.

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Figure 1. Events chart

Entities

Entities are defined as discrete items of interest in a discrete event simulation. However, the meaning of
an entity depends on what is being modeled and the type of system used. This occurs because the pres-
ence of certain attributes may be able to affect the way events are treated or cause changes as the entity
flows through the process. In this context is important to emphasize that the concepts entities and events
are different. Events are instantaneous discrete incidents that can change a state variable, an output, and/
or an occurrence from another event. In turn, an entity is somewhat dependent on what is being modeled
and the type of system. Thus, the characteristic of a discrete event signal indicates that something (eg,
an accident, an earthquake, a fault, a control, a person, a heartbeat, or any other desirable concept within
a system) occurred. In turn, an event is a conceptual notation that denotes a state change in a system.
Discrete event modeling allows performing discrete changes within a system (Padilha, 2018; Lane, 2000)

AWGN Channel

A telecommunication system follows a logic that can be applied to any communication system. This logic
includes the presence of three basic components: (1) a transmitter responsible for sending information
and subsequent conversion into a signal, (2) a transmission medium to carry this signal, and (3) a receiver
receiving the same signal, and then convert it into useful information. The communication channel is the
medium responsible for providing the physical connection between transmitters and receivers in a com-
munication system, either as a wire or for a logical connection in a multiplexed medium, for example, a
radio channel in telecommunications networks and computers. Data transport typically uses two types
of media: physical (twisted pair and fiber optic cable) and electromagnetic (microwave, satellite, radio,
and infrared) (Tozer, 2012).
A widely used model applicable to a large set of physical channels is the Additive White Gaussian
Noise (AWGN) channel model. This model has the characteristic of introducing a statistically modeled
noise, such as a white Gaussian additive process, into the transmitted signals. The existence of distur-
bances/noise in the channel (free space/atmosphere) has multiple causes. One of them is the thermal
noise by the virtue of the movement of the electrons in the electronic circuit used for transmission and

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reception of the signal. The AWGN channel models such as existing imperfections, naturally, in a com-
munication channel (Rama Krishna, Chakravarthy & Sastry,2016).

DPSK and PSK

Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK) is a modulation scheme responsible for facilitating non-coherent
demodulation. However, PSK (Phase Shift Keying) modulation generally requires only coherent demodu-
lation. This coherent demodulation is related to the carrier, which is modulated to obtain the signal in
the passband. In turn, this signal is reproduced at the receiver and subsequently used for demodulation
in the passband to obtain the message. When the same carrier frequency as the transmitted signal is
used, a noisy demodulated signal is generated, which results in a laborious process for the receiver to
generate the received carrier (Couch II, 2013).
In the DPSK modulation, in turn, there is the modification of the transmissions so that each transmitted
signal also depends on the previous one. Thus, the demodulation of the current signal is dependent on
the signal received in the previous time period, and can be used as the local carrier. This equality leads
to the cancellation of the signals, allowing their demodulation. Accordingly, the phase of that modulated
signal is shifted relative to the phase element of the previous signal (Tozer, 2012; Couch II, 2013).
In this modulation, its modulation format can be differentiated by encoding the data by similarity or
by the difference of the symbols in relation to the previous signal, determined by the presence of bit 1
and bit 0. The DBPSK modulation eliminates phase ambiguity and the need for phase acquisition and
tracking, resulting in reduced energy consumption. In this modulation, a non-coherent way is used to
solve the need for a coherent reference signal at the receiver. Thus, the input binary sequence is first
differentially encoded and then modulated using a Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulator. In
demodulation, there is no need to know the initial state of the bit, simplifying synchronization (Tozer,
2012; Couch II, 2013).
DBPSK and BPSK modulation are widely used in wireless LAN, RFID and Bluetooth communication
applications, are also used for long distance wireless communication, is also a modulation technique in
most of the adaptive modulation technique adopted in cellular communication. This is the case with the
CDMA, WiMAX (16d, 16e), WLAN 11a, 11b, 11g, 11n, Satellite, DVB, Cable modem among others,
due to the difference of 180 degree between two constellation points, withstand the severe amount of
channel conditions or channel fading. It is used in OFDM and OFDMA to modulate the pilot subcarriers
used for channel estimation and equalization, which applied in different channels are used for specific
data transmission in cellular systems. These modulations are used by most of the cellular towers for long
distance communication or transmission of the data. Its demodulator requires to make only two deci-
sions in order to recover original binary information, being very simple compared to other modulation
types. The power-efficient modulation technique the less power is needed to transmit the carrier with
less number of bits (Tozer, 2012).

Methodology

The development of this methodology was performed in a computer with hardware configuration being
an Intel Core i3 processor, containing two processing cores, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, and
4GB RAM. To provide enhancements in cloud environments, the present study implements a model
CBEDE applied to a communication system, and advanced modulation format DBPSK (Differential

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Figure 2. Traditional model of a telecommunication system

Binary Phase Shift Keying) in a simulation environment, the Simulink simulation environment of the
MATLAB software, improving the transmission of data, through a pre-coding process of bits applying
discrete events in the signal before of the modulation process.
The experiments were conducted through the Simulink tool, from Matlab (2014 a). This simulation
environment was chosen because it is already consolidated in the scientific medium, having a develop-
ment and simulation environment already tested and validated. DBPSK and BPSK modulation were
chosen in this study, because are considered the most robust of modulation schemes in terms of noise
immunity, is less immune to the interference, allowing the highest level of distortion in the signal being
still successfully demodulated.
Four libraries were used: (1) Communications System ™, which is designed to design, simulate and
analyze systems, being able to model dynamic communication systems; (2) the DSP System ™ that is
capable of designing and simulating systems with signal processing; (3) Simulink®, which is a block
diagram environment for multi-domain simulation, capable of supporting system-level projects for the
modeling and simulation of telecommunication systems, and (4) the library SimEvents®, which is clas-
sified as a discrete event simulation mechanism and components to develop systems models oriented
to specific events
Previous work (Padilha, 2018; Couch II, 2013; Padilha, Iano, Moschim & Loschi,2017; Padilha, Iano,
Moschim, Monteiro & Loschi, 2017; Padilha, Iano, Moschim, Monteiro & Loschi, 2017) demonstrated
that bit 0 treatment is viable, presenting significant results in the compression of the transmitted infor-
mation, as well as in the reduction of processing time. In this way, the proposed methodology is based
on the development of an AWGN hybrid channel, characterized by the introduction of the discrete event
technique in the bit generation process, focusing on bit 1.
In the proposed model, Figure 2, the signals corresponding to bits 0 and 1 will be generated and
modulated with the advanced modulation format DBPSK, which will use the phase shift, coming from
the modulation format itself. It will then proceed to an AWGN channel according to the parameters shown
in Table 01. The signal will then be demodulated to perform the Bit Error Rate (BER) calculation of
the channel. The values obtained for BER will be sent to the Matlab workspace, in the name variables
“yout” for equality verification and generation of the signal BER graph.
The modeling according to the proposal implemented with discrete events is similar to the one presented
previously, differentiating that in this model by the addition of discrete events in the pre-coding phase.
The proposed bit precoding was implemented through the discrete event methodology. Bit processing is

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Figure 3. Proposed bit precoding

understood as the discrete event methodology in the step of generating signal bits (information) to make
it more appropriate for a specific application.
The complexity of the proposed methodology can be explained through the logic presented in Figure
3, which consists of an event-based signal is a signal susceptible to treatment by the SimEvents® library,
and posteriorly passed by conversion to the specific format required for manipulation by the Simulink®
library. Both time-based signals and event-based signals were in the time domain. This treatment had
an emphasis on bits 1 and 0, which were generated as a discrete entity and followed the parameters
as presented in Table 1. Then, Entity Sink® represents the end of the modeling of discrete events by
SimEvents library.
This tool is responsible for marking the specific point in which Entity Sink will be located, where
later the event-based signal conversion will be performed for a time-based signal. This time-based sig-
nal was converted to a specific type that followed the desired output data parameter, an integer, the bit.
By means of the Real-World Value (RWV) function, the actual value of the input signal was preserved.
Then a rounding was performed with the floor function. This function is responsible for rounding the
values to the nearest smallest integer.
Also used to a Zero-Order Hold (ZOH) which is responsible for defining sampling in a practical
sense, being used for discrete samples at regular intervals (Dragotti, Vetterli, Blu, 2007). The ZOH de-
scribe the effect of converting a signal to the time domain, causing its reconstruction and maintaining
each sample value for a specific time interval. The treatment logic on bits 1 and 0 is shown in Figure 3.
Subsequently, the signal is modulated with the advanced modulation format DBPSK and is inserted
into the AWGN channel, and then demodulated for the purposes of calculating the BER of the signal.
The relative values of the BER are sent to the Matlab workspace in the name variable “yout1” to verify
equality and generate the BER graph of the signal, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Model of a telecommunication system with the proposal

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Figure 5. Generation M-ary numbers for bits 0 and 1

Figure 6. Traditional Model of a Telecommunication System

In the proposed model, Figure 2 and 4, the signals corresponding to bits 0 and 1 will be generated,
respecting the rule and mathematical logic shown in Figure 5 below.
This rule and mathematical logic with respect to PSK M-ary numbers generate randomly distributed
integers in the interval [0, M-1], where M is the definition for bit representation, following the nomenclature
of the MATLAB software. Figure 6 shows the respective generation of the bits by means of this logic.
The models are shown in Figures 2 and 4 run with 10000 seconds of simulation and will respect the
configuration defined according to Table 1.

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Figure 7. Theoretical DBPSK constellation

The verification of equality of the signals is performed through the “size” and “isequal” functions
of the Matlab software, as well as through the bit error rate (BER). These functions are responsible for
the mathematical comparison proving that the signals have the same size and the same size. Together
with the BER check, it will state that the same amount of information will be transmitted (bits) in both
the proposed methodology (hybrid AWGN channel) and the conventional methodology (AWGN chan-
nel). Thus, if the signals are of the same size and size, the logical value 1 (true) is returned and the same
volume of data is transmitted, indicating that the equality of the signals is true. Otherwise, the value
will be 0 (false). This check will show that the submitted proposal does not add or remove information
to the originally transmitted signal.
The constellation has a function to analyze both signals transmitted by the models. In the case of the
DBPSK constellation, a phase represents the binary 1 and the other phase represents the binary 0. As
the digital input signal changes its state, the output signal phase will be changed between two angles
separated by 180° (Tozer, 2012; Couch II, 2013). This validation methodology has as function to af-
firm that the proposal will not modify the amount of bits transmitted by the signal, since both signals
transmitted in the conventional channel and in the channel containing the proposal of this study, will be
of the same size. In Figure 7 the DBPSK constellation diagram.

RESULTS AND DISCUSS

The research presented in this section shows an AWGN transmission channel with DBPSK modulation,
being used the Simulink simulation environment of the MATLAB. The model from Figure 8 incorporates
the traditional method (left) and the proposed innovation of this chapter (right) is presented, showing the
signal transmission flow (corresponding to bits 0 and 1), is generated and then modulated in DBPSK,
passing through the channel AWGN. The Figures 9 display the constellations for 9 dB for the proposed
(left) and the traditional methods (right)
The models developed were investigated from the perspective of memory consumption evaluation.
The first simulation of both models in each command is analyzed, since it is in the first simulation that
the construction of the model in a virtual environment is performed from scratch, it is in it where all

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Figure 8. Transmission Flow for DBPSK

Figure 9. Simulated DBPSK Constellations

the variables of the model are allocated, the memory of the operating system in which the MATLAB is
running is reserved for the execution of the model and the results of this model, according to the evalu-
ation parameters are, in fact, real.
Thus, the experiments considered the memory consumption. For memory calculation, the “sldiagnos-
tics” function will be used, where the “TotalMemory” variable will receive the sum of all the memory
consumption processes used in the model, by the “ProcessMemUsage” parameter. This parameter count-
ing the amount of memory used in each process, throughout the simulation, returning the total in MB
(megabyte). For this was used a computer with hardware configuration being an Intel Core i3 processor,
containing two processing cores, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, and 4GB RAM. This machine
relates the proposal to the dynamics of the real world and will affirm its efficiency and applicability. A
physical machines with hardware configuration were used, consisting of an Intel Core i3 processor and
4GB RAM, as previously discussed. The experiments were carried out through 10 simulations of each
model developed in order to develop the analysis of this chapter, as shown in Figure 10.
The results obtained by the “size” and “isequal” functions, the DBPSK modulation were analyzed
through its constellation, by means of the “compass” function, which will display a compass graph with

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Figure 10. First simulations (memory) model DBPSK

n arrows, and how the constellations will be PSKs, their representations of points will be radial. This
feature, the graph format has a compass shape, where n is the number of elements in Z. The location of
the base of each arrow will be its origin. In turn, the location of the tip of each arrow will be determined
by the real and imaginary components of Z, relative to the constellation of the signal. In the same way
and with the same intention will be used the diagram of the constellation.
In the Figure 11 is shown the comparison between a traditional methodology and the CBEDE meth-
odology. In this context, the traditional methodology corresponds to a channel without discrete events

Figure 11. simulated DBPSK constellation

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Table 2. Amounts of Memory Consumption

TRADITIONAL PROPOSAL
Simulation
1 40,0117 33,2734
2 43,7305 35,3828
3 42,7930 33,6328
4 44,7070 36,2305
5 47,2891 37,8164
6 47,4609 36,5039
7 51,4258 36,8125
8 51,8320 34,1406
9 56,3320 36,1211
10 71,8477 42,2813

As important as developing the methodology is an improvement of the transmission of a signal that

shows better performance, is to make the know-how available to the academic community, as well as to
contribute to the area of study of the proposal as well as the theme that this chapter deals with.
The respective amounts of memory consumption shown in Figure 10 are found previously are in
Table 2:
To analyze the relationship between the simulation methodology (proposed x traditional method),
and the impact on the physical layer of the channel, scripts were made in the MATLAB for processing
of the graph BER. Figure 12 display the performance of the models during transmission with noise
ranging from 0 to 7 dB.

Figure12. BER between the models DBPSK

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This proposal brings a new approach to signal transmission. In this case, the transmission is performed
in the discrete domain with the implementation of discrete entities in the bit generation process. In this
way is possible to increase the capacity of information transmission for communication systems. Given
the above, the technique of discrete events can be applied in the treatment of bits in its generation stage,
being responsible for their conversion into discrete entities. This process is the result of a methodology
used in a lower level of application, which acts on the physical layer, than the already used, usually in
the transport layer. Able to reduce the consumption of computational resources, such as memory, which
is an important parameter to meet the needs of an increasingly technological world.
The use of the methodology under study is based on the technique of discrete events, which by its
nature has several application scenarios in a wide variety of real-world systems ranging from manu-
facturing systems and business processes, computers in computer systems, networks, service delivery
systems such as banks, transaction systems for databases, communication protocols, additional services
for digital exchanges such as call centers, intelligent transport systems, processes in control engineering,
defense systems and military equipment, however the application of this technique in these contexts oc-
curs through concepts of high level of abstraction, such as clients in a queue, emails on a server, flow of
vehicles, transmission of data packets, thus the complexity of the application of the use of this technique
in the modeling of bits in a system is the innovative point where, through an approach different from the
usual technique in a telecommunication system, transmission in the channel is performed in the discrete
domain with the implementation of discrete entities in the bit generation process. Reaching the consid-
eration that when it comes to data transmission, its agility, better response time, the better response of
communication between users in the system, is obtainable by a better efficiency in the data transmission,
being the own bits, making it more fluid and Light. In the same way that the memory consumption of
the device used by the organization is of extreme importance, because currently ordinary users tend to
generate data every second, worldwide, so the slowness is often related to the speed of communication
and the technology implemented in the system structure used by these users, can often generate device
crashes, and inconvenience sometimes due to loss of data, even if these are in real time, send such points,
briefly touched and weighted, as well as all its technological extensions can be avoided with the applica-
tion of the proposal, CBEDE, favoring an improvement in the transmission of data.
Considering also that speed is a key issue when choosing a methodology, whether it is used by a user,
companies or universities, the CBEDE methodology can be seen as a great allied to cloud computing
systems. Even if the cloud has large storage capacity and provides security in data storage, the user always
cares about the time it takes to upload or download your data. For this, it is important to invest in systems
that intermediate the cloud computing systems and users. With the result reaching up to 69,93% in the
improvement of memory consumption of the CBEDE methodology can be employed in this process,
since the amount of data of the user greater is the concern with the speed of the transmission.
Another important factor when it comes to data transmission is the memory consumption of the
device. Currently, the cloud computing system is linked to computers and mobile phones. As is well
known, the use of cell phones today is much larger than that of a computer due to its mobility. Ordinary
users tend to upload documents, images, and videos for the purpose of sharing their common social
network, or even save their personal files (docx, pdf, avi, jpg, among others) in their “personal cloud”.
The slowness related to the speed of communication and the cloud technology implemented in the
system structure used by these users, can often generate device crashes, inconvenience to the user and
sometimes even loss of data, if these are in real time. When this happens, often the reliability of Cloud
computing can be put to the test by the user who can from that moment prefer to store their data on

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physical platforms. This bad impression can be intensified when this situation occurs with companies
and universities. Thus, in order to break this bad impression and generate greater reliability, the CBEDE
methodology can also be seen as a great ally. This is because the experiments demonstrate a lower reaching
up to 69,93% memory consumption in data transmission, being better than the traditional methodologies,
which do not require the use of discrete events.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Future work on the CBEDE methodology includes simulations on a wider variety of hardware, includ-
ing Intel Dual Core Processor, Intel i3 Processor, and Intel i5 Processor. These physical platforms will
be targeted for research as they are the most common on the market today. In addition, testing of data
transmission via mobile devices is expected due to its greater popularization in recent years. It is also
intended to conduct data transmission tests with Cloud Computing platforms.

CONCLUSION

Being the differential of this research, the use of discrete events applied in the physical layer of a trans-
mission medium, the bit itself, being this a low-level of abstraction, the results show better computational
performance related to memory utilization related to the compression of the information, showing an
improvement reaching up to 69,93%. This demonstrates that the CBEDE has great potential in the im-
provement of the communication services potential, as well as improving Cloud Computing services,
improving of already existing processes can increase the performance of communication response between
all the devices in the system and in the cloud environment, because the flow of data will consume fewer
resources and, therefore, can improve the interactions between the users.
The objective of this research is in the use of discrete events being applied at the lowest level of
abstraction possible within a communication system, as is done in bit generation, and as a result make
the cloud environment more productive, faster and with better performance.
Thus, information compression is a byproduct, since the proposal acts on the bits, having a substantial
impact on the compression methods performed in higher layers (for example, format types such as HEVC,
MPEG-4 AVC / H.264, JPG, PNG, among others) in a communication system, for example, affecting all
the media information (data of examinations of the most varied types) that can be transmitted, resulting
in a higher quality of both sending and receiving.

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Chapter 10
Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-
Heuristic Energy-Efficient
Load Balancing Algorithms
in Cloud Computing
Rojalina Priyadarshini
C. V. Raman College of Engineering, India

Rabindra Kumar Barik

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3086-3782
KIIT Deemed to be University, India

Brojo Kishore Mishra

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7836-052X
GIET University, India

ABSTRACT
The number of users of cloud computing services is drastically increasing, thereby increasing the size of
data centers across the globe. In virtue of it, the consumption of power and energy is a major concern
for system designers and developers. Their goal is now to develop power and energy-efficient products
at the same time maintaining the quality and cost of products and services. For managing the power and
efficiency, several aspects are taken into consideration in cloud computing paradigm. Load balancing,
task scheduling, task migration, resource allocation are some of the techniques, which need to be effi-
ciently employed to minimize the energy consumption. This chapter represents the detailed survey of the
existing solutions and approaches for energy-efficient load balancing algorithms used in cloud environ-
ments. The research challenges as well as future research directions are also discussed in this chapter.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch010

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

INTRODUCTION

In IT industry, the demand of energy is constantly rising. Recent study shows that in US, 10% of the
total commercial electricity is consumed by ICT and that is 20% in Germany (Koomey et al, 2010). The
study also projects that the power requirement of data centres in US will be increased drastically from
60TWh/y in 2005 to 250TWh/y by 2017 (Aebischer et al, 2015).These projections and predictions are
generating a requirement towards use of sustainable and energy efficient mechanisms and approaches
in ICT sector (Procaccianti et al, 2015). Cloud computing (CC) is a most recent computing paradigm
(Buyya et al, 2009) which is widely used in IT services based on pay-as-you-go model (Kord et al,
2013). Some of the major challenges lie in the underlying domain is: data privacy, legal regulations,
utility and risk management, on demand provisioning and security (Zapata et al, 2015).However, energy
efficiency has turned out to be a main apprehension especially in cloud data centers (Liu et al, 2011).
In US, data centres put away a fraction of 1/15 of the whole commercial electricity use in 2006, whose
monetary value is approximately of 4.5 billion per year (Dabbagh et al, 2015). As a consequence the
proprietors of data centre are very much serious to adopt naive ways for energy saving strategies which
can minimize their operational costs. Along with this, it is reported in (Pettey et al, 2007). that the ICT
sector contributes 2% of total carbon emission which is environmental concern and is an alarming is-
sue and a great concern for everyone (Borah et al, 2015). It has been investigated that the top 500 High
performance computers consume 20 MW of energy which is equivalent to a small thermal power plant’s
power consumption (Filiposka et al, 2016). The energy charges and carbon footprints are surely going
to increase in coming days as data centres are expected to raise radically in terms of volume and count
in order to meet the current service needs. As an outcome the prime objective of the entire fraternity
of industry, academia, and government agencies in present days are towards searching solutions and
methods which can lessen energy consumption in all aspects of computing by using standard energy
conservation techniques.
A broad classification of energy management schemes in CC environment is shown in Fig. 1. The
energy management schemes can be largely classified into two groups as 1) Static Energy Management
(SEM) and 2) Dynamic Energy Management (DEM) (Beloglazov et al, 2011). The SEM schemes are
based on methods which use optimization of design time at different levels. In circuit level the optimized
methods try to lessen power consumption caused due to switch flipping in logic gates and transistors by
using optimized number and size of transistors. In logic level, the techniques are aimed to be employed
to minimize the power consumption due to switching activity of logic gates and transistors by using
appropriate complex gate design and minimizing the number of transistors (Dasgupta et al, 2013). But,
only by optimal hardware design and use is not sufficient to achieve better performance in terms of
energy consumption. The overall performance can be enhanced only if at both hardware and software
level, optimized design techniques will be used.
The DEM schemes include the methodologies and techniques which support run time adjustment of
system’s properties and characteristic as per current system needs. DEM techniques applied at software
level include load allocation, load management, scheduling, load balancing, and task consolidation etc. As
a consequence, the current research presents a detail insight of various ways by which energy efficiency
is achieved in CC in terms of fair distribution of work load among various nodes across the cloud system.
The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we provide the details about the load balancing in
CC and the matrices used to evaluate the load balancing schemes in CC. The existing load balancing

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algorithms are described briefly in Section 3. The observations made from the survey are highlighted in
Section 4. Section 5 contains the conclusion along with the future scope of research.

LOAD BALANCING IN CC

Load balancing (LB) task in cloud environment can be formulated as assigning N number of tasks
requested by cloud users which are kept in a job pool to M number of processing units available in the
Cloud (Dasgupta et al, 2013). It can become a NP hard problem if both the present number of resources
and tasks to be executed is huge in a system. It is used to maximize resource utilization by distributing
the workload among different servers, data centres or any other computing resource. As a result the
cloud service providers can satisfy more number of service requests coming from different user groups.
On the basis of implementation level, LB algorithms can be grouped into hardware level and software
level (He et al, 2015). Hardware LB techniques include extra hardware component attached to the system
which will take care of LB task and software techniques take the help of software which are associated
with operating system software whereas some techniques use a hybrid model using both simultane-
ously. On the basis of decision making time, these schemes can be static or dynamic. If the distribution
of load is decided at compile time, it falls into the category of static type. These types of algorithms
are very simple to implement, but are not mostly applicable to cloud environment. At the other hand if
the decision of load distribution happens at run time, then they belong to the category of dynamic LB
techniques which are actually used in cloud environment. These types of algorithm make use of current
knowledge regarding the load to take decisions about load distribution (Malarvizhi et al, 2009). Some of
the algorithms are satisfying user requirements and considered the SLA constraints (Gencay et al, 2008;
Fillin et al, 2008) and some are focussing on evenly distribution of load among different nodes. The LB
problem in cloud has been investigated and addressed by using different aspect, some algorithm focus
is to design energy aware schemes and some focus on minimizing network traffic (Lang et al, 2010;
Buyya et al, 2010; Patel et al, 2013).

Performance Matrices Used for LB

In this section, the parameters which are required to be optimized during the process of LB is described
in details and are as follows:

1. Makespan: It is defined as the finish time of the last task queued on a particular resource (Kalra
et al, 2015). In LB, this parameter is needed to be minimized, so that the jobs can have a faster
execution.
2. Response Time: It is the duration of waiting time for the user after submission of the request till
the first response comes and the repose time should be possibly least.
3. Migration cost: This is the overhead incurred by any system while its current load is partially or
fully transferred from one machine to the other, which needs to be minimized.
4. Resource Utilization: This property tries to keep all the nodes always busy in doing something.
It should be maximized
5. Power Consumption: It refers to the total CPU clock rates consumed during the solution process
which is required to be less.

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

6. Waiting time: It refers to the duration of time a task waits to get its own turn after submission. A
good LB algorithm tries to decrease this value as much as possible.
7. Throughput: It defines the amount of task completed in unit time. Throughput of a system must
be maximized 8) Economic cost: This refers to the total amount of cost a user has to pay. This value
also needs to be optimized.
8. Tardiness: It signifies the delay in task implementation which is the difference between deadline
of task finish and actual task finish time (Nuaimi et al, 2012). This value must approaches towards
zero.
9. Workload Distribution: It represents the fairness in distribute the task to all the nodes present in
the system so that no node can be overloaded or under loaded.

Existing LB Strategies

In this section, we describe the existing LB strategies proposed in the literature for cloud computing
environment. The solution strategies used for LB can be broadly classified into two groups. The LB
algorithms used can either (1) Non-heuristic or (2) Heuristic and Meta-heuristic type. The detail clas-
sification of these algorithms is shown in Fig. 2.

Non-Heuristic Based LB Algorithms

The traditional LB algorithms like round robin allocation, random allocation or weighted round robin
allocation only use network parameters to make a decision for assigning a task to a system (Nuaimi et al,
2012; Elzeki eta l, 2012). These approaches do not consider other parameters such as current status of
load exhibiting on a system, availability of database servers etc. They do not consider other parameters
like current status of load exhibiting on a system, availability of database servers etc.
In Max-Min algorithm (Mao et al, 2014), the job having the largest completion time is assigned to a
processing unit. In terms of make span it performs equally well as min-min. But, it falls into starvation
if a job having longer finish time encounters first. It makes the smaller tasks to wait for an unexpectedly
longer time. Max–Min task scheduling algorithm for the elastic cloud (ECMM) has been conceptualized
in (Mao et al, 2014). It constitutes a table consisting of running jobs and one more table containing the
status information of VM. Both are kept in load balancer module. When a group of task reach at a time,
a task with maximum execution time is chosen then an approximated completion time from each VM is
computed from the VM status table, and then the job is assigned to the appropriate VM. The authors in
(Patel et al, 2015) proposed a mechanism called as Enhanced LB Min-Min algorithm (ELBMM). This
algorithm is an advanced version of Min-Min algorithm (Etminani et al, 2007). In this algorithm, the
Minimum Completion Time (MCT) is calculated first for all the requested jobs in the queue for each of
the available machines, then the task with the least completion time is chosen and been allocated to the
corresponding machine. It decreases the overall make-span but the problem lies with this algorithm is
that, it gives priority to jobs having smaller completion time which thereby increases the response time
of bigger jobs. In ELBMM, after the expected time completion matrix for each task is created, the task
having the minimum earliest completion time with respect to a resource is allocated to the same resource.
Then makespan for remaining tasks is also computed and the resulting resource Rj is also identified.
After that makespan of task Ti is compared with its MCT, if it is found that the makespan is less than

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

the MCT, then that is assigned to the exhibited resource having the least completion time is assigned to
the machine Rj otherwise the task with next minimum completion time is selected.
The Opportunistic LB (OLB) algorithm (Wang et al, 2010) does not take into consideration the ap-
proximated Task Execution Time and allocates the task randomly as a result yielding poor makespan.
The Minimum Completion Time (MCT(Kokilvani et al, 2011) approach applies statistical means to select
the VM having the least completion time, but jobs with shorter execution time will not get a chance to
execute. Allocating tasks to VM, the Minimum Execution Time (MET) algorithm would not distribute
tasks evenly so it is not suitable in heterogeneous environment. On the other hand, Load balance Min-
Min (LBMM) scheduling algorithm proposed by T. Kokilavani et al considers both the MCT and the
MET, and chooses nodes for executing a task after considering remaining CPU space and memory and
also the transmission rate, which overcomes the shortcomings of min-min scheduling algorithms and
improvised a better version called as LB Min-Min (LBMM).
In OLB (Wang et al, 2010) jobs are assigned to the task for keeping all the nodes busy but execu-
tion time of node during assignment, which may put some of the tasks to wait for a longer time if any
of the nodes could not make it free due to larger execution time. A variation of LBMM overcomes it
by following a three layered architecture. In the top level, there exist a request manager whose job is
to receive task and in second level it allocates tasks to a service manager. Upon receiving the request,
it breaks the entire task into smaller divisions and assigns the sub tasks to a service node for execution
thereby speeding up the processing time. But, the decision about the task assignments are based on the
node / memory availability and transmission rate.
Radojevicn et al. proposed an improvised version of round robin algorithm for LB and named that
as Central LB Decision Model (CLBDM) (Radojevic et al, 2011). It first checks the availability of ap-
plication servers for doing the work, and then runs the weighted round robin algorithm (Ni et al, 2011)
to select a node for assigning the incoming task. It uses the concept of session switching in between the
application servers where after getting the information about the available servers, if any of the server
is busy or active in doing a work then task is forwarded to the next freely available application servers.
Junjie et al. (2011) suggested a LB algorithm in cloud which is grounded on a mapping policy in
between virtual machine and real machines. This method posses a central scheduling controller which
finds the appropriate resource to accomplish the work and allocate the same to the identified resource and
a resource monitor which is responsible for keeping the detail information about the available resource.
The objective of (Wu et al, 2012) is to fetch an algorithm which can decrease duplication and redundancy
in data and was known as Index Name Server (INS). This algorithm tries to use optimization technique
to choose the access point. The parameters which are taken into account for choosing the access point are
the hash code of the data block needed to be downloaded, the server location carrying the target block,
quality of transition, and bandwidth of the located server containing the intended block. A computation
is done to check if a current connection is able to carry additional nodes. Ren et al. (2011) proposed an
improved algorithm for LB in cloud environment, inspired by a pre-existing algorithm “weighted least
connection (WLC)” (Lee et al, 2011) and is named as ESWLC (Exponential Smooth Forecast based on
Weighted Least Connection) . In WLC algorithm, task allocation is done to the node which has the least
number of connections after counting the number of connections made on that particular node. But, the
problem lies with WLC is that it is ignorant about the abilities of every node’s processing speed, storage
limitations and bandwidth. ESWLC overcomes this by considering the longevity or task duration and
also use the information of each nodes capacity in terms of processing power, memory, current alloca-

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tion of disk space size, server load occupation along with number of connections. ESWLC forecast to
select the node by using exponential smoothing forecasting algorithm.
A Map- Reduce (MR) based approach was suggested by Lars Kolb et al. to handle data intensive task
(Kolb et al, 2012). They have taken the work of solving entity resolution problem in data analytics. Two
approaches are used for dividing the data intensive tasks into several partitions, which are to be distributed
to the reducer, which are i) Blocksplit: which divides large blocks in order of their input partition; resulting
varying sized sub-blocks which may make the reducers load in an unfair manner. ii) Pair-Range: It divides
the blocks into equal sized sub blocks, which can do the allocation of sub-blocks to the reducer in a fair
way. Again an MR based algorithm was proposed in (Gunarathne et al, 2010) for the same purpose. In any
MR algorithm there exist two phases. One is mapping of tasks and the other is reducing of results. Along
with this the three methods used in this representation are part, comp and group. Part method is called
first to start the Mapping of tasks. Each of the requested tasks is assigned to a part and a key is generated
and saved in a hash table for every part. The comp method compares the parts to do grouping of similar
parts. Grouping is established by group method. All the Map tasks are carried out and processed parallel,
as a result this may lead an overloading on the Reduce tasks. So, the authors in this paper introduced one
additional level between the Map task and the Reduce task which may lessen the overloading issue.
Few of LB algorithms use the data migration to achieve a uniform load distribution across the system.
Some try to transfer the running instances from VM to other host simply by pausing the source VM and
then copying the system image to any other destined physical machine. During this process the migrat-
ing applications do not work (Sapuntzakis et al, 2002; Whitaker et al, 2004; Nelson et al, 2005; Clark
et al, 2005) causing unavailability of services and support to customers. Some do live migration of task
from one machine to the other by using pre-copy method. In the later approach the run time state of the
migrated task are copied to the source machine in beforehand. But if the content is heavier, it generates
a huge dirty memory in original host machine Maximum of these algorithms try to transfer tasks from
overburdened VMs. (Ramezani et al, 2014; Kozuch et al, 2002)This type of migration policies are very
simple to execute but contain severe drawbacks such as (1)leave dirty memory which mount up still after
copy in live VM migration, (2) uses a huge chunk of memory in both source and destination machines
(3) requires the source machine to stop for a while causing an increase in downtime (4) containing risk
of losing online customers at that point of time (5) not time and cost effective. Ramezani et al. (2014)
attempt to conquer the said limitations by not selecting a blind underloaded node rather they chose a
homogeneous machine to transfer partial load from the overwhelmed machine. In (Gutierrez-Garcia et
al, 2013), J. Octavio Gutierrez-Garcia and Adrian Ramirez-Nafarrate proposed an algorithm which is
named as Multi-agent protocol for LB (MapLoad) where they targeted to find out an appropriate VM
which could be selected, so that the data could be migrated from this to the other for live migration.
They considered both server heterogeneity and VM usage heterogeneity. But they have not calculated
the migration overhead in their work. The same author have done a work in (Banerjee et al, 2009) and
extended the work by considering the heuristics to chose the victim node for migration, to decide the
time of migration and got a better result from the previous one.

Heuristic or Meta-Heuristic Based LB Algorithms

Many researchers applied Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique to design solutions for the problem
of LB in cloud environment. In (Banerjee et al, 2009), authors have created an input space consisting
of ants representing all the possible solutions consisting of the nodes present in the cloud system. The

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

ants are used to collect the information about the cloud nodes. This input space of the solutions was
constantly revised by the ants pheromone trails. In this piece of research, the ants employs basic formula
for pheromone updation and node selection which shares out the work load among the nodes in a fair way
without overburdening any single node. The algorithm presented by Zhang and Zhang in (Zhang et al,
2010) used ACO approach for addressing the LB algorithm and called that as Open Cloud Computing
Federation (OCCF). The working of this algorithm is as follows: when any request comes, the ants are
initiated with their pheromone and the head node is selected randomly. Then the ants start their forward
path from the head nodes. An ant follows a forward path if it encounters an overloaded node and next
proceeds to search for any of the neighbouring under-loaded node. If no under-loaded is found, the ant
takes a backward path to reach to the previously searched under-loaded node. But the problem arises when
the previously found under loaded node was no longer Under-loaded when visited for the second time.
The ACO algorithm is further used in a different way by Kumar et al. (2012) to overcome the above
cited problem and they added the foraging and trailing phenomena of pheromones which are used for
searching the nodes with more than and less than required load. They have added a suicide mechanism to
the ant if it searches the target end thereby eliminating the overhead incurred by unnecessary backtracks.
They also proposed an ACO based algorithm to provide a solution for performing the task of LB. In their
algorithm, at the outset a head node called as a Regional LB node is selected by the cloud computing
service provider randomly. Then this node is updated to a new one if it does not work appropriately at
any situation. Basing on the highest number of neighbouring node, the head node is selected in a way
that it has the highest number of neighbouring nodes, which can help the ants to pass through in all
probable directions of the network and they would not get any dead end. In the original ACO approach,
ants develop the whole solution gradually after building an individual solution. The global solution was
created by updating the set of individual solutions. But, in Kumar et al. work (Nishant et al, 2012), ants
keeps on updating a single developed solution rather than changing all individual solutions which will
avoid the local optimum and premature convergence problem of ACO (Guo et al, 2012). This has been
further extended in (Khan et al, 2014) which not only considers the LB but also emphasized on power
utilization and infringement in Service level agreement (SLA).
ACO is used in several works Lu and Gu (2011) also applied ACO for LB work. They observed
and tried to fetch certain VMs which consume more CPU Power, memory and network bandwidth than
the prefixed threshold while executing and named them as hotspot. They have used ACO to find the
idle node which is residing at minimum distance from these hotspots. In (Dam et al, 2014), the authors
proposed an approach where, the loads are given in order of their arrival time. But, when the number of
free VM is becoming less than a prefixed threshold value, ants are produced in cloud which continuously
searches the VM with minimum load to give away the next coming tasks. They claimed an improve-
ment in response time which was decreased by 4.2%, 2.4%, 27.6% and 27.7% than ACO (Banerjee et
al, 2009), SHC and FCFS respectively, and the authors experimented on one data center containing 75
VM and were simulated on Cloud-Analyst. In (Singh et al, 2015), authors applied an ant based system
to design an algorithm and named as Autonomous agent based LB (A2LB). It considers three compo-
nents: A couple of static agents which are Load and Channel and the third one is a dynamic one which
is Migration Agent. The migration agents are set up as ants due to the reason that they can find out a
minimal path from the source and target same as the biological ants. These ants are used for finding the
under loaded nodes. Pacini et al. (2014) proposed a solution for LB and focused on total throughput and
response time management in the situation where multiple clients executing their experiments in parallel
in an online private cloud platform.

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Dasgupta et al. (2013) presented a LB scheme which used Genetic Algorithm (GA) . In their work,
authors created two vectors which are Processing Unit Vector (PUV) and Job Unit Vector (JUV). PUV
is a direct function of three parameters which are MIPS (Million instructions per second), the delay cost
‘α’ and instruction execution cost ‘L’. JUV is dependent on three parameters, which are count of instruc-
tions contained in a task (NIC), job arrival time (AT) and the least time to accomplish the job (wc) and
‘t’ represents the type of cloud service. The fitness function they have taken as a cost function which
depends on these two parameters: PUV and JUV, which was needed to be minimized. They simulate
the model in cloud analyst and compare the performance with FCFS and Round Robin algorithm and
got a significant improvement over the existing algorithms. However, the inherent disadvantages like
local minima problem, slow convergence issue of GA is still lying with the model and the priority of
the tasks are not taken into consideration while doing the job assignments. In (Hu et al, 2010), authors
used a GA based LB approach to address the problem of LB. They had mainly focused on task migration
cost which is incurred during dynamic transfer of partially completed high granular processes. GA has
been used to select the victim VM, which can cause less harm to the system in case of data transmission.
They have used real cloud environment through an open source cloud interface - Open Nebula. Span-
ning tree has been used for generating the initial population, where the leaf node represents the VM and
root represents the managers and the fitness function considers the load constraints. The algorithm is
at par performance wise and stable even in load variance situation. Wang et al. (2014) proposed a GA
based approach and called it as Job-spanning and LB Genetic Algorithm (JLGA). This work used two
fitness functions taking care of minimizing job completion time and load variance. For generating the
initial population, a greedy approach has been used which selects the best current solution to build up
the solution space. Main focus of this work was to minimize the makespan along with minimizing the
load variance.
Ramezani et al. (Ramezani et al, 2014) applied a particle swarm optimization based LB scheme known
as “Balancing in Cloud Computing Using Particle Swarm Optimization (TBSLB-PSO)”, where they
undertake to obtain optimal node selection done by PSO. They tried to reduce the migration overhead
which is incurred during transferring jobs from one machine to the next. This approach transfers the task
from a node when it is overloaded, but inspite of transferring all tasks, it selects the task which caused
overloading. Further, they used PSO for finding the next node to assign the transferred task. They tried
to minimize the total task execution time as well as the maximum execution time. In 2015, Pan et al.
came up with a advanced PSO for balancing the load in cloud environment- (LB-IPSO) (Pan et al, 2015).
They used two objective functions which were optimized using PSO. Those are standard deviation of
load balancing (BL) and overall task completion time (RT). These two parameters are tried to be kept
as minimum as possible. They used CloudSim (Calheiros et al, 2011) simulator to test their model and
got a better result than existing max-min algorithm.
Liu and Wang proposed a PSO approach to do the LB among VMs in cloud environment (Liu et al,
2012) which aims to lessen the overall makespan (Mishra et al, 2018) and increase the resource utiliza-
tion. They have improvised the classical PSO by adding a self adaptable inertia weight.
Sidhu et al. (2013) developed a LB scheme (PSO-LR) which was meant for cloud environment. it
selects the most little task from the most overloaded node to any other system which is having least
amount of load. The same is repeated for the remaining machines and eventually making the whole
system equally-balanced. But this may cause an overhead due to extensive searching.
In Yassa et al. (2013) came out with an idea which was basing on PSO and targeted to lessen the
makespan, user cost and energy consumption of computing machines present in the data centres by ap-

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

plying a concept of Dynamic Voltage and Frequency scaling or DVFS. The used technique worked by
reducing the supplying voltage, thereby reducing the clock frequency and overall power consumption
of CPU. It takes the CPU in sleep mode when not in use. To satisfy multiple optimization criteria, a
pareto optimization is used.
In (Tang et al, 2015), for balancing the load in cloud environment, a nature inspired algorithm was
used which was based on honey bee behaviour and named as honey bee behaviour inspired LB (HBB-LB).
This algorithm tries to optimize the load as well as takes the priority of each task. Here, the tasks taken
out of the virtual machines are assumed as honey bees. When the jobs are assigned to the under loaded
node, the information about the priority value for each of the task and load assigned to that particular
VM is updated. So that when a new task comes with a greater priority value, it will be assigned to the
VM containing least number of high priority jobs.
In (Pan et al, 2015), authors proposed a load overloading avoidance algorithm by applying meta-
heuristic search method Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization named it as Interactive ABC (IABC).
They first select a smaller group of virtual machines and distribute the available task to them as a result,
a VM does not overwhelm. When a new task arrives the search is again done to check whether it can
overload a VM. If so, the algorithm reschedules the task. The results are compared with simple ABC
algorithm by taking number of cloud lets and are found to be outperformed with IABC. However the
complexity of the algorithm is high due to extensive search work. Linlin Tang and et al. presented a naive
approach for LB which uses a member of swarm intelligence group i.e. artificial bee colony optimiza-
tion (Tang et al, 2015). They have used ABC to schedule the task among various nodes. They simulated
their proposed model with CloudSim package and found claimed from the outputs, it distributes the load
among different cloudlets in a fair way.
The authors in (Tang et al, 2015) used an approach which was motivated by a soft computing meth-
odology known as Stochastic Hill Climbing (SHC) algorithm for addressing the problem of LB. They
assigned a probability to each of the VM according to their present load. Then they choose random
virtual machines for allocating a task which can do the task effectively, but later on the performance of
that particular VM is analysed according to its cost function. If it is found to be less, than the probability
value for the assignment in the next iteration is reduced.
Table 1 presents the work done in LB in CC, their working environment, the performance matrices to
test them along with some findings on the limitations of the same set. Table 2 represents the classifica-
tion of LB algorithms according to the satisfying performance criteria. The environment used for testing
LB algorithms can be either performed either in a (i) original cloud setup or (ii) by using a simulation
software. Fig. 2 shows the details about the environment used to implement LB algorithms in CC which
are found during the survey.

OBSERVATIONS

Based on the literature survey done in LB in CC, the following observations can be made.

1. Use of Heuristic Approach: The non-heuristic methods are used for doing LB task initially. But,
later on the heuristic algorithms are also used for the same purpose. The reason behind is that the
problem of LB is a NP complete problem, so there is always a hope to get a better and more closer
to the original solution in comparable less time.

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Table 1. Summary of LB algorithms with their descriptions and limitations

Authors & Schemes &,

Description Limitations
References Enhancement
1) Individual node capacity is not
Mitigate the concerns of Round Robin algorithm. considered
Radojevic et al.
CLDBM Automated tasks forwarding minimizes the need 2) Single point of failure
(2011)
for a human administrator 3) The threshold might not be applied
to all cases.
1) The algorithm is concerned about a
single parameter- Node availability
Banerjee At the beginning all the under-loaded nodes are
Basic ACO 2) Network overhead due to large
et al. (2009) fetched by using basic ACO algorithm
solution space
3) Random selection of initial ants
Upon request, the ants with pheromone selected
1) Unnecessary backtracks if the ant
randomly. chooses a forward path, if overloaded
Zhang et al.(2010) OCCF does not find any underloaded node in
node found, finds neighbouring under-loaded
the forwarding path
node
1) Slower than other algorithms
Nishant et ACO with pheromone Ants update a single result rather updating a set
because Work must pass through three
al.(2012) foraging & trailing of individual results.
layers to be processed.
It follows a multi criteria optimization by ACO
Khan et al. (2014) SALB with ACO for multiple objectives like LB, CPU power 1) Implementation complexity
consumption, SLA infringement
1) Inherits the problem of FCFS in
Initially nodes are allocated in a FCFS fashion, initial phase.
Lu et al. (2011) Enhanced ACO when number of available VMs decreases then 2) If longer task arrive first, the
ACO is used to find a VM with minimal load waiting time for remaining task may
increase
Load are initially given as per FCFS principle, 1) High processing time
Dam et al. (2014) Basic ACO when no. Of VMs is downed ACO is used to find 2) Waiting time slightly increases if
underloaded node larger jobs execute first
Block split and pairwise are the two approaches 1) In block split approach, all reducers
Kolb et al. (2012) Map Reduce are used to divide the task to create one or more will not get nearly equal amount of
match to be given to the reducer load
1) Less overhead for the reduce tasks
Less overhead for the reduce tasks
Gunarathne et al. Enhanced Map- 2) High processing time
High processing time Reduce tasks capabilities
(2010) Reduce 3) Reduce tasks capabilities are not
are not taken into consideration
taken into consideration
1) Prediction algorithm is absent to
The goal is to find an approach which has
guess future traffic.
minimum data redundancy when distributing the
T-Y. et al. (2012) INS 2) Complicated in terms of
task across different nodes by utilizing optimized
implementation in heavily loaded
backup management
cloud atmosphere
Ren, X., R. et al. Uses information of individual node’s capacity 1)use of forecasting algorithm may
ESWLC
(2011) while allocating. increase processing time
Allocation is done with the node having 1) Algorithm is ignorant about
LEE et al. (2011) WLC
minimum number of connections individual capacity of each node.
It uses a fitness function as a coast function
Dasgupta et al. GA based load 1) Priority of the tasks is not
which minimizes response time and overall
(2015) balancing considered.
completion time
GA has been used to select a victim VM, from
1) Inherent disadvantages of GA like
Gu et al. (2010) Basic GA which task is transferred causing less harm to
slow convergence problem
entire system.

continued on following page

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Table 1. Continued

Authors & Schemes &,

Description Limitations
References Enhancement
1) Priority of the tasks is not
Used a greedy method for initial population, then
GA with two considered.
Wang et al. (2014) used GA with two fitness functions to reduce
objective functions 2) Population scale parameter, number
overall makespan & task imbalance
of iteration is static
Assigns high priority jobs to the under loaded 1)Extra overhead due to continues
Babu et al. (2013) HBB-LB
VMs. Waiting time of the task is less scanning the priority values
1) The performance is tasted with
Uses soft computing approach – hill climbing
limited and non-soft computing
Pal et al. [2012) SHC algorithm to find out the VM to be allocated with
algorithms like FCFS and Round
the task
Robin
Tries to transfer extra load from an overloaded 1)Takes more time to execute
Fahimeh et
TBSLBPSO machine 2) Not Cost-effective
al.(2014)
Reduces the VM migration overhead 3) Space complexity is more
PSO is used to minimize overall task completion 1)Not tested on varying population
Pan et al. (2015) LB-IPSO
time and load variation among nodes. size
Classical PSO is improvised by adding a self
1) Extra overhead due to extensive
Sidhu et al (2013) PSO-SLR adaptable inertia weight meant to search the
searching
overloaded node
It uses a pareto optimization to satisfy multiple
1)idle time CPU power consumption
Yassa et al. (2013) PSO-DVFS constraints like reducing power consumption,
is not considered.
cost and makespan
First evenly distribute load among small group
1) Heavy searching work increase
Pan et al. (2015) IABC of VMs, when new jobs arrives it again searches
complexity of algorithm.
during overloading condition
ABC optimization It uses ABC algorithm to schedule the task so 1)Searching of tasks are
Tang et al. (2015)
2016 that load can be distributed fairly. computationally intensive
Maximum completion time of each task is 1) Priority is given to task with least
Patel et al. (2015) ELBMM calculated and task having the minimum is completion time which can make the
chosen. bigger task to starve
Taken care of CPU utilization, response time and 1) Does not consider the priority of
Singh et al. (2010) A2LB
overall throughput the jobs

2. LB as a Multi-Objective Optimization Problem: The problem of LB can be stated as a multi-

objective optimization problem. This is because the parameters that affect the performance of LB
algorithms are needed to be minimized or maximized to produce competent results. Most of the
algorithms proposed tried to optimize either makespan or workload distribution. Later on new
improvised version of hybridized meta-heuristic algorithms such as PSO, ACO and ABC are used
which could satisfy multiple constraints at a single point of time.
3. Improving Quality of Solution Using Heuristic Algorithm: Most of the solutions which use
population based tools like GA and PSO, there is a scope for improving the quality of solutions
by optimizing some of the local parameters such as population scale parameter, number of itera-
tions; initial population generation in case of GA and PSO and can be improvised by using some
heuristic. Wang et al. in (2014) used a greedy method which chooses the initial population from
the best of current available solutions, which thereby improvises the result. In ACO, the pheromone
updation could be improvised because new ants are generated for next generation by updating the
pheromones. If this process improvises, the standard of solution can also be improvised.

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Table 2. Schemes for LB along with performance parameters and simulation environment used

Simulation
References Schemes Performance Parameters Used
Environment
(Radojevic ET al, Response time,
CLDBM Not mentioned
2011) Resource utilization
[(Banerjee et al, Response time,
Basic ACO Cloud-Analyst
2009) Workload distribution
[(Mondal et al,
SHC Response time Cloud-analyst
2012)
(Ren et al, 2011) LB-IPSO Response time, Workload distribution, Makespan CloudSim
(Dabbagh et al,
GA based LB Response time, Makespan, Cloud- Analytics
2015)
(He et al, 2015) Basic ACO Workload distribution Not mentioned
(Zahng et al, 2010 OCCF Workload distribution JAVA
(Nishant et al, ACO with pheromone foraging
Workload distribution CloudSim
2012) & trailing
Amazon EC2 cloud with
(Kolb et al, 2012) Map Reduce Workload distribution
Hadoop
(abu et al, 2013) HBB-LB Workload distribution CloudSim
(Tang et al, 2015) ABC optimization Workload distribution CloudSim
[Liu et al, 2011] Enhanced ACO Workload distribution Cloud Environment
(Lee ta l, 2011) WLC Workload distribution Cloud setup
(Sidhu et al, 2013) PSO-SLR Workload distribution
Workload distribution,
(Khan et al, 2014) SALB with ACO CloudSim
Power consumption, SLA infringement
Work Load distribution,
(Ren et al, 2011) ESWLC Cloud setup
Power and memory consumption
(Wang et al, 2010) A2LB Workload distribution, Transfer time JAVA
Transfer time, Migration cost, Remote Backup
(Wu et al, 2012) INS Cloud setup
efficiency
Resource utilization, Migration cost, Workload
(Hu et al, 2010) Basic GA Open Nebula
distribution
(Ramezani et al, Migration cost, Transfer time, Makespan,
TBSLBPSO Cloudsim, Jswarm
2014) Throughput
(Gumarathne et al, Microsoft Azure cloud
Enhanced Map-Reduce Throughput
2010) infrastructure
Wang et al, 2014) GA with two objective functions Makespan, Workload distribution Hadoop, Matlab
(Pan et al, 2015) IABC Makespan, Workload distribution Cloud setup
(Yassa et al, 2013) PSO with DVFS Makespan, power consumption, CPU utilization.
(Patel et al, 2015) ELBMM Makespan, Not mentioned

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Figure 1. Broad classification of energy management scheme in cloud computing paradigm

Figure 2. Broad Division of Solution Approaches for LB

CONCLUDING REMARKS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This survey includes the recent study of both heuristic and non-heuristic algorithms applied in LB in
CC environment. The deterministic algorithms are always faster than heuristic algorithms. But, as LB
is a NP hard problem, no polynomial time algorithm exists for the solution and heuristic algorithms
are used to produce some nearly optimal solutions. A lot of research is going on to get even more im-
provised solutions by exploring and exploiting new techniques in this domain. For LB problem, there
exist diverse optimization criteria. All the algorithms try to optimize few of them. But, SLA constraint

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Meta-Heuristic and Non-Meta-Heuristic Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Figure 3. Division of performance evaluation environment

satisfaction, security, and privacy are the grey area which needs to be lime lighted. Today the entire
world is suffering from global warming problem, due to more CO2 emission. So, priority of the time is
to develop solution strategies in a direction towards minimizing energy consumption in terms of CPU
power consumption, CPU utilization etc. and at the same time without degrading performance. The
challenge is still lying with the heating effect and carbon footprints occurring in due course of these
solutions. An extensive research should be done in this regard to develop solutions with minimum heat
emission and energy consumption.
The future scope for LB in CC has been outlined below.

1. Though a lot of work has been done in the area of LB, there exists no single algorithm which would
satisfy all the performance criteria. Some authors tried to reduce makespan, execution cost, energy
consumption and some other focussed on response time, transfer time and overall throughput. Most
of the algorithms used so far, are satisfying limited number of criteria. So, there is a large scope
and requirement to explore certain algorithms which could satisfy more number of performance
attributes.
2. The meta-heuristic algorithms which are used for this problem are very limited in numbers such as
GA, ABC and ACO. So, other meta-heuristic algorithms can be explored which may put forward
enhanced performance of the same problem.
3. Hybridised algorithms are not yet used for designing the solution for LB problem. Classical ap-
proaches like backtracking techniques and local search techniques may be exploited along with
the soft-computing approaches to generate improvised solution. Normally hybridization is used to
take out the advantage of both, at the same time the lacuna of one can be overcome by the other.
So, inventions can be done in this direction to exploit the potential of individual.
4. Inventions can be done to incorporate methodologies which will give more emphasis to SLA con-
straints in CC environment. Ultimately the sole objective of every management system and software
is to design and develop quality product and services for the end users. Security and privacy aspect
is not been addressed by any of the proposed methods. There is a big gap between these and the
designed solutions. This could be taken as an open challenge in this area.
5. There is a lot of scope where Software defined network (SDN) could be used and LB algorithms
could be seamlessly used with better performance. The centralized control behavior of SDN could
greatly help in executing the LB algorithms in a hassle free way.

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Chapter 11
Distributed Algorithms for
Finding Meta-Paths of a Large
Heterogeneous Information
Network on Cloud
Phuc Do
University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

ABSTRACT
Meta-path is an important concept of heterogeneous information networks (HINs). Meta-paths were used
in many tasks such as information retrieval, decision making, and product recommendation. Normally
meta-paths were proposed by human experts. Recently, works on meta-path discovery have proposed
in-memory solutions that fit in one computer. With large HINs, the whole HIN cannot be loaded in the
memory. In this chapter, the authors proposed distributed algorithms to discover meta-paths of large
HINs on cloud. They develop the distributed algorithms to discover the significant meta-path, maximal
significant meta-path, and top-k meta-paths between two vertices of HIN. Calculation of the support
of meta-paths or performing breadth first search can be computational costly in very large HINs.
Conveniently, the distributed algorithms utilize the GraphFrames library of Apache Spark on cloud
computing environment to efficiently query large HINs. The authors conduct the experiments on large
DBLP dataset to prove the performance of our algorithms on cloud.

INTRODUCTION

Heterogeneous Information Networks (HINs) is a graph model in which both arcs and vertices are as-
sociated with types. Real world data is often represented as a HIN, for example, DBLP bibliographic
networks, FreeBase, YaGo. In DBLP bibliographic networks, vertices have several vertex types such
as authors, papers, venues, topics, words. These vertex types are connected via various link types such
as write relation (author─[writes]→paper), cite relation (paper─[cite]→paper), publishedAt relation
(paper-[published_At] →venue), to name but a few. Let us consider an example from DBLP. There are

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch011

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

three vertices in the graph, namely “Rakesh Agrawal”, “Fast algorithms for mining association rules”,
“VLDB”, with their corresponding vertex type “author”, “paper” and “venue”. The two links connecting
between three vertices are labeled with write and publishedAt relation, which describe the fact “Rakesh
Agrawal” published paper named “Fast algorithms for mining association rules” at the VLDB confer-
ence. With a vast number of interrelated facts study on HINs has gained traction recently.
One of the important concepts in HINs is meta-path, or sequences of vertex types and link types
between two given nodes (Y. Sun, J. Han, X. Yan, P. Yu, and T. Wu, 2011). In the DBLP example, we
have a meta-path of length one: author─[writes]→paper. We can also have a path length of more than
one, such as author─[write]→ paper-[published_At]→venue, which explains an indirect relation between
author and venue. Since a meta-path can express various kinds of relationships among nodes, ranging
from one-hop relation (path length equal to one) to many-hop relation (path length larger than one), it
has been extensively used in many HIN applications such as Similarity Measure PathSim (Y. Sun, 2011),
HeteSim (Chuan Shi X. K., 2013), Clustering and Classification (Xiangnan Kong, 2012). In these ap-
plications, meta-paths are provided by domain experts, which can be challenging in some scenarios of
large HINs. First, domain experts may not always be available. Secondly, when HINs becomes larger,
manually selecting meta-paths can be labor-intensive. Hence, there is a need for a tool to query meta-paths
efficiently in large HINs. While most of extant meta-path based studies focus on analytical applications
of meta-paths (Chuan Shi Y. L., 2017), there are recent works proposing automatic solutions to mine
meta-paths from HINs. However, those solutions assume the input HIN must fit into the memory of
one computer. It is not clear how to extend these works in distributed environments with many worker
computers on Cloud computing environment to process large HIN that cannot fit into memory of one
computer. With Cloud computing environment, we can leverage the power of computing and data stor-
age of many computers to solve the challenging problem (Christos Stergiou, Kostas E. Psannis, Brij B.
Gupta, Yutaka Ishibashi, 2018).
A majority of meta-path based studies focus on its HIN applications. In (Y. Sun, J. Han, X. Yan, P.
Yu, and T. Wu, 2011), the authors study similarity search defined among the same type of vertices in
HINs. They propose the concept of meta-path and PathSim, a meta-path based similarity between two
vertices of the same type. Through experiments, the authors show the effectiveness of using PathSim
over random-walk based similarity measures. Subsequently, there are works focusing on analytic ap-
plications of meta-paths.
Besides PathSim, there are other measures such as Path-Constrained Random Walks (Ni Lao, 2010),
HeteSim (Chuan Shi X. K., 2013). In (Phuc Do, Phu Pham., 2018), the authors proposed W-PathSim to
focus on improving the topic-driven weighted similarity measurement between same-typed objects in
HIN. Other than similarity measure, there are works on recommendation (Binbin Hu, 2018). There are
also works focusing on automatically mining meta-paths from a HIN. In (Changping Meng, 2015), the
authors proposed an algorithm to discover the meta-paths from large HINs. They proposed the Frequent
Stage wise Path Generation algorithm (or FSPG) which seek meta-paths that best predict the similarity
between a given list of node pairs. FSPG contains greedy strategies that generate the most relevant subset
of meta-paths under a given regression model. Path Count and Path-Constraint Random Walk (PCWR)
are new methods which was used to measure the similarity score between two objects (Ni Lao, 2010) .
A GreedyTree was also used to improve the performance of execution. In (Lijun Chang, 2015), a method
for finding the top-k shortest paths from one set of target nodes to another set of target nodes in a graph
was proposed. This method is called top-k shortest path join (KPJ) between two sets of target nodes. In
this method, the best-first search paradigm was used to recursively divide search subspaces into smaller

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subspaces, and two index structures to reduce the exploration area of a graph. With these combinations,
the performance is improved significantly. In (H. Liu, 2018.), general framework was proposed to solve
the k-shortest path problem. This framework was used to choose the potential path which is more similar
to the current path with a user specified similarity threshold. In (Zichen Zhu, 2018), a top-k Path Queries
on Large Heterogeneous Information Networks algorithm was proposed. They can be used to find the
shortest meta-paths between two vertices based on the A* search framework.
In this chapter, we study how to leverage GraphFrames - a Large Graph Processing Library which runs
on distributed computing environment with one master and many worker computers (Tomasz Drabas,
2017) (Yadav., Rishi, 2015) on Cloud Computing Environment to efficiently discover significant meta-
paths and maximal significant meta-paths in a given large HIN. We develop distributed algorithms to
calculate the support (path-instances) of a meta-path, and discover the shortest meta-paths between two
vertices of large HINs. Our algorithms leverage a novel approach to construct the breadth-first tree by
expanding the path and the motif search with joining operation with the participation of several workers
of distributed computing framework on Cloud computing environment. Since the operation is executed
in parallel with one master node and several worker nodes of Cloud computing environment, the perfor-
mance of our meta-path finding is increased, and our proposed algorithms can process very large HINs.
In this chapter, we have the following contributions:

• Proposing algorithms for detecting all the significant meta-paths of HIN and maximal significant
meta-paths of HIN based on GraphFrames of Apache Spark on Cloud computing environment
• Proposing algorithm for detecting all the shortest significant meta-paths between two vertices
based on the conducting motif search of GraphFrames of Apache Spark on Cloud computing
environment
• Conducting experiments of our proposed distributed algorithms with large HIN to prove the per-
formance of our proposed solution.

The chapter is organized as follows 1) Introduction 2) Preliminaries 3) Using GraphFrames of

Apache Spark on Cloud computing environment to calculate the support of a meta-path in large HIN 4)
Translate Meta-path to Motif Search of GraphFrames 5) Discovering the significant meta-paths HIN 6)
Discovering the maximal significant meta-path of large HIN 7) Discovering top-k meta-path queries of
very large HIN 8) Experiment and discussion 9) Conclusion and future works

PRELIMINARIES

Definition 1: (Information Network): An information network is defined as a directed graph G = (V, E)

with an object type mapping function φ: V → A and a link type mapping function ψ: E → R, where each
object v ∈ V belongs to one particular object type φ (v) ∈ A, and each link e ∈ E belongs to a particular
relation ψ (e) ∈ R (Chuan Shi, Yitong Li, Jiawei Zhang, Yizhou Sun,and Philip S. Yu., 2017). if |A| =
1 and |R|=1, we have homogeneous information network. if |A| > 1 and |R| > 1, we have heterogeneous
information network (Y. Sun, 2011).
Example 1: DBLP is a typical heterogeneous information network. DBLB is a large repository which
contains a high volume of scientific papers. Each paper has an abstract. To enhance the content of DBLP,
we used LDA topic modeling (David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, Michael, I. Jordan., 2003) to discover

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Figure 1. Typical network schema of DBLP

the topic of document abstract in DBLP. So, our DBLP HIN has vertex types and link or arc types. The
vertex types are Author, Paper, Topic, Venue, Word. The link or arc types are: write, published_At,
mention, contain, cite. We use LDA topic modeling to discover the topics of paper and words of each
topic in paper (David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng, Michael, I. Jordan., 2003) (Thanh Ho, Phuc Do, 2018).
Definition 2: (Network Schema). The network schema is a meta template for a heterogeneous in-
formation network G= (V, E) with the object type mapping φ: V → A and the link mapping ψ: E→ R,
which is a directed graph defined over object types A, with arc as relations from R, denoted as TG =
(A, R). We can infer the structure of Heterogeneous Information Network by using the network schema.
Example 2: Bibliographic network schema. For a bibliographic network defined in Example 1, the
network schema is shown in Figure 1. With network schema, we can infer the relations or arcs between
vertices of DBLP. We have the following links/arcs such as links/arcs exist between authors and papers
denoting the writing or written-by relations, between venues and papers denoting the publishing or
published_At relations, between papers and topic denoting paper mentioning topic, and between papers,
denoting citing or cited-by relations, between topic and words denoting topic containing word. Figure
1 shows the network schema of bibliographic network of DBLP (Phuc, 2019).
Definition 3: (Meta-Path). A meta-path P is a path defined on the graph of network schema TG =
R1 R2 Rl
(A,R), and is denoted in the form of A1 → A2 → . . → Al+1, which defines a composite relation R = R1
° R2° . . . ° Rl between type A1 and Al+1, where ◦ denotes the composition operator on relations (Y. Sun,
J. Han, X. Yan, P. Yu, and T. Wu, 2011). Some meta-paths of DBLP are listed in Table 1 (Do, 2019)
(Phu Pham, Phuc Do, 2019).
Definition 4: (Sub Meta-Path of a Meta-Path)
Rp1 Rp2 Rpl Rq1 Rq2 Rql
Given a meta-path P= A1 → A2 → . . → Al+1 and a meta-path Q = B1 → B2 → . . → Bk+1,
Meta-path Q is called a sub meta-path of a meta-path P if ∃j∈[1,...,l-k] such than B1=Aj, B2=AJ+1,...
Rq1=Rp1,Rq2=Rp2,..
Example 3: Given a meta-path A→ P →T→W. This meta-path has the following sub meta-paths:

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 1. List of the meta-paths of DBLP

A→P Author-[Write]-Paper
P→V Paper-[Published_At]-Venue
P→T Paper-]Mention]-Topic
T→W Topic-[Contain]-Word
P→P Paper-[Cite]-Papers
A→P→V Author-[Write]-Paper-[Published_At]-Venue
P→P→V Paper-[Cite]-Paper-[Published_At]-Venue
P→T→W Paper-[Mention]-Topic-[Contain]-Word
A→P→P Author-[Write]-Paper-[Cite]-Paper
A→P→T→W Author-[Write]-Paper-[Mention]-Topics-[Contain]-Word
A→P→P→T Author-[Write]-Paper-[Cite]-Paper-[Mention]-Topic

A→ P, P →T, T→W, A→ P →T, P →T→W

Definition 5: (support of a meta-path): The support of a meta-path is the number of path instances
of this meta-path. We denote support(P) as a support of meta-path P.
Definition 6: (Significant Meta-Path): A meta-path P is called a significant meta-path if support(P)
> 0.
Example 4: Some significant meta-paths of DBLP and their support are shown in Table 2.
Property 1. if P = A1→A2→…→Al is a significant meta-path and Q = B1→B2→…→Bk is a sub
meta-path of P than the Q is a significant meta-path.
Proof: Since P1= A1→A2→...→Ak is a significant meta-path, then there is at least a path instance
pi=pvi1→pvi2... →pvik where vertextype(pvij)=Aj. From this path instance, we can extract a path
instance qi=qvi1→qvi2... →qvik of meta-path Q = B1→B2→…→Bk such that vertextype(qvi1)=B1,
vertextype(qvi2)=B2,.... It means that meta-path Q is a significant meta-path.
Example 5: In DBLP, meta-path P=A→P→T→W is a significant meta-path. This meta-path expresses
the relation Author→Paper→Topic →Word. From P, we extract sub meta-path Q = A→P→T which is
the sub meta-path of P. Obviously, Q is a significant meta-path.
Definition 7: (Maximal Significant Meta-Path): Maximal significant meta-path p is a significant
meta-path and there is no significant meta-path q such that p is a sub meta-path of q.
Example 6: In our DBLP HIN, the maximal significant meta-paths are as follows:

Table 2. Some significant meta-paths of length 1 and their support

Meta-Path Support
T →W 494
P →T 34260
P →P 10234
P →V 126
A →P 7844

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A→P→T→W, A→P→V. They are Author→Paper→Topic→Word and Author→Paper→Venue.

Property 2: Sub meta-path of a maximal significant meta-path is a significant meta-path
Proof: Property 2 is from property 1
Example 7: Let A→P→T→W be a maximal significant meta-path, then the sub meta-paths of this
maximal significant meta-path are also the significant meta-paths. We have the following significant
meta-paths of maximal significant meta-path A→P→T→W:

A→P→T→W, A→P→T, P→T→W, A→P, P→T, T→W

In this paper, we would like to develop algorithms to solve the following problems:
Problem Statement: Given a large HIN. We will develop the distributed algorithm for:

• Finding all significant meta-paths of a given large HIN.

• Finding all maximal significant meta-paths of given HIN.
• Finding top-k significant meta-paths between two given vertices of a large HIN.

Using GraphFrames of Apache Spark on Cloud Computing

Environment to Calculate the Support of a Meta-Path in Large HIN

GraphFrames package is a library of large graph processing of Apache Spark. Apache Spark is a software
system which can enable users to build a distributed computing framework for big data processing. In
2009, Apache Spark was created in AMPLab, University of Berkeley. Instead of using disk in Hadoop
Map Reduce for transferring the temporary result, Apache Spark used memory to compute and stores
objects in computing process, Apache Spark can work with Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) to
read and write file (Tomasz Drabas, 2017) (Yadav., Rishi, 2015). Each file is divided into many blocks
which are saved in the HDFS. There are four libraries of Apache Spark. They are Spark SQL, Spark
Streaming, MLlib for machine learning and GraphX for large graph processing. These libraries contain
a lot of API which can help us to process big data such as big table processing, large scale machine
learning, motif search in large graph….
In 2016, DataBricks created GraphFrames based on dataframes for large graph processing (Michael
S. Malak, 2016) (Yadav., Rishi, 2015) (Ankur Dave, 2016). GraphFrames contains several APIs such
as Motif Search, label propagation, strong connected component, triangle count, shortest path, label
propagation for cummunity detection…In this chapter, we use motif search of GraphFrames for structural
pattern search in large Heterogeneous Information Network.
We run GraphFrames on Spark cluster of Cloud computing environment with one driver and many
worker nodes. With the Cloud computing environment, we can use the disk storage and computing of
the servicer. The Cloud computing framework provides high-capacity networks, low-cost computers
and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented
architecture and autonomic and utility computing for big data processing. We can leverage the utilities
of the cloud computing environment to solve our problems (Christos Stergiou, Kostas E. Psannis, Brij
B. Gupta, Yutaka Ishibashi, 2018).
In our research, we used Apache Spark in Azure HDInsight which is the implementation of Apache
Spark in the Cloud computing environment. HDInsight provides the capability to create and configure
Spark clusters in Azure. We know that the Spark clusters in HDInsight are compatible with Azure Stor-

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Figure 2. HDInsight cluster configuration

age and Azure Data Lake Storage. Therefore, we can leverage the HDInsight Spark cluster to process
large HIN data of graph in Azure. In Figure 2, we use the Azure portal to create HDInsight Spark cluster.
The cluster uses Azure Storage Blobs as the cluster storage. We create Apache Spark cluster in Azure
HDInsight using Azure portal (Nitin Mehrotra et al., 2019) .
The tasks for processing the Heterogeneous Information Network will be executed on the Worker
nodes of Spark Cluster. They execute the join operation in order to find the path instances of a particular
meta-path. We use a special partition strategy based on the source vertices of graph arcs. This partition
strategy will keep the arcs with the same source vertices in the same memory of Worker node. The join of
two tuples will be executed very fast without moving the arcs among parts of Worker nodes. In Figure 3,
when all tasks of Worker nodes are completed, the result will send back to the Master nodes for summary.
In HDInsight, YARN cluster manager will manage and run Spark operations. After connection,
Apache Spark activates the executors on the worker nodes of the Spark Cluster. These executors store
data and run computation program. Next, Apache Spark sends code of our program (jar file or Python
files to SparkContext) to the executors. Finally, the SparkContext will send tasks to the executors of
worker nodes for running. The programs are executed in parallel on the worker nodes of Spark Cluster.
In our proposed system, the programs focus on finding the meta-path of large Heterogeneous Informa-
tion Network. The worker nodes will read and write data from HDFS. The SparkContext will collect
the results from Worker nodes. Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDD) is a main element of Spark. RDD
has function to distribute data and process to the Worker nodes and collect results after finishing the
parallel process of Worker nodes (Phuc, 2019).
Let G=(V,E) be a large graph of HIN. We divide set E into n parts E1,E2,...,En such that

1. Ei ∩ Ej = ∅, ∀i, j ∈ [1,n]
2. ∪ Ei = E
i =1…n

Each Ei is called as a part and is moved to the memory of the Worker node Wi. Besides of part Ei,
the function f for processing data is also moved to the worker. All of the workers will receive the same
function f. Function f is processed in parallel with the data Ei at each Worker node Wi. Let Ri be the

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Figure 3.The Distributed computing environment with one master and three workers

result of processing function f with data Ei at worker Wi. After finishing f at each Worker node Wi, all
result Ri will be sent back to the Master node for summarizing. The final result will be generated at
Master node. GraphFrame provides powerful tools for processing large scale graph. Motif search is a
power tool to discover structural patterns in large scale graph. We use motif search to find all the path
instances of a given meta-path. GraphFrames use Domain Specific Language (DSL) for expressing the
structural queries. Motif pattern contains names of vertices and arcs. The basic pattern is an arc, for
example (a)-[e]→(p) where a is an author, p is an paper. Each pattern can be joined together to generate
a path (Yadav., Rishi, 2015).
Example 8: The pattern (a)─[e1]→ (p); (p) ─ [e2]→(v) specifies a path from vertex a to vertex p
then from vertex p to vertex v.
Motif search can be executed by using Python and Spark GraphFrame. The columns of dataframe
result can be specified by using the select phrase as follows:

motif = g.find(“(a) ─ [e1] → (p) ; (p) ─ [e2] → (v)”)

.filter(“a.type=”Author” and
p.type=”Paper” and v.type=”Venue”)
.select(“a.id”,“b.id”,”c.id”)

We need the instances of the meta-path A→P and meta-path P→V which are Author→Paper and
Paper→Venue. They are the arcs of HIN and they are stored in dataframe named ArcDataFrame. Then
we use join operation to create path instance of meta-path A→ P→V. The motif search can be processed
in distributed environment on Cloud as follows:
Suppose that the graph is divided into 3 parts of a partition. These parts are moved to three Worker
nodes as shown in Table 3.
The motif search pattern is moved to the memory of the Worker nodes with the function f for querying
the local motif search pattern. This function f will process the sub-graph in the memory of each Worker
node. The results are shown in Table 4. The function f will be processed in parallel at each Worker node.

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Table 3. Part of arc partition of the graph in worker nodes

Worker1 Worker2 Workers

<A1,P1> <A5,P2> <A8,P3>
<A2,P1> <A6,P2> <A8,P3>
<A3,P2> <A7,P4> <A9,P5>
<A4,P2>

Table 4. The temporary result of motif search in Table 5. The final result of motif search on dis-
each worker node tributed computing framwork

Worker1 Worker2 Worker 3 Master

<A1,P1,A2> <A5,P2,A6> <A8,P3,A7> <A1,P1,A2>
<A5,P2,A6>
<A8,P3,A7>

Because the function f is processed in parallel at many Worker nodes, the efficiency of this process
will be high compared with one computer based model (Zichen Zhu, 2018) (Changping Meng, 2015) .
In the experiment session, we will discuss the details of this experiment. We will prove the performance
of our distributed algorithms.
After finishing the process, the result is sent backto the master node for generating the final result of
motif search as shown in Table 5.
The process of calculating the path instances of a given meta-paths by using GraphFrames motif
search can be described in Algorithm 1.
Example 9. The support of meta-path A→P←A is calculated by using the following code:

MotifPattern = “(a1)-[e1]->(p);(a2)-[e2]->(p);
filterpattern= “a1.vertextype=’Author’
and p.vertextype=’Paper’
and a2.vertextype=’Author’
FieldList=”a1.id,p1.id,a2.id”
PathInstanceList= PathInstanceMetaPath(MotifPattern, FilterPattern,FieldList)

Translating Meta-path to Motif Search of GraphFrames

We propose a distributed algorithm to translate the meta-path to motif pattern of Motif Search as follows:
R
Given a meta-path P and the reverse meta-path P −1 . Meta-path Ai → Aj expresses a binary relation
R( Ai , Aj ) of x in Ai and y in Aj .
R R−1
The reverse of meta-path Ai → Aj is meta-path Ai → Aj . This meta-path expresses a binary relation
R −1
( Aj , Ai ). We can use Motif Search to generate the relation for a reverse meta-path.

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Table 6. Algorithm 1. Algorithm for finding all path instances of meta-path by using the motif search
of GraphFrames

Input:
Graph is the Large HIN of GraphFrames
MotifPattern is the pattern of
FilterPattern is the filtering pattern
FieldList is the list of selected field
Output: the path instances of meta-path
1: Function PathInstanceMetaPath(Graph, MotifPattern, FilterPattern, FieldList):
2: motifs = Graph.find(MotifPattern)
3: Results =Motifs.Filter(FilterPattern)
4: ResultList = Results.Select(FieldList).Collect();
5: Return ResultList;
6: End Function

There are two cases for meta-path.

Case 1: Un-Symmetric Meta-Path

R1 R2
Given a meta path A1 → A2 …. → Al . If string A1A2 … Al is not symmetric, we can translate this meta-
path by using the following steps.
For each AAi i+1
, we generate a motif pattern (Ai ) Ei  Ai +1 ,then we concatenate two consecutive pat-
terns as follows:

(A ) E  A ; (A ) E  A ;………. : (A ) E  A

1 1 2 2 2 3 l −1 l l

Example 10: With meta-path A→P→V, we can translate this meta-path to the motif search as follows:

MotifPattern = “(a1)-[e1]->(p);(p)-[e2]->(v);
FilterPattern= “a1.vertextype=’Author’
and p.vertextype=’Paper’
and a2.vertextype=”Venue’
FieldList=”a1.id,p.id,a2.id”

Case 2: Symmetric Meta- Path

Given a meta-path A1A2 … AA A … Al' or PP −1

' '
l 2 3 ( )
Where P= A1A2 … Al and P = AA l
A …A. −1 '
2
'
3 l
'

For a symmetric meta-path, we compute the Dataframe of meta-path P and Dataframe meta-path
P −1 . then we join the two Dataframes.

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Example 11: For meta path A→P←A, we decompose this meta-path into 2 smaller symmetric sub
meta-paths. They are meta-path A→P and meta-path P←A

# For meta-path A→P

MotifPattern = “(a1) ─[e1] → (b);
FilterPattern= “a.vertextype=’Author’ and b.vertextype=’Paper’ ”
FieldList=”a.id,b.id”
PathInstanceForwardList= PathInstanceMetaPath(MotifPattern,
FilterPattern,FieldList)
# For meta-path P←A
MotifPattern = “(c) ─ [e2] → (d);
FilterPattern= “c.vertextype=’Paper’ and c.vertextype=’Author’ ”
FieldList=”c.id,d.id”
PathInstanceReverseList= PathInstanceMetaPath(MotifPattern,
FilterPattern,FieldList)
# Join PathInstanceForwardList With PathInstanceReverseList
from pyspark.sql.functions import *
df1 = ResultForward.alias(‘df1’)
df2 = ResultReverse.alias(‘df2’)
df3= df1.join(df2, df1.b == df2.c)
df4= df3.filter(df3.a != df3.d)
df4.select(“a”,”c”,”d”).show(10)

Discovering the Significant Meta-Paths HIN

We propose a distributed algorithm to discover the meta-paths from HIN on Cloud computing environ-
ment. Our algorithm has two phases. In phase 1, we discover the significant meta-path of length 1. In
phase 2, we discover the significant meta-paths of length k based on the significant meta-paths of length
(k-1) and significant meta-paths of length 1. The algorithm stops if at step k, the number of discovered
significant meta-paths of length k is equal 0.
Meta-path A→P→T→W is the join operation of the dataframe containing the path instances of
meta-path p= A→P→T with dataframe containing the path instances of meta-path q= T→W with the
condition that the tail vertex of meta-path p is equal to the head vertex of meta-path q.
With this idea, we create the meta-path of length 1 first. Then we join two meta-paths of length 1 to
gather the meta-path of length 2. Next, we join meta-paths of length 2 with meta-paths of length 1 to
collect meta-paths of length 2 and etc...We have the meta-paths of length k. The algorithm stops if the
set of meta-path of length k+1 is empty.
Example 12: For k =1, we have significant meta-path of length 1 as follows:

MP1={A→P, P→V, P→T, T→W, P→P}

For k=2, we join meta-path s of MP1 and meta-path t of MP2 such that the tail vertex of s is equal
the head vertex of t. Let q be the join result of meat-path s and t, then we calculate the support(q), if
support(q) ≥ 0 then q is a significant meta-path of length 2.

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Table 7. Algorithm 2. Algorithm for discovering the meta-paths of length 1.

Function DiscoverMetaPathLength_1 ():

Input network schema Gs = (V , E ) , HIN G =(V ,E )

s s H H H

Output: MP1: set of meta-path of length 1

1: MP1=[]
2: For each vertex s of Vs:
3: source=s
4: For each vertex t of Vs:
5: target=t
6: MotifPattern = GenerateMotifPattern(s,t)
7: FilterPattern = GenerateFilterPattern(s,t)
8: FieldList= GenerateFieldList(s,t)
6: List= PathInstancesMetaPath (MotifPattern, FilterPattern,FieldList))
7: If Len(List) > 0:
8: Mp_1.append(<s,v>)
9: Endif
10: Endfor
11: Endfor
12: Return MP1
GenerateFilterPattern(s,t) is a function to generate filter pattern. GenerateFieldList(s,t) is a function to generate field list.

Finally, we have

MP2={ A→P→T, A→P→V, A→P→P, P→T→W, P→P→T}.

For k=3, we join meta-path s of MP2 and meta-path t of MP1 such that the tail vertex of s is equal
the head vertex of t. Let q be the join result of s and t, then we calculate the support(q), if support(q) ≥
0 then q is a significant meta-path of length 3.
Finally, we have

MP3={ A→P→T→W, A→P→P→P, P→P→T→W}

The algorithm stops when MPk=∅

Discovering the Maximal Significant Meta-Path of Large HIN

We propose a distributed algorithm to discover the maximal meta-path. According to property 1, we

hold that a sub meta-path of a significant meta-path is a significant meta-path.
Example 13: With the set of significant meta-paths as follows:

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 8. Algorithm 3. Algorithm for discovering the meta-path of length k

Function GenerateMetaPathLength_k()
Input: Meta-path MP1 and MPkMinus1
Output: Meta-path MPk
1: MPk=[]
2: For each meta-path p of MPkMinus1:
3: For each meta-path q of MP1
4: If TailVertex(p)=HeadVertex(q)
5: s=generate(p.q)
5: MotifPattern = GenerateMotifPatternPath(s)
6: FilterPattern = GenerateFilterPatternPath(s)
7: FieldList= GenerateFieldListPath(s)
8: List= PathInstancesMetaPath (MotifPattern, FilterPattern,FieldList))
9: If len(List)> 0:
10: MPk.append(s)
11: Endif
12: Endif
13: Endfor
14: Endfor
15: Return MPk

MP1={A→P, P→V, P→T, T→W, P→P}

MP2=={ A→P→T, A→P→V, A→P→P, P→T→W, P→P→T}

MP3={ A→P→T→W, A→P→P→P, P→P→T→W}

We have the following maximal significant meta-paths as follows:

MaximalSignificantMetaPathsSet= {A→P→T→W,A→P→P→P, P→P→T→W, A→P→V}

Figure 4. Lattice of the significant meta-paths

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 9. Algorithm 4. Algorithm for discovering the maximal significant meta-paths

Function CalculateMaximalMetaPath()
Input: Set of significant meta-paths
Output: Set of maximal meta-paths
1: MaximalSignificantMetaPathSet=[]
2: For each significant meta path p of HIN:
3: Found= FALSE
4: For each significant meta path q of HIN::
5: If q.contain(p)
6: Found = TRUE
7: break
8: Endif
9: Endfor
10: If not Found
11: MaximalSignifiantMetaPathSet.append(p)
12: Endif
13: Endfor
14: Endfor
15: Return MaximalSignificantMetaPathSet

A lattice is used to express the maximal significant meta-paths by the order relation as shown in
Figure 4 (Muangprathub, 2014).
The algorithm 5 is used to construct a lattice as follows:
Then we scan the lattice and find the vertices with in degree = 0. They are the maximal significant
meta-paths. With the above lattice, we have the following maximal significant meta-paths:

A→P→T→W, P→P→T→W, A→P→V, P→P→V

Table 10. Algorithm 5. Constructing the lattice

Function ConstructLattice()
Input: Set of significant meta-paths
Ouput: Lattice of meta-paths
1: E=∅, V=∅
2: For each significant meta path q of HIN:
3: p = FindFatherMetaPath(q)
4: E.append(<q,p>)
5: Endfor
6: V=GenerateVertex(E)
7: Return G(V,E)

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Figure 5. A typical HIN

Property 3: Sub meta-path of a maximal significant meta-path is a significant meta-path

According to Property 1, if we know the maximal significant meta-paths, we can list all significant
meta-paths of HIN. Therefore, maximal significant meta-paths are the compact representation of the
significant meta-paths of a HIN.

Discovering Top-K Meta-Path Queries of Very Large HIN

We propose a distributed algorithm to find all the shortest meta-paths between two vertices of a very
large HIN (Zichen Zhu, 2018) on Hadoop distributed environment with one Master and many workers
by using the breadth-first search (bfs). The Apache GraphFrames Library runs on the top of Hadoop to
process large graph on Hadoop distributed environment.
We use API breadth-first search of GraphFrames to find all the shortest paths between two vertices.
In Figure 5, between two Author vertices “Phuc” and “Phu”, there are 4 shortest paths as follows:

p1:Phuc→UIT→Phu
p2:Phuc→P1→Phu
p3:Phuc→P2→Phu
p4:Phuc→P3→Phu

In Figure 5, Phuc and Phu are author vertices; UIT is an affiliation vertex; P1 and P2 and P3 are
paper vertices. The meta-paths with support are listed as follows:

Path1: Author→Affiliation←Author with Support = 1

Path2: Author→Paper←Author with Support = 3

We develop algorithm 6 to discover the top-k shortest significant meta-paths between two vertices
of HIN as follows:

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 11. Algorithm 6. Algorithm for find the top-k shortest meta-path between vertices of HIN

Function FindTopKShortestMetaPath()
Input:
SrcVertex: The source vertex
DstVertex: The destination vertex
Output:
The Shortest Meta-paths between Vertices
1: SrcPatt=”id=”+’”’+SrcVertex+’”’
2: DstPatt=”id=”+’”’+DstVertex+’”’
3: fillteredPaths=g.bfs(
4: fromExpr=SrcPatt
5: toExpr = DstPatt
6: maxPathLength=3)
7: ShortestMeta-paths= GenerateShortestMetaPath(fillteredPaths)
8: Return ShortestMeta-paths

Table 12. Sort the arcs in each part of worker node

Worker1 Worker2 Workers3 Worker4

Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4
V2,V6 V2,V10 V4,V15 V4,V19
V2,V7 V2,V11 V4,V16 V5,V20
V2,V8 V3,V12 V4,V17 V6,V20
V2,V9 V3,V14 V4,V18 V7,V20

Table 13.

<V1,V2,V6>
<V1,V2,V7>
<V1,V2,V8>
<V1,V2,V9>
<V1,V2,V10>

The result contains the discovered paths. The GenerateShortestMetaPath(fillteredPaths) will convert
the discovered path-instances to the shortest meta-paths.The breadth first search API of GraphFrames can
be summarized as follows. The breadth-first tree is built based on the Distributed Computing environment
on Cloud. In GraphFrames, we use two dataframes to represent graph of HIN. One dataframe contains
vertices and the other dataframe contains arcs. In distributed computing environment, the arcs dataframes
is divided into many parts and moved to Worker nodes. Before we move the parts to worker nodes, we
sort the arcs of graph based on the source vertexid of arc. A typical sorted parts are shown in Table 12.
The breadth-first tree is created by joining the arcs of dataframes. Suppose that we are in arc <V1,V2>,
we can extend the path by joining <V1,V2> with the arcs in part of the memory in Worker nodes. This

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Figure 6. Breadth-first tree

join operation can be processed in parallel. The arc <V1,V2> is sent to each worker node, then this arc
will be joined in parallel with arc in each workers. Since the arcs are sorted based on the source verti-
ces, the time for finding the matched arc that have the source vertex ID equal V2 will be reduced. After
joining, the result path of each Worker node will be sent back to the Master node. The Master node will
summarize the result paths from Worker nodes as follows:
These are the new branches of breadth- first tree as shown in Figure 6.
The execution of breadth- first tree on large HIN is time consumption. We propose another method to
calculate the top-k meta-paths between two vertices of large HIN. According to the algorithms mentioned
above, we propose algorithm 7 to find the shortest path between two vertices as follows:
The algorithm 7 receives 2 vertices, we use VertexType function to discover the type of source vertex
and the type of destination vertex. Based on these type we select all the shortest meta-paths discovered

Figure 7. Breadth first tree with vertex type

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 14. Algorithm 7. Find the top-k shortest meta-path between vertices of HIN

Function FindTopKShortestMetaPath()
Input:
SrcVertex: The source vertex
DstVertex: The destination vertex
Output:
The Shortest Meta-paths between Vertices
1 SrcPatt=”id=”+’”’+SrcVertex+’”’
2 DstPatt=”id=”+’”’+DstVertex+’”’
3 SrcType=VertexType(SrcPatt)
4 DstType=VertexType(DstType)
5 ShortestMeta-paths = FindShortestMetaPathBetween(SrcType,DstType,k)
6 Return ShortestMeta-paths

Table 15. Typical arc dataframe

Src Dst
V1 V2
V2 V3
V2 V4
V2 V5
V2 V6
V2 V7

by algorithm 2, algorithm 3. Finally we check whether the path instances contain the source and desti-
nation vertex or not.
Property 4: The execution time for executing motif search of a motif pattern is faster than the execu-
tion time for executing bfs search.
We know that in the Distributed computing environment on Cloud, the motif search and the breadth
first search are executed based on the join and the filter operation. We can use the relational algebra
operationto express the relational expression for this operation. We consider a motif search as filter the
dataframe first than join two dataframes latter. But with breadth first search, we join two dataframes
first, then we filter the dataframe. The execution time for joining two dataframes in breadth first search
is very high compared with the join of motif search because we use the filter operation to reduce the
number of arcs before joining.
Example 14: Suppose that we have a breadth first tree in Figure 7.
In GraphFrames, arcs are stored in a dataframe which is a kind of table in distributed environment
as shown in Table 15.
With breadth first search, we do join two dataframes and build breadth-first tree as shown in Table 16.
We see that one tuple of dataframe1 will join with each tuple of dataframe 2. We need to join 6 tuples.
The result contains six tuples in dataframe 3.

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 16. Join operation of breadth first search (bfs)

dataframe1 dataframe2 dataframe3

Src Dst Src Dst Vertex1 Vertex2 Vertex3
V1 V2 V2 V3 V1 V2 V3
V2 V4 V1 V2 V4
V2 V5 V1 V2 V5
V2 V6 V1 V2 V6
V2 V7 V1 V2 V7

Table 17. Join operation of Motif search

dataframe1 dataframe2 dataframe3

Src Dst Src Dst Vertex1 Vertex2 Vertex3
V1 V2 V2 V5 V1 V2 V5

With motif search, we focus on v5, because v5 is a venue vertex. We filter the dataframe to collect
the tuples satisfying the filter condition. In this case, we have only one tuple as shown in Table 17. The
result is in dataframe3.
We join dataframe 1 with dataframe2. One tuple of dataframe 1 will join with one tuple of dataframe
2. The result contains one tuple of dataframe 3 (execution time for joining 1 tuple). According to the
property 4 the execution time of Motif Search is less than the time of executing bfs. We hold that if we
know the motif, we can reduce the execution time by using motif motif search instead of using breadth
first search.

EXPERIMENT AND DISCUSSION

Dataset

The Dataset for testing our distributed algorithms is a DBLP graph which contains 11,721 vertices
and 105,916 arcs. This dataset is a subset of DBLP-Citation-network V3 and was downloaded from
Aminer website (https://aminer.org/citation). After pre-processing, the downloaded dataset, we store
the DBLP dataset in Neo4j graph database. During distributed processing the dataset on Cloud com-
puting environment, we move the dataset to HDFS of Hadoop Spark Cluster on Cloud Computing
environment.

Improving the Motif Search Operation by Repartition

We use two dataframes to represent the graph of Heterogeneous Information Network. One dataframe
is used to store vertices and the other dataframe is used to store arcs. We choose a reparation strategy in
order to divide the dataframes into several parts and move these parts to the memory of worker nodes.

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 18. A portion of 3 parts after repartition

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

63,50 86,97 112,134
63,53 86,60 112,135
63,54 86,98 112,136
62,55 86,99 112,137
62,56 86,100 112,138
62,57 86,101 112,139
62,58 86,102 112,103
62,59 86,103 112,105
62,48 88,50 102,42

There are several strategies for graph partitioning. The main operation of Motif search is the join
operation of two dataframes. We would like to join dataframe D1(A,P) with the dataframe D2(P,V).
Dataframe D1(A,P) and D2(P,V) are divided into many parts and move to memory of Worker nodes.
Suppose that tuple (a1,p1) of DataFrame D1(p,v) and tuple (p1,v1) of DataFrame D2(p,v) are not in
the same memory of Worker nodes, they must be moved to the same memory of Worker nodes. This
movement takes time in join operation. Therefore, we need a repartition strategy in order to guarantee
these tuples are moved to the same memory to reduce the time of join operation.
The dataframes are sorted based on the source vertex of arcs. After sorting, the dataframe containing
arcs will be divided into 5 parts and moved to the memory of the worker nodes. Most of arcs of HIN
with the same source vertex will be stored in the same parts of Worker node memory. With this partition
strategy, we can reduce the time for joining two dataframes because the joined tuples are in the same
memory of worker node. We conduct an experiment with two scenarios to prove the performance of
our repartition strategy.
Case #1, we use the default partition with 4 parts of dataframes.
Case #2, we repartition the dataframes with 3 parts by sorting the source vertex of arc before creating
GraphFrames. A portion of 3 parts are shown in Table 18.
We build a column chart of comparison between repartition and no-repartition as shown in Table 19
and Figure 8. From Table 19, we see the execution time for significant meta-path discovery is reduced
significantly in repartition mode because of joining tuples are in the same memory of worker nodes.

Table 19. Comparison between repartition and no-repartition

Without Repartion Repartition

Length
(In Minutes) (in Minutes)
1 6.617 3.183
2 3.400 2.050
3 3.333 2.450
4 2.850 1.817

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Figure 8.Comparison between repartition and no-repartition

Discovering Significant Meta-Paths of DBLP

We run our proposed distributed algorithms to discover the significant meta-path with the tested HIN,
we have the following results:

Number of vertices 11,721

Number of arcs 105,916
We have the following results:
*List of the significant meta-path of length 1
# Meta-paths Support
1 Topic->Word 494
2 Paper->Topic 34260
3 Paper->Paper 10234
4 Paper->Venue 126
5 Author->Paper 7844
Number of length 1 meta-paths 5
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 1= 4.250 minutes
*List of the significant meta-paths of length 2
# Meta-Paths Support
1 Paper>Topic>Word 1692444
2 Author->Paper->Paper 24224
3 Author->Paper->Venue 308
4 Paper->Paper->Topic 102340
5 Paper->Paper->Venue 444

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

6 Author->Paper->Topic 78440
Number of length 1 meta-paths is 6
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 2= 2.800 minutes
*List of the significant meta-paths of length 3
Meta-paths Support
1 Author->Paper->Paper->Topic 242240
2 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper 90119
3 Author->Paper->Paper->Venue 1048
4 Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 5055596
5 Author->Paper->Topic->Word 3874936
Number of length 3 meta-paths is 5
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 3= 3.200 minutes
* List of the significant meta-paths of length 4
Meta-paths support
1 Author->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 11,966,656
2 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic 901,190
3 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper 29,783
Number of length 4 meta-paths is 3
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 4= 2.983 minutes
*List of the significant meta-paths of length 5
Meta-paths support
1 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper ->Topic->Word 44,518,786
2 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper ->Paper->Topic 3,297,830
3 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Venue 29,783
Number of length 5 meta-paths 3
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 4= 2.883 minutes
*List of the significant meta-paths of length 5
Meta-path Support
1 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 162,912,802
Number of length 6 meta-paths 1
Execution Duration for discovering meta path of length 6= 1.567 minutes
* List of maximal significant meta-paths
Maximal significant meta-path Support
1 Author->Paper->Venue 308
2 Author->Paper->Topic->Word 3,874,936
3 Author->Paper->Paper->Venue 1,048
4 Author->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 11,966,656
5 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 44,518,786
6 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Venue 29,783
7 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word 162,912,802
*List of symmetric meta paths
symmetric meta paths
1 Topic->Word<-Topic
2 Paper->Topic<-Paper

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

3 Paper->Paper<-Paper
4 Paper->Venue<-Paper
5 Author->Paper<-Author
6 Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper
7 Paper->Paper->Topic<-Paper<-Paper
8 Paper->Paper->Venue<-Paper<-Paper
9 Author->Paper->Topic<-Paper<-Author
10 Author->Paper->Paper<-Paper<-Author
11 Author->Paper->Venue<-Paper<-Author
12 Paper->Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper<-Paper
13 Author->Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper<-Author
14 Author->Paper->Paper->Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
15 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
16 Author->Paper->Paper->Venue<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
17 Author->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
18 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
19 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
20 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
21 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
22 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Venue<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Author
23 Author->Paper->Paper->Paper->Paper->Topic->Word<-Topic<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-Paper<-
Author

Discovering the Top-K Shortest Meta- Paths Between Two Vertices of HIN

Given two same vertices s and t. Find the vertextype(s) and vertextype(t). Find all the symmetric meta-
path with start element and end element are equal to vertextype(s). Then we find all the shortest sym-
metric meta-path with start element and end element are equal to vertextype(s) .
Example 15: Given two vertices a, b with a.id=9653 and c.id = 9650. We know that the vertex type
of vertex a is Author and the vertex type of vertex b is Venue. We list the shortest meta-path between ver-
tices with Author and Venue vertex type, we have one of this meta-path such as Author->Paper->Venue.
We compare the motif search Author->Paper->Venue and breadth first search with only one com-
puter as follows:

Execution time of motif search is 0.167 minutes

Execution time of BFS is 1.083 minutes

We conduct the experiment for discovering the path instances of the following meta-path by using
motif search and API bfs of GraphFrames. The following meta-paths are collected:

Author->Paper
Author ->Paper ->Venue
Author->Paper->Topic-Word

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Table 20. Comparison of motif search and breadth-first-search

Motif Search Bfs

Length of meta-path
(In Minutes) (in Minutes)
1 0.025 0.567
2 0.167 1.083
3 0.425 2.719

Table 21. The comparison of execution times based on the number of workers in Spark Cluster.

Motif Search Bfs

Number of workers
(In Minutes) (in Minutes)
1 0.167 1.083
2 0.104 0.823
3 0.085 0.642
4 0.034 0.452

The comparison of execution time is shown in Figure 9.

We see that the execution time of Motif search is shorter than the execution time of breadth first
search. Of course, we need execution time for discovering all significant meta-paths of large HIN, but
this process run only one time and the result will be used many times during the similarity search of
two objects.
We also compare the execution time of our algorithms based on the number of workers of Spark
Cluster for discovering the path instances of the meta-path Author-Paper-Venue by using Motif Search
and breadth-first-search of GraphFrames on Hadoop distributed computing on Spark. The result is
shown in Table 21.
We observe that when the number of workers increases, the execution time will increase, too.
Table 21 and Figure 10 is the comparison of execution times based on the number of workers in
Spark Cluster.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

In this chapter, we proposed distributed algorithms to discover the significant meta-paths, maximal
significant meta-paths, top-k shortest meta-paths between two vertices of large HIN on Cloud. Many
algorithms for finding the meta-paths of HIN have been developed. However, these algorithms work
in memory of a single computer and they cannot process large HIN which cannot fit in the memory of
one computer. Recently, Apache Hadoop has been developed for distributed computing environment.
We can use Cloud Computing environment to run Apache Spark. We leverage GraphFrames Library
of Apache Spark processes the large HIN on Cloud computing environment. With the cloud comput-
ing environment, we can leverage the disk storage and computing power of the servicer without direct
active management. We use the Cloud Computing Service from Azure HDInsight. Azure HDInsight
provide the capability of Spark Cluster for disk storage and computing power. We use the Azure portal

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

Figure 9. Comparison of execution time between motif search and breadth-first-search of GraphFrames

Figure 10. Comparison of execution times based on the number of workers of Spark Cluster on Cloud

to create an HDInsight Spark cluster. The Spark cluster uses Azure Storage Blobs as the cluster storage.
We create Apache Spark cluster in Azure HDInsight using Azure portal. A HIN graph is repartitioned
based on sorting source vertices of arcs. We conduct the experiments of our algorithm with large HIN
of DBLP and compare our distributed methods of Cloud computing environment with the one computer
based traditional methods. The result proves the capability of our distributed algorithms to process large
HINs in the Cloud computing environment. In the future, we will develop the distributed algorithms to

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Distributed Algorithms for Finding Meta-Paths of a Large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud

discover the weighted meta-paths of weighted large Heterogeneous Information Network on Cloud. We
also want to use the meta-path discovery as a baseline to generate question-answer dataset for training
convolutional neural network in deep learning based question and answer system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research is funded by Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCMC) under the
grant number B2017-26-02.

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250

Chapter 12
A Tree Computing Block
Chain Protocol Crypto-
Signature Model
Cyrus Nourani
AFWMTS, Germany & TU Berlin AI, Germany

ABSTRACT
This author has for the past decade developed a mathematical basis for product languages, at times with
colleagues, applying agent crypto-signatures to authenticate business process models. This chapter is
the newest application for what is at recent times called block chain. A new algebraic tree based public
key cryptography techniques and algorithm for crypto-signatured block chain processing is presented.
The techniques apply agent crypto-signatured algebras and block product language signatures for an
agenda-based block chain protocol. An algorithm with a new public key computable trust model for
signature tree block parties accomplishes the block chain goals.

INTRODUCTION

The origins of blockchain are a bit nebulous. A person or group of people known by the pseudonym
Satoshi Nakamura invented and released the tech in 2009 as a way to digitally and anonymously send
payments between two parties without needing a third party to verify the transaction. It was initially
designed to facilitate, authorize, and log the transfer of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Crypto-
currencies are essentially just digital money, digital tools of exchange that use cryptography and the
aforementioned blockchain technology to facilitate secure and anonymous transactions. There had been
several iterations of cryptocurrency over the years, but Bitcoin truly thrust cryptocurrencies forward
in the late 2000s. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies floating out on the market now. One of the
biggest challenges that most distributed systems face is coming to a consensus. This problem is usually
called “Byzantine General’s Problem (”. This authors group publications on agent cryptsignatures date
back to 1990´s, (e.g. Nourani et.al. 1996,1998).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch012

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

What is the Byzantine General’s Problem? imagine that there is a group of Byzantine generals and
they want to attack a city. They are facing two very distinct problems: The generals and their armies are
very far apart so centralized authority is impossible, which makes coordinated attack very tough. The
city has a huge army and the only way that they can win is if they all attack at once. In order to make
successful coordination, the armies on the left of the castle send a messenger to the armies on the right
of the castle with a message that says “Action Wednesday.” However, suppose the armies on the right
are not prepared for the attack and say, “NO. Action FRIDAY” and send back the messenger through
the city back to the armies on the left. This is where we face a problem. A number of things can happen
to the poor messenger. He could get captured, compromised, killed and replace with another messenger
by the city. This would lead to the armies getting tampered information which may result in an uncoor-
dinated attack and defeat. The chain is a huge network; how can you possibly trust them? If you were
sending someone 4 Ether from your wallet, how would you know for sure that someone in the network
isn’t going to tamper with it and change 4 to 40 Ether?
A blockchain is a distributed database, meaning that the storage devices for the database are not all
connected to a common processor. It maintains a growing list of ordered records, called blocks. Each
block has a timestamp and a link to a previous block. Cryptography ensures that users can only edit the
parts of the blockchain that they “own” by possessing the private keys necessary to write to the file. It
also ensures that everyone’s copy of the distributed blockchain is kept in synch. Imagine a digital medi-
cal record: each entry is a block. It has a timestamp, the date and time when the record was created. By
design, the entry is not changeable retroactively, because the record of diagnosis, treatment, etc. has to
be clear and unmodified. Only the doctor, who has one private key, and the patient, who has the other,
can access the information, and then information is only shared when one of those users shares his or her
private key with a third party — say, a hospital or specialist, on a blockchain for that medical database.
Blockchains are secure databases by design. The concept was introduced in 2008, and then implemented
for the first time in 2009 as part of the digital bitcoin currency, The blockchain serves as the public ledger
for all bitcoin transactions. Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin was able to bypass the Byzantine
General’s problem by inventing the proof of work protocol. In this paper we develop an agent agenda-
based processor for consensus-based block chain protocol management. This author group publications
on agent computing models for economics models range from (Nourani 1992) to (Nourani-Schulte
2014). Here we have crypto-economics applications. Agent computing applications to microeconomics
examples are on CS curricula since 2017. A host or references are included on the new block chain areas.
(Gupta 2018) and (IGI Global Handbook -31) are new overviews to the cybersecurity areas considered.
The chapters is structured as follows: chapter 2 presents the bases for cryptosigaure agent comput-
ing that is essential for block chain. This section includes agent state machines, signature tree algebras
and a computational basis for processing cryptosignature computing. Agent intelligent languages are
applied with cryptosignatured trees to authenticate, process or as a consensus game language. Block
product agent sinagure trees are presented for characterzing block chain transactions. The mathemati-
cal basis on product models presenting a necessary and sufficient conditions for consensus on block
chain transactions. Section 3 develops a specific block chain protocol based on crypto-signature trees.
That process is applied to present block chain processes based on events and agendas, blocks board on
actions and agendas are created to reach a new block chain protocol algorithm. These are the kind of
algorithms that are usually on patents and are the recipe for crypto currency mines. So our algorithm
here is also copy righted.

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AGENT CRYPTO- SIGNATURES

A basis for agent computing with intelligent languages and crypto-signatures trees was presented in
(Nourani 2002) with applications to WWW interfaces. We present intelligent syntax and put forth
intelligent tree computing. Multiagent signatures are defined and applied to define the basis for tree
information- theoretic computing and agent cyberspace applications. The project is applicable to design
multiagent protocol and has been applied to put forth crypto signatures. The project has further led to
foundations to computing with intelligent trees. Intelligent game trees are defined with chess playing
examples and applications to cyberspace computing. Techniques for generating intelligent models are
developed with soundness and completeness theorems abbreviated here with basis in our papers. The
techniques can be applied as a basis to authentication on cyberspace computing. The WWW applications
are summed by an authentication proposition. Agent computing has been applied by (Nourani 1999)
to business and cyberspace commerce. The present approaches have a theoretical basis abbreviated in
the following sections. We start with agents, define modules and algebras, and agent and module mor-
phisms. Starting with what are called hysterectic agents (Genesereth&Nilsson 1987). A hysterectic agent
has an internal state set I, which the agent can distinguish its membership. The agent can transit from
each internal state to another in a single step. Actions by agents are based on I and board observations.
There is an external state set K, modulated to a set T of distinguishable subsets from the observation
viewpoint. An agent cannot distinguish states in the same partition defined by a congruence relation.
A sensory function s:K → T maps each state to the partition it belongs. Let A be a set of actions which
can be performed by agents. A function action can be defined to characterize an agent activities- action:
D x T→ A. The update function database maps a state and a state partition t into a new internal data-
base- database: D x T → D. There is also a memory update function mem: I x T → I. To define agent at
arbitrary level of activity knowledge level agents are defined. All excess level detail is eliminated. In this
abstraction an agent’s internal state consists entirely of a database of sentences and the agent’s actions
are viewed as inferences based on its database. The action function for a knowledge level agent maps a
database and a state partition t into the action to be performed by an agent in a state with database and
observed state partition t.
A knowledge-level agent is defined as <D,K,T,A,see,do,database,action> as follows: the set D in
the tuple is an arbitrary set of predicate calculus databases, S is a set of external states, T is the set of
partitions of S, A is a set of actions, see is a function from S into T, do is a function from A S into S,
database is a function from D x T into D, and action is a function from D x T into A. Knowledge level
agents are example hysterectic agents.

Cryptosiganture Agent Language Processing

Blockchain tranactions are based on immutable strings, encoded with protocol languages expressible on
signature tree to process and authenticate on network transactions. The process applies Shared Ledgers
and Digital ID’s. Trust ledger update on transactions with data partitioning for selective data exposures,
while encoding business rules on a business logic layer realizing transactions on cryptocurrencies. Block
sequening and data stringing are applied with Hash code distributed transactions on Multisignature
cooperative transactions.

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

The formal basis to the above is charcaterized by an intelligent language (Nourani 1996, 1997). Such
languages afford syntactic constructs that allow function symbols and corresponding objects, such that
the function symbols are implemented by computing agents. Sentential logic is the standard formal lan-
guage applied when defining basic models. The language L is a set of sentence symbol closed by finite
application of negation and conjunction to sentence symbols. Once quantifier logical symbols are added
to the language, the language of first order logic can be defined. A Model for L is a structure Ɑ with
a corresponding set Ɑ such that for each constant symbol in the language there corresponds a constant
in Ɑ. For each function symbol in the language there is a function defined on Ɑ; and for each relation
symbol in the language there is a relation defined on Ɑ. For the algebraic theories we are defining for
intelligent tree computing in the forthcoming sections the language is defined from signatures as in the
logical language is the language of many-sorted equational logic. Since an exposition at MFCS track,
Berno on intelligent languages (Nourani 1995). Comparable papers are (Burkhardt 1994) Basic agent
computing area briefs are on the DESIRE model (Brazier, F.M.T., Dunin-Keplicz, et.la. A brief here
an overview on what the concept is: A set of function symbols in the language,)for example, ᵮ is the
set modeled in the computing world by AI Agents with across and/or over board capability. Thus the
language defined by the signature has designated function symbols called ᵮ with specific designation
options on structure models. The Agent function symbols define signatures that have specific properties.
For example, to state that ᵮ is names for only 1-1 function is an intelligent language function designation.
This is the subject of the following areas where free algebras on intelligent trees that we call cryptosmart
in this context. Cryptosmart is an annotation to subsignatures that are mutually designated encrypted.
For example that subsignature operations are algebraically closed to the subsignature, or that certain
functions must be designated 1-1 respective.
A multi-sorted signature Σ = (Sorts, Ops). There is sort set and Ops is a set of operations on the sorts
of form n: s1 × . . . × sk → s. s1, . . ., sk, s ∈ Sorts, k ≥ 0. operation name n. argument sorts s1 × . . . ×
sk . target sort s. arity s1 × . . . × sk → s. For k = 0: constant n:→ s of sort s.
Definition 2.1 We say that a signature Σ is cryptosmart iff it has an intelligent function symbol sub-
signature. We say that a language has crsptosmart syntax if the syntax is defined by such signature Σ.
Definition 2.2 A language L is said to be an cryptosmart signature language iff L is defined from
an cryptosmart intelligent syntax.
Intelligent languages and signatures (Nourani 1997) allow us to present computational theories with
formulas on terms with intelligent function symbols.
Recalling what was the starts to context free grammars for agent computing.
(Nourani 1997) proves that String Intelligent languages are Context-Free-ICF. The above stated
theorem can have newer instantiations for cryptosmart signatures in forthcoming papers. Bitcoins,
for example, are unforgeable bitstrings “Mined” by the protocol itself. Digital signature keys own and
transfer bitcoins. Owners are pseudonymous, e.g., D4hAZeKE7vER2YvmH4yT. Every transaction
transfers a bitcoin (fraction) from current to next owner. Such bitcoin now belongs to D4h…. signed
by the key of current owner: flow linkable by protocol, and not anonymous when converted to real-
world assets. Validation is based on the global history of past transactions. Signer has received the
bitcoin before, or Signer has not yet spent the bitcoin. Every operation o appends a “block” of valid
transactions (tx) to the log. The log content is verifiable from the most recent element, while the log
entries form a hash chain
ht ← Hash([tx1, tx2, ... ] || ht-1 || t) .

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

Agent Authentication

By definitions 2.1 and 2.2 agent signatures are carried by the intelligent signature. Computing with
intelligent trees might embed automatic agent signature authentication. The basis for the computing is
a signature match to start agent messages. Basic authentication is automatic when the intelligent com-
puting interface to WWW is cranked up. Further encoding can be embedded when the agent signatures
are designed. For example, the agent signature can specify what the agent types are with which it can
engage exchange at all. The signature might specify the class of messages and or transactions allowed.
Basic agent protocol can also be encoded by the agent signatures. Our protocol model starts with A be an
alphabet and Σ a signature with A ⊂ Σ. Let PΣ = {p1,…,pn} n∈ω the natural numbers ordinal, with pi ∈Σ*.
Having the above we can begin to reach a mathematics computational basis to address block chain
protocol and crypto currency areas, for example, defining transaction processing onto a database or block
chain model. Authentication or consensus might be encoded or decided on and/or agent trees. The agent
and/or game trees (Nourani 1997) are example tree rewriting on signatured trees.
AND/OR trees (Nilsson 1969) game trees defined to solve an authemtication or check consensus
from a stakes player’s stand point. are
n an OR node.
/|\
m an AND node
/__|__\
/|\
Formally a node problem is said to be solved if one of the following conditions hold.

1. The node is the set of terminal nodes (primitive problem- the node has no successor).
2. The node has AND nodes as successors and the successors are solved.
3. The node has OR nodes as successors and any one of the successors is solved.

A solution to the original problem is given by the subgraph of AND/OR graph sufficient to show
that the node is solved. A program which can play a theoretically perfect game would have task like
searching and AND/OR tree for a solution to a one person problem to a two-person game. An intelligent
AND/OR tree is and AND/OR tree where the tree branches are intelligent trees. The branches compute
a Boolean function via agents. The Boolean function is what might satisfy a goal formula on the tree.
An intelligent AND/OR tree is solved iff the corresponding Boolean functions solve the AND/OR trees
named by intelligent functions on the trees. Thus node m might be f(a1,a2,a3) & g(b1,b2), where f and
g are Boolean functions of three and two variables, respectively, and ai’s and bi’s are Boolean valued
agents satisfying goal formulas for f and g.
g is on OR agent
/|\
b1 | b2
f f is an AND agent
/__|__\
/|\
a1 a2 a3

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

Example open trusted team play at blockchain has the following game characteristics:

*There is a common blockchain protocol

*Consensus is distrubuted permissionless
*There is a team leader deciding a goal ledger is closed: i,e, BC game solved.
◦◦ Transations are immutable

Examples: An event processing system blockchain for processing a lottery.

A university network tuition processing system for a univerity group.
Blockchain transactions are based on a team member consensus.No single player possesses all the
knowledge. “Portfolio” of access control and stake protocols prevail, regulating the team ``ball passes.´´

Agents, Modules, and Blocks

A digital identity is information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent.
That agent may be a person, organisation, application, or device. ISO/IEC 24760-1 denotes identity
as “set of attributes related to an entity. The computing enterprise requires more general techniques of
model construction and extension, since it has to accommodate dynamically changing world descriptions
and theories. The models to be defined are for complex computing phenomena, for which we define
generalized diagrams. The techniques in the first author´s over a decade model building as applied to
the problem of AI reasoning allows us to build and extend models through diagrams. It required us to
define the notion of generalized diagram. Generic diagrams characterize models with prespecified gen-
eralized Skolem functions. The specific minimal set of function symbols is the set with which a model
for a knowledge base can be defined. The G-diagram techniques allowed us to formulate AI worlds,
KB’s in a minimal computable manner to be applied to agent computation. The techniques in (Nourani
1991,94a) for model building as applied to the problem of AI reasoning allows us to build and extend
models through diagrams. A technical example of algebraic models defined from syntax had appeared
in defining initial algebras for equational theories of data types (ADJ 1973) and our research in (Nilsson
1969). In such direction for computing models of equational theories of computing problems are pre-
sented by a pair (Σ,E), where is a signature (of many sorts, for a sort set S) (ADJ 1973,Nourani 1995a)
and E a set of -equations. Signatures are in the same sense as key signatures in music.
We apply multi-sorted algebras via definition 2.3 to multiagent systems.
Definition 2.3 Let Σ be a multi-sorted signature. A Σ algebra A consists of a set As for each s ∈ S
(called the carrier if A of sort s) and a function <A>: As1 x As2 x....xAsn → As for each Σ <w,s>,
with w=s1s2...sn (called the operation named by Σ <w,s>). For <,s>, A As, i,e the (set of names) of
constants of sort s.
Briefing on the mathematical basis for where we began to study NLP algorithms since (Nourani-
Fähndlich 2014) there are new applications for compound signatures over product languages. The fragment
categories (Nourani 1996) can be addressed at several levels: We can consider defining a correspondence
to an arbitrary infinitary language where the sets you wish to address with respect to the new signature
that are to be the structure for your language are definable: you can call that LΣ. On TΣ we can take
well-defined fragments on the LΣ language towards techniques for creating models (Nourani 1996, 2014).

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

Some preliminary definitions are as follows taking for granted structures and languages for at least first
order logic with algebraic structures. Though this paper is not so explicit on the mathematics for models
when we present tree congruences to check signature validity there are implicit homomorphisms that
are model checking for truth assignments to event agenda instantiations.
Definition 2.5 Let M be a structure for a language L, call a subset X of M a generating set for M if
no proper substructure of M contains X, i.e. if M is the closure of X U {c(M): c is a constant symbol of
L}. An assignment of constants to M is a pair <A,G>, where A is an infinite set of constant symbols in
L and G: A → M such that {G(a): a in A} is a set of generators for M. Interpreting a by g(a), every ele-
ment of M is denoted by at least one closed term of L(A). For a fixed assignment <A,G> of constants
to M, the diagram of M, D<A,G>(M) is the set of basic (atomic and negated atomic) sentences of L(A)
true in M. (Note that L(A) is L enriched with set A of constant symbols.)
Definition 2.6 We say that a formula is positive iff it is built from atomic formulas using only the
connectives &, v and the quantifiers∀, ∃.
Definition 2.7 A formula φ (x1,x2,...,xn) is preserved under homomorphisms iff for any homomor-
phisms f of a model A onto a model B and all a1,...,an in A if A |= φ[a1,...,an] B |= ⱷ[fa1,...,fan].
Theorem 1 (Nourani 2010) Let L1, L2 be two positive languages. Let L = L1 ∩ L2. Suppose T is a
complete theory in L and T1 ⊃ T, T2 ⊃ T are consistent in L1, L2, respectively. Suppose there is model
M definable from a positive diagram in the language L1 ∪ L2 such that there are models M1 and M2
for T1 and T2 where M can be homomorphically embedded in M1 and M2. (i) T1 ∪ T2 is consistent.
(ii) There is model N for T1 ∪ T2 definable from a positive diagram that homomorphically extends that
of M1 and M2.
Theorem 2 (Nourani 2010) Let L1, L2 be two positive languages. Let L = L1 ∩ L2. Suppose T is a
complete theory in L and T1 ⊃ T, T2 ⊃ T are consistent in L1, L2, respectively. Then

(i) T1 ∪ T2 has a model M, that is a positive end extension on Models M1 and M2 for T1, and T2, respectively.
(ii) M is definable from a positive diagram in the language L1 ∪ L2.

Block Product Signatures Agent Languages

Beginning with the mathematical basis for where we began to study NLP algorithms since (Nourani-
Fahndlich 2014) we apply our new techniques for compound signatures over product languages by as-
signing a signature language to every block. We can consider a correspondence to an arbitrary infinitary
language where the sets you wish to address with respect to the new signature that are to be the structure
for your language are definable: you can call that LΣ. The linguistics abstraction techniques developed
since 1997 allows us to lift from context. With signature tree languages we can carry on partitions on
models for a formal language that factor generic models. Let L1,.....Ln are language fragments n ∈ω
Σ1,... Σn Are the fragment natural grammar signatures T<Σ1 >.........T<Σn> are the free trees on the
grammar signatures. Each fragment language signature tree T<Σi > can be assigned a fragment seman-
tics whereby to each t ∈ T<Σi > the free well-formed syntax trees ti and tj are ≡ iff there is a context
free parse normal form common to both. Let us denote that congruence with ≡ CTF fragment L1, L2,...,
Ln Fragments n < ω, i.e. a natural number.
Thereby we have a mathematical characterizations for blocks on a chain signature on a product
language

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

Π i ∈ω LΣi

Let us define a product signature filter following the first author´s recent product language filters
publications, e.g. (Nourani 2018) to present public key signatures for block chain crypto-signatures
(refer to crypto literatures).
Definition 2.8 A block chain public key signature for an n-block party with protocol signature lan-
guages {LΣi i<= n } is a signature Ω such that Ω ∩ Σi is ≠ ᶱ, i.e. nonempty intersection.
Remark: For arbitrary Σ-trees ti, tk ∈ LΣi . The terms ti, tk are authentic crypto term pairs for the
n-block party iff ti ≡ Ω tk can be ascertained. So each party must have the Ω mathematically reachable
its personal scramble to authenticate pairs.
In the following the language products are direct product on the free T<Σi >. The basic algebraic
signature tree congruences are standard notions since (ADJ 1973).
Theorem 3 Let Π i ∈ω LΣi be a product block chain computation process, then the n-block chain
transaction consensus can be computable iff for every pair transaction protocol signature trees ti and tk
in Π i ∈ω LΣi, ti ≡ Ω tk .
Hence, the direct product on signature tree algebras is the block party scramble for the public key
consensus protocol.

AN AGENT BLOCK CHAIN PROTOCOL

Let A be an alphabet and Σ a signature with A ⊂ Σ. Let PΣ = {p1,…,pn} n∈ω the natural numbers ordi-
nal, with pi ∈ Σ*. So each pi is a Σ-term. We might define on ordering on PΣ as follows on the following
paragraph. Let us define a function v: Σ* → Σ*. Now let pi > pj iff pi = v(t, pj) for some t ∈ Σ*. Let us define a
priority function Top on PΣ as follows: Top: PΣ → PΣ defined with Top (PΣ) = {pi: for all pj ∈ PΣ, pi > pj }. Now we can
define a preliminary cryptosignatured block chain protocol with
BCP = {PΣ: (x,y) x∈ PΣ, y∈ PΣ, and x <y}. Having the above we can begin to reach a mathematics
computational basis to address block chain protocol and crypto currency areas, for example, defining
and a Put or Get on a database block chain model.
Let us consider the following example (Nourani 2001) (O is the Banking) Network,Transfer an ex-
ample of an action in A, and R has equations listed on Transfer and ETransfer
Object:= A_Sirrius_Function
OPS:= Transfer_Computing_Funds (Amount, To,From) | .... Transfer(Many_Mill-K$,ID, Vault_Funds)
==> signal an agent to activate a destination vault computer agent; pass authentication signature; pass
Name bank number; activate funds transfer completion agents; transfer authentication signature to agent
for deposit; signal transaction completion.
Exp:= ETransfer_Computing_Funds (Amount,To, From) | Etransfer_Computing _Funds(Many_Mill-
K$, ID, Vault_Funds) ==>
If Vault_Agent busy signal: try preemptive agent activation; recover from busy waited periods;
If amount exceeds immediate_funds_available:
Activate installment funding agents: set authentication for payments over several years; If Vault_funds
all committed, activate agents to transfer from BC Crypto R&D_Funds

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

Figure 1. A glimpse from IBM research zürich blockchain

Agent Computing, Events, and Agendas

Competitive model multiagent planning (Nourani 1999, Geneserch Nils-

son 1987, Nourani-Schulte 2014) is an impor tant application area to illustrate
how event-based distributed computation on blockchain can be modelled. Event based
computing is modeled at AI with boards and an agenda for goals to satisfy. Events are modeled with
agents that send signals indicating changes to agenda boards towards even updates, or to interim goals.
With multiagent systems computing Σ basis event knowledge- level cooperation between autonomous
agents has significant benefits for distributed systems engineering. Examples are interoperability, scal-
ability, and reconfigurability Another important direction is designs with intelligent multi-tiers applying
agents and intelligent business objects with applications to intelligent WWW interfaces (Nourani 2005)

Block Board Actions on Agendas

Let us partake a glimpse from IBM on Nakamura consensus with block trans actions. Nodes prepare
block: the list of valid transactions. There is a lottery race to form a winning valid chain.
vs
A lottery race is carried on a random event- based agenda board. Events are managed by reaching a
winning sequence. The mathematical model for the event-based agenda driven block chain protocol is
as follows. Block chain with an agent model is accomplished with a what we define as a Block Board
Σ = {Σi,…. Σn} that is agenda driven for block actions. Let us define A block board with a multiagent
signature Σ = {Σi,…. Σn} for Σi an action Ai on the block.
Cryptosigature Block chain consensus protocol Algorithm (Nourani 2017):
For an action, i.e. a block chain transaction, that is carried out with an action Ai, the action Ai
blockboard:
The blockboard agenda carries out the action Ai for Σi with arity m iff

1. For every agent term ti on Σ(x1,…,xm) every variable x corresponding to the Ai agent is instanti-
ated with an authenticated block player; e,g. a player with the group public key. and
2. Block chain protocol condition BCP is met for the action Ai.

Iterate on i on Ai.

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A Tree Computing Block Chain Protocol Crypto-Signature Model

The agenda board fires the transaction iff a &b. are satisfied.
The above is priority consensus block party consensus algorithm realized on product signature terms.

Concluding Comments

A mathematical basis for consensus based block chain computing and trust models is presented. A novel
priority-based block chain protocol algorithm based on consensus on agenda event-based computing is
developed. Distributed computing for consensus. Novel product language block cryptography for anony-
mous trusted transactions for ledgers and block chain networks are presented in preliminary format on a
multiagent block chain state machine model. Visual data bases and morphic encoding are further areas
that this author and authors at the general areas have published on papers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Thanking Prof. Uwe Egbert Wolter, Bergen, for preliminary comments on a draft paper..

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262

Chapter 13
Automate Model
Transformation From CIM
to PIM up to PSM in Model-
Driven Architecture
Yassine Rhazali
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-0216
ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco

Asma El Hachimi
MISC Laboratory, Ibn Tofail University, Morocco

Idriss Chana
ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco

Mohammed Lahmer
ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco

Abdallah Rhattoy
ISIC Research Team of ESTM, LMMI Laboratory of ENSAM, Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco

ABSTRACT
The CIM, PIM, and PSM models are the main levels of the MDA approach. Model transformation
is an important step in the MDA process. Indeed, in MDA there are two elementary transformation
kinds: CIM to PIM transformation and PIM to PSM transformation. However, most searches propose
approaches transforming PIM to PSM, since there are multiple points in common between PIM and
PSM. Nevertheless, transforming CIM to PIM is rarely addressed in research because these two levels
are mainly different. However, there is not a synthesis work that makes it possible to carry out a model
transformation from CIM to PIM towards PSM until obtaining the code. This synthesis methodology
allows controlling models transformation from CIM to PIM to PSM, indeed, up to obtaining code ac-
cording the MDA. This approach makes it possible to limit the intervention of computer scientists in the
life cycle of software development. Indeed, this methodology allows modeling only CIM, the business
process, and then obtains the source code through successive semi-automatic transformations.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1082-7.ch013

Copyright © 2020, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

INTRODUCTION

MDE (Model Driven Engineering) (Schmidt, 2006) is an alternative approach of software engineering.
This approach allows the development of software systems by basing on the models. This approach
focuses on the creation of the basic models and transforming them, to multiple levels of abstraction, in
order to automatic generation of source code. The objective of this approach is to automate the operation
of software development that is realized manually by the software experts. MDE is a general methodol-
ogy which can be supported by several approaches, indeed, MDA (Model Driven Architecture) (OMG-
MDA, 2015) of OMG (Object Management Group) is considered as the most prevalent approach. MDA
follows the same fundamentals of MDE; however, it identifies its own bases presented by three levels of
abstraction, respect of various requirements, and the recommendation of some standards.
CIM (Computation Independent Model) is the highest level of abstraction and the first into MDA.
Indeed, CIM level is independent of computation, for this, the researchers represent only the business
process reality into this level. CIM models are made by business experts. The second level of abstraction
in MDA is the PIM level that describes models useful to information system analysts and designers. PIM
(Platform Independent Model) level contains the conceptual models, and the analysis models, of infor-
mation system. The lowest level of abstraction in MDA is the PSM (Platform Specific Model) which is
constituted by code models; these models are very useful by software developers. The models of PSM
level formed of all information related to a specific platform. MDA is a model-based architecture, for
this, the textual code does not interpreted as a level in MDA, however, source code is the ultimate goal
into MDA.
Model transformation presents the key of MDA. The transformations between different levels of
MDA start with the transformations from CIM (Computation Independent Mode) to PIM (Platform
Independent Model) that allow to partially obtain the PIM models from the CIM models. The objective
is to rewrite technically the information contained in the CIM models into PIM models, which enables
to ensure that business information is preserved throughout the MDA process. Then, the transformation
from PIM level to PSM (Platform Specific Model) level requires adding into PIM models the technical
information related to the target platform.
Our approach based, in CIM level, BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) (OMG-BPMN,
2011) collaboration diagram and business process diagram which represent standards of business pro-
cess model. Next, through these latter standards the authors can build rich business models that contain
well-concentrated information help us to get PIM models. The first model in the PIM level is the use
case diagram model that interprets the functionalities of the system. Then, the sequence diagram model
describes information interaction with the system in a dynamic way. Next, the class diagram model allows
presenting the system classes and their relationships. Finally, all classes are structured in packages into
package diagram model. Then, PIM models can be transformed trough a tool to PSM, indeed, up to code.
CIM, PIM and PSM are the important levels in MDA . Model transformation is the main step in the
MDA approach. However, in MDA there are two primary transformation: CIM to PIM transformation
and PIM to PSM transformation. Nevertheless, most works offer approaches transforming PIM to PSM,
indeed, there are several commonality between PIM and PSM. However, transforming CIM to PIM is
rarely broached in research because these two levels are mainly dissimilar. Indeed, there is not a synthesis
work which makes it possible to achieve a model transformation from CIM to PIM towards PSM until
geting the code. This synthesis research allows mastering models transformation from CIM to PIM to
PSM, indeed, up to obtaining code according the MDA. This work makes it possible to limit the interven-

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

tion of computer scientists in the life cycle of software development, indeed this work allows modeling
only CIM, the business process, and then, get the source code through several automatic transformations.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section II, the authors describe the related works
of the models transformation .Then, in Section III, the researchers show the approach, specify the con-
struction rules of CIM level, and describe the transformation rules that allow transforming CIM to PIM
to PSM up to code. Next, in Section IV, the authors illustrate the proposal in a case study showing the
establishment of CIM level and transforming it to PIM level, then, they transform PIM to PSM and fi-
nally to code. However, in section V the researchers analyze the contributions of the approach compared
with related work. Finally, in Section VI, the authors conclude by specifying the current works and by
presenting future works.

RELATED WORK

In this section, the researchers describe the related works concerning model transformation into MDA.
The oriented-service transformation from CIM to PIM presented In (Castro et al., 2011). In this ap-
proach the authors establish CIM level with: the BPMN notation for modeling the business process and the
value model (Gordijn et al., 2003) for identifying services from the beginning in the business perspective.
The authors based on the ATL (atlas transformation language) language for moving toward PIM level
which is represented by two extensions of the activity diagram and two extensions of use case diagram.
In (Hahn et al., 2010) the authors propose an approach of engineering services model-driven, they
represent the CIM level through BPMN notation. Then, they use ATL language to move to PIM level
which is represented by SoaML (OMG-SoaML, 2012) models.
In (Zhang et al., 2005) they authors show a methodology in which the CIM and PIM are respectively
represented by features and components. Responsibilities in this approach are considered as connectors
between features and components to facilitate the transformation task from CIM to PIM. (Grammel el al.,
2010) the authors based on a DSL connection, which allows the management of traceability in general.
A methodology respecting MDA allow transforming model of use case diagram to model of activity
diagram is provided by (Gutiérrez et al., 2008). The authors based on QVT for transforming existing
use cases diagram model to the activity diagram model.
In (Kherraf et al., 2008) the authors propose a methodology allows transforming the CIM to PIM.
For modeling the business perspective in CIM level, the authors use the business process model and the
use case diagram, then, the system requirements are modeled by the activity diagram in the CIM level.
Next, the system requirements are transformed to components of the system which are presented by the
component diagram in the PIM level. Finally, a set of business archetypes facilitate the transformation
from the system components to the class diagram model.
In (Kardoš et al., 2010) the authors provide an analytical method for transforming CIM to PIM into
MDA. The authors establish CIM models through the data flow diagram. Then, they move to PIM
models which are modeled by use case diagram, activity diagram, sequence diagram, and class diagram.
A method for moving to Information system model from business process model is presented in
(Mokrys, 2012). Into CIM level the authors establish the business process model by basing on BPMN
notation. However, PIM models are presented by UML class diagram and state diagram.
In (Rhazali et al., 2015a) the authors establish a transformation method for moving from CIM to PIM.
This method based on BPMN notation for presenting the business process models. Then, PIM models

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

are established by the three classical modeling views. This method focuses on analytic survey that allows
moving from CIM level to PIM level through a semi-automatic transformation.
In (Rhazali et al., 2015b) the authors present a methodology for transforming CIM models to PIM
models. The authors establish business process through UML 2 activity diagram. However, the PIM
models are modeled by class diagram, state diagram and package diagram. This methodology founded
on a set of transformation rules for transforming CIM models to PIM models.
In (Rhazali et al., 2016a) the authors propose an approach for transforming business process models
to analysis and design model. This approach allows establishing business process in CIM by basing on
SoaML models .However, PIM models are presented by UML 2 use case diagram, state diagram, class
diagram and web diagram presented by SoaML: software component.
In (Rhazali et al., 2016b) the authors represent an approach to move from CIM to PIM; they define
the business process by using BPMN. However, the PIM level is established by UML. This approach
founded MVC design pattern.
In (Rhazali et al., 2017) the authors define a method to transform from CIM level to PIM level; they
define the business process by using UML activity diagram. However, the PIM level by UML diagrams
models. In PIM level this approach is founded also in SoaML and IFML.
In (Rhazali et al., 2018) the authors represent an approach to shift from CIM to PIM; they define the
business process by using BPMN. However, the PIM level is established by the three UML view point.
This approach founded also in web model to define PIM level.
After this overview on related works, we can arrange the works into four classes. We find works that
use model requirements (such as the use case diagram) in the CIM level, to facilitate the transformation
to PIM (Gutiérrez et al., 2008; Kherraf et al., 2008). Then, other researches (Castro et al., 2011; Hahn,
et al., 2010), even if they define the business processes in CIM level, do not represent the structural
view (usually through the class diagram) in the PIM level. There are also methods such as (Kardoš et al.,
2010) which represent the structural view in the PIM level, but the authors do not specify transforma-
tion rules. Finally, there are methods (Zhang et al., 2005; Grammel et al., 2010) that define exactly the
transformation rules and do not have the models used in the CIM and PIM level.
So we can say that the main contributions of our study compared with others as follows: a business
process model is used in CIM level; then, we define the structural view in PIM level; next we propose
an approach of generic transformation that has clear rules to achieve the maximum possible automatic
transformation from CIM to PIM up to PSM.

PROPOSED METHOD FOR TRANSFORMING CIM TO PIM up to PSM

A business process model is the abstraction of the real business process inside enterprise. In accordance
with our modeling objectives the authors can establish different models to present the same reality. The
researchers can model for controlling the business process, for improving the communication process
with partners and customers, or for establishing initial models in the process of software development. In
this proposal, our objective is to design business process models as a first stage in the process of software
system development. In the last case there are two possibilities: either establish business models destined
to be transformed, manually through the analysts and the software designers, toward design models, or
establish business models automatically transformable toward the design models. The second choice
was considered in this methodology, because this work founded on the MDA. For this, the proposal

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

Figure 1. Our CIM to PIM up to PSM Transformation proposal

allows to model real business models, contain useful information, which facilitate the transformation
from CIM to PIM to PSM up to code.
Our methodology presents the business perspective in the CIM level, through business process mod-
els, for preserving the business knowledge during the transformation toward the PIM models in order
to achieve a quality information system.
In this Methodology (cf. Figure 1), the researchers use the two standards of modeling business pro-
cesses, the BPMN collaboration diagram and BPMN business process diagram, for taking advantage of
each standard in order to achieve rich models into CIM level, for facilitating the transformation to PIM
to PSM up to code.
MDA advocates the use of UML diagrams for modeling the PIM level. Indeed, in our proposal the
authors define use case diagram to present functional view of the system, however, the sequence diagram

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interpret the system behavioral view, then, the class diagram shows the structural view of the system.
However, the authors structure all classes in packages into package diagram. Then, PIM models can be
transformed trough a tool to PSM, indeed, up to code. Indeed, All PIM and PSM models are obtained
through an automatic or semi-automatic transformation from CIM models, via well-defined transforma-
tion rules and tools.
Below, the researchers represent the construction rules of CIM models, and the transformation rules
that allow transforming CIM models to the PIM models, and propose to facilitate transformation from
PIM to the PSM level, then, up to obtaining code.

Construction Rules of the CIM Level

The rules for constructing the model of BPMN collaboration diagram (cf. Figure 2):

• Establish an average sub-processes (not complexes sub-processes). In order to each sub-process

must be comprised between 4 task and 12 tasks.
• If a sub-process provides a complementary operation to other sub-processes or contains less than
four tasks, the authors can merge several sub-processes into one, on condition that the sub-process
merged do not surpasses 10 tasks.
• Present manual tasks and do not show other kind of the tasks.
• Represent general business process and avoid the details
• Focus only on sub-processes and their sequences.
• Specify the maximum of the collaborators which interact in achieving the business process.
• The sub-processes belonging to the same category must be grouped inside the “Group” notation.

Figure 2. CIM generic models: BPMN generic model

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Figure 3. Schema of passage from the CIM level models to use case diagram model.

Transformation Rules from the CIM level to PIM level

The transformation rules (TR) of passage from CIM models to use case diagram model (cf. Figure 3):

• TR1: the “sequence flow” between two tasks, in BPMN business process model, becomes a rela-
tionship “include” between two use cases;
• TR2: Each sub-process, in BPMN collaboration diagram model, is transformed to a package;
• TR3: the “exclusive fork” between two tasks, in BPMN business process model, becomes a rela-
tionship “extend” between two use cases;
• TR4: the sequence flow returning back, in BPMN business process model, cannot be transformed;
• TR5: every task, in BPMN business process model, transformed to use case;
• TR6: the collaborator, in BPMN collaboration diagram model, becomes an actor.

The transformation rules (TR) for moving from BPMN business process model to sequence diagram
model (cf. Figure 4):

• TR7: each pool that does not contain lanes becomes an actor, and each lane within a pool becomes
an actor;
• TR8: each task is transformed into a message sent from the actor to the system;
• TR9: each data object with a state is transformed into a message returning from the system to the
actor.

The rules for moving from BPMN business process model to class diagram model (cf. Figure 5):

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

Figure 4. Schema of passage from the CIM models to sequence model.

Figure 5. Schema of passage from the CIM models to models of class and package diagram.

• TR17: data object becomes a class;

• TR18: State of a data object becomes a class method.

The rules for moving from the BPMN collaboration diagram model and the class diagram model to
the package diagram model (cf. Figure 5):

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

• TR19: Sub-process that does not belong to any group becomes a package;
• TR20: Group transforms to a package;
• TR21: Classes becoming from the same sub-process, that belongs to no group, will be placed into
the package that matches to the sub-processes;
• TR22: A set of classes, which becomes from the same group, will be placed into the package that
corresponds the group.

CASE STUDY

In this section, the authors present a case study for sales through e-commerce to illustrate this approach
of transforming CIM to PIM to PSM up to code.
A customer can browse the catalog of products available. He can also see detailed information about
each item, then he decides either to put a quantity of product in the cart or not. Each time the customer
has the right to change the amount or eliminate completely the article from the cart. Once products that
satisfied the needs of the customer are clearly selected, the latter starts the command. Then, he presents
the payment information, and precise details of delivery.
An order agent begins treating the order, declaring the reservation of products specified by the cus-
tomer. Then, the assembly worker collects reserved items, manually, from stock.
The assembly team leader checks quantity and quality of each product. Then the delivery agent car-
ries the confirmed order, so that the customer gets his ordered products.

Figure 6. BPMN collaboration diagram model of “sale through e-commerce”.

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Automate Model Transformation From CIM to PIM up to PSM in Model-Driven Architecture

Presentation of the CIM Level

Figure 6 shows the model of the business process represented by BPMN collaboration diagram. In this
model the researchers just specified sub-processes and their sequence by avoiding the identification of
tasks and connections to present a business process in general. The authors have presented the maximum
of collaborators to define a true business process, in which there is collaboration between several busi-
ness actors. For example, instead of putting a single lane “delivery service”, the researchers identified
the lanes: “assembly worker”, “assembly team leader” and “delivery agent”.
Figure 7 shows the second model in CIM level as a model of BPMN business process. Through this
model the researchers individually detail each sub-process of the previous model as several actions.
However, in this model the sub-processes “select product for order” is analyzed. Also, we have identi-
fied all possible ways towards connections. Then the authors presented an object node with its state in
the output of each action.

Presentation of the PIM level

Figure 8 shows a diagram use case model. This latter model is transformed from CIM models. Never-
theless, the sub-process “select product for order” becomes a package inside use case diagram model.
Next, the collaborator “customer” that realizes the sub-process becomes actor. However, the tasks
which detail the sub-process become use cases. Indeed, exclusive fork which connects between two
tasks becomes relationship “extend” between two use cases. For example, in the BPMN business pro-
cess diagram model, there is a decision node that lies between the two tasks “designate product” and
“put in cart quantity product “, so the two correspondent use cases are connected by the relationship
“extend”. Control flow which connects between two tasks becomes relationship “include” between two
use cases. Thus, in the BPMN business process diagram model, there is sequence flow between the two
tasks “present catalog” and “designate product”, indeed, the two corresponding use cases are connected
by a relationship “include”. Nevertheless, the sequence flow returning backward did not transform as
a relationship “include”. For example, the relationship between the tasks “put in cart product quantity”
and “present catalog” did not interpret in use case diagram model, so as not to complicate the model,
and because the use case diagram focuses only on the identification of functionalities and not on the
sequence of the functionalities.
Figure 8 presents the sequence model diagram transformed from the BPMN business process diagram
of CIM. In this model the tasks are transformed to messages go from actor to system. Indeed, in the
data object are transformed to messages returned from system to actor. Then, each pool that does not
contain lanes becomes a line life “actor”, and each lane within a pool becomes a line life “actor”. E.g.
the tasks “present catalog” is transformed to messages go from actor to system in sequence diagram
model, then, the data object “catalog” with the state “presented” becomes message “catalog presented”
returned from system to actor in the sequence diagram. However, pool “customer” that does not contain
lanes becomes an actor.
Figure 9 shows the final objective of the PIM level which is the construction of a model of class
diagram. This model is transformed from the model of the BPMN business process. In this model the
classes are transformed from object nodes. Then the states of an object are transformed to functions of
the class. So the object node “order” with state “started” transform to class “order” that contains the
“start” method.

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Figure 7. BPMN business process diagram model that develops the sub-process: “select product for
order”.

Figure 8. I: use case diagram model of “select product for order”, II: sequence diagram model of “select
product for order”.

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Figure 9. I: class diagram model of “select product for order”, II: package diagram model of “sale
through e-commerce”.

Figure 9 shows a model of the package diagram. So the group “realize order” transform into package.
Then the sub-processes that are not belong to any group, such as “treat order” and “final inspection”
become packages.

Presentation of the PSM Level

Since there are several proven tools in the market that allow the transformation from the PIM level to
the PSM level and from the PSM level to the code, we are not going to try to make a competitor tool,
we will be satisfied by using one tool that we consider performing.
In figure 10 it is a java-oriented class diagram that represents the PSM level, this diagram is obtained
after an automatic transformation through the tool “enterprise architect” which took as input a xml class
diagram model file of the graphical class diagram model (cf. Figure 9).

Presentation Of The Code

In figure 11 it is a java code is obtained after an automatic transformation through “enterprise architect”.
The java code is grouped into five classes which are: catalog, product, card, order and quantityProduct.
As well as the methods that are in each class more than the relations between classes.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

For presenting the CIM level, there is a current that based only on system requirements models like in
(Fatolahi et al., 2008; Gutiérrez et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2007), but CIM level must be independent of
computation. Then, there is a hybrid stream that founded on business process and system requirements
for modeling the CIM level as in (Kherraf et al., 2008). In these approaches, system requirements pre-
sented from the beginning into CIM models in order to facilitate the transformation from CIM to PIM.
In our methodology, business processes are modeled into CIM level. Nevertheless, according to OMG

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Figure 10. I: class diagram model java oriented of “select product for order”.

in (OMG-MDA, 2014), the CIM level contains business process models, which are independent of
computation. Indeed, in (OMG-BPMN, 2011), the benefits of most business process standards meet in
BPMN, for this, the authors founded on BPMN notation to model business processes.
The researchers divide the PIM models in accordance with the three modeling views (Roques, 2004;
Demuth, 1999): dynamic, functional and static. According (Blanc, 2005; Kleppe, 2003; Fowler, 2005)
UML is recommended by MDA in the PIM level. However, the intersection between our UML models
and the three classical modeling views is showed as follows: the functional view is presented by the use
case diagram model, the state diagram model interprets the dynamic view and the static view is presented
by the class diagram model.
There is no approach which includes the three modeling views, In PIM, apart (Kardoš et al., 2010;
Rhazali et al., 2015c). Nevertheless, several approaches do not model the classes into the PIM level
as in (Zhang et al., 2005; Rodríguez et al., 2007; Castro et al., 2011; Mazón et al., 2007; Gutiérrez et
al., 2008; Wu et al., 2007), but the code does not easily results by transformation without classes. Our
methodology covers the three views of modeling. However, static view is presented by class diagram
model and package diagram model.
Most transformation methods, approves their proposals through a case study like in (Kherraf et al.,
2008; Zhang et al., 2005; Kardoš et al., 2010; Rodríguez et al., 2007; Rodríguez et al., 2008; Rodríguez
et al., 2010; Mazón et al., 2007; Gutiérrez et al., 2008 Mokrys et al., 2012; Bousetta et al., 2013; Rhazali
et al., 2016d; Rhazali et al., 2015c, Rhazali et al., 2015d). Then one approach (Wu et al., 2007) has not
approved. . Nevertheless, our methodology is approved by a case study of sale through e-commerce.

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Figure 11. I: java code class diagram model of “select product for order”.

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Figure 12. CIM meta-models:BPMN meta-model.

The researchers can classify the related works into five categories. The authors find researches use,
early in CIM level, the requirements models which represent the system requirements (through use case
diagram) to facilitate the transformation to PIM like in (Kherraf et al., 2008). Then, other studies as in
(Castro, 2011), even if they define the business processes in CIM level, do not represent the structural
view usually (through the class diagram) that represents the goal of the PIM level.
Then there are methods that target transformation in a particular field, like in (Mazón et al., 2007) the
authors move to the PIM that focuses on conceptual modeling of data warehouse, however, this approach
only tackles the transformation in the field of data warehouse. There are methods such as (Kardoš et al.,
2010) which represent the structural view in the PIM level and are not intended for a particular area,
but the authors show a case study of a transformation to the PIM level without mentioning the rules
used in the transformation. Finally, there are methods as in (Zhang et al., 2005) that define exactly the
transformation rules and do not have the models used in the CIM and PIM level.
So the researchers can say that the main contributions of our study in comparison with related works
as follow. Our method based on establishment on construction rules for organizing CIM level in order to
facilitate the transformation from CIM to PIM. In this proposal the business process interpreted in CIM
models for respecting the MDA approach. Then, the authors define the structural view in PIM models
(through using class and package diagram), indeed, in the PIM level, the classes considered as the base
for moving toward the code models in PSM. Our goal is not just the realization of the transformation from
the CIM to the PIM, but our objective is to obtain a PIM level which can be transformed subsequently
to the PSM level. Next, the researchers propose an approach of generic transformation that is not related
to a particular field. Indeed, our approach has clear rules to achieve, the maximum possible, automatic
transformation from CIM level to PIM level.

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Figure 13. PIM meta-models (part I): I: use case meta-model, II: state met-model

There is no methodology, in related work, which establish CIM and PIM meta-models except (Castro,
2011; Gutiérrez, 2008). But without meta-models, the practical model transformation is impossible.
The Figure 12 shows our CIM meta-model, which is represented by BPMN meta-model. However, the
Figure 13 and Figure 14 show our PIM meta-model that is interpreted by sequence meta-model, use
case meta-model, class meta-model and package meta-model.
There is several models transformation approaches (Bouraoui, 2019; Elmounadi, 2019; Mefteh, 2018;
Suratno, 2018) that validate most of the criteria already mentioned in this section but so far there is no
methodology that allows proposing an approach ensures the transformation in MDA from the CIM level
to the PIM level I up to PSM, even, getting the code.

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Figure 14. PIM meta-models (part II): III: class meta-model, IV: package meta-model .

Our approach can be combined in the future with several new technologies, especially with innova-
tive ideas in Iot and cloud computing (Hossain, 2019; Singh, 2019 ; Memos, 2018 ; Elmisery, 2018), as
well as with an innovative idea in big data and cyber security (Gupta, 2016; Jiang, 2018; Gupta, 2017;
Gupta, 2018; Sahoo, 2019), then we also think about combining our approach to IaaS and cloud com-
puting (Ahuja, 2018; Kashif, 2018).

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Our methodology is the unique approach based on construction rules for structuring CIM level for the
purpose of automate the transformation to PIM level, indeed, the CIM level structuring must give trans-
formable models to PIM level. However, approaches of related work do not provide a methodology that
allows transformation from the CIM level to the PIM level up to the PSM level, so there are approaches
that focus either on the transformation from the CIM to the PIM, or the transformation from the PIM to
the PSM, . therefor our approach is the only methodology allows mastering models transformation from
CIM to PIM to PSM, indeed, up to obtaining code according the MDA. So, This work makes it possible
to limit the intervention of computer scientists in the life cycle of software development, indeed this
work allows modeling only CIM, the business process, and then, get the source code through several
automatic transformations.
Our objective in this methodology is not just the transition from the CIM level to the PIM level to
PSM level, but our goal is to limit the intervention of computer scientists in the life cycle of software
development, indeed this work allows modeling only CIM, the business process, and then, get the source
code through several automatic transformations.

CONCLUSION

One of the major challenges in the software development process is the definition of an approach that
allows moving from models that describe the operation of business to models which present the analysis
and design of software.
Based on MDA, our approach provides a solution to the problem of transformation of business models
represented in CIM level to analysis and design models, modeled in PIM level. This approach results
in a set of well organized and useful classes in the process of software development. Our approach also
makes it possible to transform analysis and design models into platform-specific models, PSM, and then
to source code.
The ongoing work is intended to improve the rules of construction of the CIM and the rules of
transformation to the PIM. In our future work, we think to implement a tool allows to design business
process model in CIM level and transform this basic model automatically until the source code of the
system is obtained.
we tried to propose for the first time an approach that allows to provide the source code from a model
provided by non computer scientists, but we cannot affirm the power of our approach as we have not yet
implemented in an application and we have not tested it in true true magnitude, so the usefulness of our
methodology will be highlighted during the development of the tool supporting our approach.

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335

About the Contributors

Brij B. Gupta received PhD degree from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India in the area
of information security. He has published more than 200 research papers in international journals and
conferences of high repute. He has visited several countries to present his research work. His biography
has published in the Marquis Who’s Who in the World, 2012. At present, he is working as an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering, National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra,
India. His research interest includes information security, cyber security, cloud computing, web security,
intrusion detection, computer networks and phishing.

***

Mohammed Ali is an assistant professor who is currently affiliated with the Alliance Manchester
business school, The University of Manchester. His research interests includes Digital Strategy and
Technological innovation adoption in Organisations. He has publications in the area of Cloud Computing,
ERP systems, Internet of The Things, Social Media and Cyber Security. He has contributed to several
co-author publications. Mohammed has also published in the International Journal of Enterprise Infor-
mation Systems IGI-Global, British Academic of Management, AJBM and the International Journal of
Cloud Application and Computing (IJCAC). Mohammed is currently involved with valorous projects in
the area of Digital Business and submitted chapter of books and journal papers which are under review
expected to publish soon.

Rangel Arthur holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Paulista State University Júlio
de Mesquita Filho (1999), a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (2002) and a PhD in Electrical
Engineering (2007) from the State University of Campinas. Over the years from 2011 to 2014 he was
Coordinator and Associate Coordinator of Technology Courses in Telecommunication Systems and
Telecommunication Engineering of FT, which was created in its management. From 2015 to 2016 he
was Associate Director of the Technology (FT) of Unicamp. He is currently lecturer and advisor to the
Innovation Agency (Inova) of Unicamp. He has experience in the area of Electrical Engineering, with
emphasis on Telecommunications Systems, working mainly on the following topics: computer vision,
embedded systems and control systems

About the Contributors

Rabindra K. Barik is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Ap-
plications, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, India. He has received his both
M.Tech and Ph.D. in Geoinformatics from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad,
India. His research area includes Geospatial Database, SOA, Cloud Computing, Fog computing, IPR
and Geoinformatics. He is a member of IEEE and IAENG.

Suparna Biswas is working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering in Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, WB since 2005. She completed
her ME and PhD from Jadavpur University, West Bengal in 2004 and 2013 respectively. She was an
ERASMUS MUNDUS PostDoctoral Research Fellow in cLINK project in Northembria University,
Newcastle, UK from 5 September 2014 to 3 July 2015. Her areas of research interests are internet of
things, wireless body area network (WBAN), network security and remote healthcare.

Chandreyee Chowdhury is a faculty in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at

Jadavpur University, India. She received Ph. D in Engineering from Jadavpur University in 2013 and
M. E in Computer Science and Engineering from Jadavpur University in 2005. Her research interests
include routing issues of Wireless Sensor Networks and its variants, mobile crowd-sensing, and offload-
ing computation. She has more than 50 publications in journals and conferences. She is a member of
IEEE and IEEE Computer Society.

Phuc Do is currently an Associate Professor of the University of Infor-mation Technology (UIT),

Viet Nam National University, Ho Chi Minh city, Vi-etnam. His research interests include data mining,
text mining, information net-work analysis, big data analysis, distributed computing on cloud environ-
ment and applications.

Reinaldo França has a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering in 2014. Currently, he is an Ph.D. degree
candidate by Department of Semiconductors, Instruments and Photonics, Faculty of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at the LCV-UNICAMP working with technological and scientific research as
well as in programming and development in C / C ++, Java and .NET languages. His main topics of
interest are simulation, operating systems, software engineering, wireless networks, internet of things,
broadcasting and telecommunications systems

Neena Gupta received her Ph.D degree from Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar in the year
2005. Currently, she is working as Associate Professor in the Computer Sciences Department of Gurukul
Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Dehradun Campus. Her research interest includes optimization techniques,
Cloud Computing, Security and image processing. She has published much research in International
Journals and Conferences of high repute including IEEE, Elsevier, ACM, Springer, Wiley Inderscience,
etc. Special Interest: Image Processing, Security, Cloud Computing.

336
About the Contributors

Yuzo Iano. B.Sc. (1972), M.Sc. (1974) and Ph.D. degrees (1986) in Electrical Eng. at UNICAMP,
Brazil. Since then he has been working in the technological production field, with 1 patent granted, 8
filed patent applications and 36 projects completed with research and development agencies. He has
supervised 29 doctoral theses, 49 master’s dissertations, 74 undergraduate and 48 scientific initiation
works. He has participated in 100 master’s examination boards, 50 doctoral degrees, author of 2 books
and more than 250 published articles. He is currently Professor at UNICAMP, Editor-in-Chief of the
SET International Journal of Broadcast Engineering and General Chair of the Brazilian Symposium on
Technology (BTSym). He has experience in Electrical Engineering, with knowledge in Telecommuni-
cations, Electronics and Information Technology, mainly in the field of audio-visual communications
and multimedia.

Mouna Jouini received the B.S. degree on computer science applied to management in 2008 from
the University of Tunis in the Higher School of Economics and Management of Tunis (ESSECTT),
University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia. She has obtained the M.S. degree in 2010 in computer science in
the Higher Institute of Management (ISG), Tunis University, Tunisia. She also received the Ph.D. degree
in computer science applied to management within the optimization strategies and intelligent comput-
ing laboratory (SOIE), High Institute of Management of Tunis, University of Tunis on December 30th,
2016. Her research interest includes software engineering metrics, cloud computing, cyber security and
security measurement and quantification. She has published. She has participated in several international
conferences including topics related to the computer science, cloud computing, cyber security.

Mohammed Lahmer is currently associate Professor at the Ecole Supérieure de Technologie (EST)
Moulay Ismaili University, Meknes, Morocco since 2003. He received his PhD degree in computer sci-
ence, Architecture of information and communication systems from the Mohamed V university, Rabat in
2008. He received his Engineer’s degree in Computer Science from ENSIAS (Ecole Nationale Supérieure
d’Informatique et d’Analyse des Systemes) in 1996. His research interests lie with the field optimization
and model engineering. Doctor Mohammed Lahmer is member of L2MI Lab in ISIC Research Group.

Anupama Mishra has received M.Tech in Computer Science Engineering, India in the area of
Computer Science Engineering in 2010. She has published much research in International Journals and
Conferences of high repute including IEEE, Elsevier, ACM, Springer, Wiley Inderscience, etc. She is
also serving as a reviewer for Journals of IEEE, Springer and many reputed journals. Special Interest:
Network Security, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Information Security, Cluster Computing ISTE
Membership, IBM RAD V6.0 Certification.

Brojo Kishore Mishra is currently working as a Professor in the Department of CSE, School of
Engineering, GIET University, Gunupur-765022, Odisha, India. Received M.Tech and Ph.D. degrees in
Computer Science from the Berhampur University in 2008 and 2012 respectively. Currently he is guid-
ing 03nos. of Ph.D research scholar under Biju Pattnaik University of Technology, Odisha. His research
interests include Data mining and big data analysis, machine learning, Soft computing, Evolutionary
computation. He has already published more than 55 research papers in internationally reputed journals
and referred conferences, 15 book chapters, has edited 03 books, has authored 02 books and is acting
as a member of the editorial board/associate editor / Guest editor of various International journals. He
served in the capacity of Keynote Speaker, Plenary Speaker, Program Chair, Proceeding chair, Public-

337
About the Contributors

ity chair, Special session chairperson and as member of programme committees of many international
conferences also. He was associated with a CSI funded research project as a Principal Investigator. He
is a life member of ISTE, CSI, and member of IEEE, ACM, IAENG, UACEE, and ACCS.

Rahul Mishra presently perusing his Ph.D. degree from Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) (for-
merly known as Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India. He received his B.Tech degree from Guru
Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hissar, India, in 2013 and M.Tech degree from
Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) (formerly known as Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India in
2016. He works and publishes widely in the areas of Cloud Computing issues and Security, signature
scheme and Big Data.

Ana Carolina Borges Monteiro has a B.Sc. in Biomedicine in 2015, holds a Master’s degree in
Engineering, she is currently a Ph.D. Candidate by the DECOM, Faculty of Electrical and Computer
Engineering (FEEC) at UNICAMP, and a researcher at the Laboratory of Visual Communications
(LCV), developing research related to Digital Image Processing related to medical areas. Has affinity and
expertise in Health and Clinical Analysis, with development in Matlab, C/C++, with topics of interest
in Hematology, Medical Informatics, Cell Biology, Cell Pathology, Telecommunications, Broadcasting
and Deep Learning.

Cyrus F. Nourani commenced his university degrees at MIT where he became interested in algebraic
semantics. He pursued with a category theorist at the University of California on research followed on
by IBM Watson labs and TU Berlin, during a brief time to completion. Dr. Nourani’s dissertation on
computing models and categories proved to have mathematical foundations developments that were
published from the postdoctoral times on at AMS ASL, and ETCS. Past 5 year he has been engaged a
research professor with TU Berlin since SFU Canda, Vancouver & Burnaby, Burnaby, Canada since
2012. In 2003, he was in R&D at Berlin, IMK Bonn and Munich. He was also a Faculty in Computer
Science, Management Science, Mathematics, and Information Sciences at MIT, UCLA, University of
Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Southern California and in 1996 at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was also a Visiting Professor at Edith Cowan Univer-
sity, Perth, Australia and a Lecturer of Management Science and IT at the University of Auckland, New
Zealand. He has written over 75 mathematics publications and international reputation in Computer
Science and Mathematics, with over 250 publications in AI, EC, IT Management Science, decision trees,
and predictive economics game modeling. He has also authored 5 volumes and is the volume editor for
Apple Academic Press on Innovations management with 2-3 volumes publishing.

Venkataratnam P. is currently working as an Professor at VTU Extension Centre, UTL Technologies

Ltd., Bengaluru. He obtained his MS & Ph.D from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He has
39 years industrial experience in various R&D organizations. In addition, he has 13 years for teaching
experience in various engineering colleges.

Pramod Pillai completed his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication
engineering. He is currently pursuing his Master’s in Digital Electronics from VTU Extension Centre,
UTL Technologies Ltd, India. His research interest include the application security, web security and
cloud security.

338
About the Contributors

Pragati Priyadarshinee received her BE from Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) and
M.Tech (SE) degree from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIITA). Her research
interests include Big-data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Knowledge Management
and Software Architecture. She received her Ph.D. from National Institute of Industrial Engineering
(NITIE) and her area of Ph.D. thesis is in IT & Systems. Currently she is working as Associate Professor
at BVRIT Hyderabad Engineering College for Women.

Rojalina Priyadarshini has completed her M.Tech in Computer Science and Data Processing in the
year 2010. She has more than 10 years of academic experience. Currently she is continuing her Ph. D in
the area of Cloud Computing and Machine learning. Her research interest includes data mining, Pattern
classification, Bioinformatics, Machine learning and Cloud Computing.

Kostas E. Psannis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. Kostas received a degree in Physics from Ar-
istotle University of Thessalo-niki (Greece), and the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Elec-tronic
and Computer Engineering of Brunel University (UK). From 2001 to 2002 he was awarded the British
Chevening scholarship sponsored by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), British Government.
He was awarded, in the year 2006, a research grant by IISF (Grant No. 2006.1.3.916). Since 2004 he has
been a (Visit-ing) Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia,
Greece, where currently he is Assistant Professor (& Departmental LLP/Erasmus-Exchange Students Co-
ordinator and Higher Education Mentor) in the Department of Ap-plied Informatics, School of Information
Sciences. He is also joint Researcher in the Department of Scientific and Engineering Simula-tion, Graduate
School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technol-ogy, Japan. He has extensive research, development,
and consult-ing experience in the area of telecommunications technologies. Since 1999 he has participated
in several R&D funded projects in the area of ICT (EU and JAPAN). Kostas Psannis was invited to speak
on the EU-Japan Co-ordinated Call Preparatory meeting, Green & Content Centric Networking (CCN),
organized by Europe-an Commission (EC) and National Institute of Information and Communications
Technology (NICT)/ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Japan (in the context of the
upcoming ICT Work Programme 2013) and International Telecommunication Un-ion (ITU) SG13 meet-
ing on DAN/CCN, July 2012, amongst other invited speakers. He has several publications in international
Con-ferences, books chapters and peer reviewed journals. His profes-sional interests are: Multimodal Data
Communications Systems, Haptic Communication between Humans and Robots, Cloud Transmission/
Streaming/Synchronization, Future Media-Internet of Things, Experiments on International Connections
(E- ICONS) over TEIN3 (Pan-Asian), Science Information Network (SINET, Japan), GRNET (Greece)-
Okeanos Cloud, and GEANT (European Union) dedicated high capacity connectivity. He is Guest Editor
for the Special Issue on Architectures and Algorithms of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standard
for Real-Time Video Applications (2014), Journal of Real Time Image Processing (Special Issue). He is
Guest Editor for the Special Issue on Emerging Multimedia Tech-nology for Smart Surveillance System
with IoT Environment (2016), The Journal of Supercomputing (Special Issue). He is Guest Editor for the
Special Issue on Emerging Multimedia Technology for Multi-media-centric Internet of Things (mm-IoT)
(2016), Multimedia Tools and Applications (Special Issue). He is currently GOLD member committee
of IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (BTS) and a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
(IES). From 2017 Prof. Kostas E. Psannis serving as an ASSOCIATE EDITOR for IEEE ACCESS and
IEEE Communications Letters. He is also a member of the European Commission (EC) EURAXESS Links
JA-PAN and member of the EU-JAPAN Centre for Industrial Cooperation.

339
About the Contributors

Dharavath Ramesh received the B.Tech degree from Kakatiya University, Warangal, India, in 2004
and M.Tech degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, in 2009. He
received Ph.D degree from Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) (formerly known as Indian School of
Mines), Dhanbad, India in 2015. He is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, India. He works and publishes
widely in the areas of Distributed databases, Cloud Computing Security, and Big Data. He is a profes-
sional member of the ACM and Senior member of IEEE.

Ronnie Ramlogan is a Senior Lecturer at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of
Manchester. After gaining his PhD from Manchester in 1995 he worked in the private sector before re-
turning to academia. Ronnie is an experienced researcher who uses qualitative and quantitative methods
in his research. He has broad interests in innovation systems and focuses on such issues as the emergence
of new sectors, economic growth and productivity, health innovations, and science and technology.

Edla Reddy received the M.Sc degree from Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad, India, in 2006
and M.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) (formerly known as Indian School of
Mines), Dhanbad, India in 2009. He received Ph.D.degree from Indian Institute of Technology (ISM)
(formerly known as Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India in 2013. He is currently an assistant pro-
fessor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology Goa,
India. He works and publishes widely in the areas of Data Mining, Cloud Computing, and Big Data. He
is a member of the ACM and IEEE

Yassine Rhazali is a doctor and a professor of computer science at the University of Moulay Ismail,
he obtained his doctorate in software engineering, he proposed tens validated approaches in scientific
publications published in scientific conferences and scientific reviews. He is a member of international
committees in several conferences and scientific reviews.

Sathi Roy is doing research work towards Ph.D. in the department of Computer Science & Engi-
neering, Jadavpur University. her research interests include cloud computing, Wireless sensor networks,
security etc.

Madhu Sake received the Ph. D degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Anantapur,
India in 2018 and, M.Tech degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad,
India. He received the B.Tech from Sree Vidyanikethan Engineering College Affiliated to JNTUH. He
has 16 years of teaching experience. His areas of interest are wireless networks, Computer Networks,
Network Security and Compiler Design. He is currently working as Professor in Guru Nanak Institutions
Technical Campus (Autonomous), Hyderabad. He is a Life member of CSI.

Sayani Sen is a Full-time lecturer in Sarojini Naidu College for Women, Dumdum. She obtained her
M.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from University of Kalyani in the year 2015, M.Sc in Com-
puter Science from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata in the year 2013 and B.Sc. Computer Science(Hons)
-Gold Medalist from University of Kalyani in the year 2011. She is currently working in the area of
Wireless Network & Security.

340
About the Contributors

Christos Stergiou is currently a PhD student in the Department of Applied Informatics, School of
Information Sciences, University of Macedonia, Greece. His main research interests include Algorithms
for Cloud Computing, Big Data and Wireless Communication. In 2017, he was awarded by the confer-
ence committee of 19th IEEE Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) for Doctoral Student Work
titled “Algorithms for Big Data in Advanced Communication Systems and Cloud Computing”.

Trevor Wood-Harper holds a Chair of Information Systems (IS) and Systemic Change at the Man-
chester Business School (MBS) having been recruited in 2003 to lead Information Systems & Manage-
ment research and Doctoral Education at the new University of Manchester. He has held visiting chairs
at universities, such as Oslo; South Australia; Australian National (ANU); Cape Town and Napier, Edin-
burgh; Georgia State and Copenhagen Business School. He has acted as an external examiner for many
BSc, MSc and MBA courses including LSE and Warwick. For 10 years he was a member of the British
Computer Society (BCS) Validation Panel for undergraduate degrees. Also he has acted, as an advisor on
university periodic review panels with the most recent was Henley Business School, Reading. Recently,
Wood-Harper was an Associate Editor of the European Journal of Information Systems and continues
as a foundation member, from 1991, of the Editorial Board of the Information Systems Journal. Both of
these are rated in the top six world-class IS journals. Wood-Harper researches and publishes with the
recent editors-in-chief of both journals. In 2008 he was awarded the prize for outstanding research from
the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). Also he is still a member of the United
Kingdom Academy for Information Systems since 1993. Trevor Wood-Harper’s broad research areas
are: Socio-Technical Systems; Systemic Change, Research Ethics and Action Research. He has published
over 250 research articles and co-authored or co-edited 20 books. Since 2001, 25 journal papers and 7
texts were published on a wide range of topics including: the Multiview Methodology; Social Informat-
ics; Information Systems Evolution for Developing Countries; Electronic Governance, Commerce and
Communities; Action Research; Ethical Considerations in Systems Development and Doctoral Education.

Siva Yellampalli is currently working as Professor of Practice in School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences, SRM University AP, Amaravati He obtained his MS & Ph.D from Louisiana State University.
His area of research is system level design for power optimization. His area of research encompasses
different research fields such as VLSI, mixed signal circuits/systems development, security, MEMS
and CNT sensors. He has published a book in the area of mixed-signal design, and edited two books on
carbon nano tubes. He published 70 plus International Journal papers & IEEE Conference papers. In
addition he has delivered keynote speeches at International conferences held in Canada, Dubai & Spain
including tutorials at various IEEE International Conferences. He has been a consultant to a variety of
industries and acts as a reviewer for technical journals and book publishers.

341
342

Index

A Cloud Computing 2-6, 13-15, 13-25, 17, 21-25, 27-29,

27-47, 31-34, 36-37, 44-47, 76-77, 77, 81, 84-86,
Adoption 107-113, 115-116, 119-122, 124, 124-128, 100, 102-105, 107-113, 115-116, 119-122, 124,
130-131, 142, 156, 159, 162-166, 168-170, 173- 124-138, 129-138, 140-141, 140-147, 145-146,
177, 179, 179-183, 187, 228 149, 151-152, 154-158, 154-163, 162-163, 180-
Algorithm 6-7, 9-13, 16, 19, 21, 23, 27, 31, 34-37, 39, 188, 184-188, 199-200, 199-204, 203-204, 206,
52, 83, 90-98, 103, 126, 141, 161, 201, 205-211, 209-210, 215, 217-225, 223-225, 228, 233, 241,
213, 215, 215-221, 224-225, 228, 231, 231-238, 246-247, 249, 260, 278, 281
233-234, 236-237, 239-240, 240, 247, 247-248, Cloud Computing Adoption 107-113, 115-116, 119-
250-251, 258-259, 280-281 122, 124, 124-128, 131, 159, 162, 180-182, 187
Authentication 5, 7-8, 11, 11-12, 16, 20, 26, 32, 34, Cloud Computing Services 5, 22, 33, 39-40, 43, 86,
40, 44, 47-48, 51-52, 56, 77-78, 82-83, 91-92, 98, 141, 181, 184, 186-187, 200, 200-201, 203
103-106, 131-132, 141, 150, 152, 155-156, 252, Cloud Framework 1, 15-17, 15-18, 79, 81
254, 257, 260-261 Cloud Security 5, 9-10, 12, 26, 44, 131-134, 142-143,
Authorization 44, 46-49, 51-52, 57-59, 77-78, 138, 149, 154-155, 158, 158-160, 174, 180
147, 160 Communication 3, 11, 13, 16-17, 16-19, 22-25, 31, 33,
42, 46-47, 59, 74, 74-76, 78, 81-82, 82, 84, 105,
B 126, 134, 143, 160, 162-163, 165, 182, 184-185,
185, 187, 189-192, 199-200, 199-202, 220, 265
block chain protocols 250 Communication Systems 24, 42, 184, 192, 199, 201
BPMN 262-272, 263-272, 274, 276-277, 281 Conﬁrmatory Factor Analysis 107, 116, 119-120, 122
Business Performance 107-108, 113, 115, 120-122, 124 Countermeasures 25, 40, 131-132, 137, 140, 143, 145,
Business Process Model 262-265, 263-265, 268, 279, 153, 158, 160
281 Cross Tenant Access Control 44-45, 45, 48, 77
Cryptocurrency 250
C CSP (Cloud Service Provider) 77

CBEDE 184, 188, 191, 197, 199-200 D

CD-H 79
Challenges 4, 6-7, 18, 20-28, 21-28, 30, 32-34, 32- Data 1-12, 14-16, 18-24, 21-27, 26-27, 31-36, 38-43,
39, 36-37, 41, 80, 102-103, 109, 125, 129, 131, 47, 49, 51, 77-82, 84-87, 84-89, 100, 102, 105-106,
133-134, 137, 142-143, 158, 160, 163, 177, 179, 108, 110-112, 116-117, 116-120, 119, 122, 125-
181-182, 201, 203-204, 217, 250, 279 127, 130-132, 134-135, 138, 141, 141-145, 145,
CIM 262-271, 273-274, 276-277, 279, 279-283 147-152, 154-158, 154-163, 162-163, 165-166,
168-170, 173-175, 177, 179, 182-193, 184-193,
195, 199-200, 202-205, 203-205, 207-210, 217-
219, 221, 223-224, 228-230, 248-249, 252, 255,
259, 261, 264, 268-269, 271, 276, 278, 280-281

Index

Ddos 19, 39, 41, 110, 126-127, 133-134, 145, 148, Mobile Cloud Computing 3, 15, 17, 17-19, 21-23, 25,
151-152, 154-155, 159-160 27-29, 27-31, 31, 33-34, 33-38, 36-37, 40-43, 104,
Discrete Events 184, 188-189, 192-193, 197, 199-200 141, 141-143, 202, 260
Distributed Computing Environment 223, 225, 230, Model Transformation 262-264, 277, 282
238, 240, 246 Models 5, 25, 32, 43, 47, 80-82, 84, 100, 108-110,
119, 124, 124-125, 129-132, 146-148, 146-149,
E 154-155, 164, 164-165, 168, 175, 177, 191-192,
194-195, 198, 248, 250-253, 255-256, 259,
Exploratory Factor Analysis 107, 116-117, 122 259-260, 262-269, 271, 273-274, 276-277, 279,
279-280, 282-283
F Motif Search 225, 228, 230-232, 240-242, 245-247
Mutliagent public key cryptography 250
Firewall 145, 156 Mutli-dimension mean failure cost (M2FC) 129

H N
Healthcare 1, 4, 16, 24, 38, 45 Non-Heuristic 206, 211, 215
Heuristic 203, 206, 208, 211, 213, 215, 221
Higher Education 162-163, 168, 170, 180-182 P
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) 78
Phishing 141, 145, 147, 151, 157
I PIM 262-268, 270-271, 273-274, 276-279, 276-283
Privacy 1-4, 1-6, 6, 9, 15-16, 18-29, 22-29, 32-34, 36,
Identity Based Encryption 79, 84 38, 41-43, 45, 102, 104-105, 111, 130-132, 134,
Identity Based Proxy Signature 79-80, 80, 82, 91, 137-138, 142, 155-156, 159, 165, 173-175, 179,
102, 104-105 181-183, 204, 216, 249, 259, 280
Identity Theft 103, 145, 201 PSM 262-267, 270, 273, 276-277, 279
intrusion detection 38, 145
R
L
RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) 78
Language Signatures 250 Resource Sharing 44-47, 55, 68, 76, 133
Load Balancing 203-205, 210, 217-222 Resource Utilization 12, 133, 203, 205, 210
Response Time 199, 203, 205-206, 206, 209, 216, 220
M
Makespan 203, 205-207, 206-207, 210, 213, 216
S
Malware 134, 138, 145, 151 SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) 78
Management 2, 4, 14, 17, 17-18, 20-21, 21, 23-24, 28, Scale Development 107, 109, 112, 115
34, 38-42, 50, 77, 79-84, 86-87, 89, 102, 107-111, Secure management 79
120, 122, 124, 124-129, 131-134, 141, 143, 146, Security 1-13, 15-17, 15-23, 21-29, 25-29, 31-37, 31-
150, 160, 162-163, 172, 175, 179, 179-182, 187- 48, 44-48, 51, 56, 60-63, 61, 67, 69, 72, 74, 76-84,
188, 202, 204, 209, 215, 215-219, 221, 246, 251, 78-80, 82-84, 86-89, 91, 94-97, 100-101, 100-106,
263-264, 281 108, 110-112, 120, 125-126, 129-141, 130-150,
Maximal Signiﬁcant Meta-Paths 223, 225, 227, 227- 145, 147-150, 152, 154-159, 154-161, 163-166,
228, 235-237, 244, 246 168-175, 177, 179, 179-183, 187-188, 199, 201-
MDA 262-266, 274, 276-277, 279, 281-283 202, 204, 216, 222, 249, 259, 278, 280-281
MDE 262-263, 263 Security quantiﬁcation 129
Security Threats 4-5, 130-132, 134-135, 137-139,
138-139, 142-143, 145, 152, 159-160, 173-175

343
Index

SFTP 78 Transfer 7, 21, 27, 36, 51, 78, 81, 84, 100, 150, 208,
Signiﬁcant Meta-Paths 223, 225, 227-228, 233-237, 210, 216, 250, 253, 257
243, 243-244, 246 Trust 3, 15, 24-25, 32, 35, 39-40, 45, 45-46, 77, 105,
Social Engineering 145, 147 110-111, 120-121, 126, 130-132, 142, 156,
Strategic Framework 127, 162-163, 177, 179 162-170, 162-165, 167-170, 173-179, 173-182,
250-252, 259
T
U
Threats 4-5, 9, 15, 26, 110, 130-141, 130-143, 145,
152, 154, 156, 159-160, 173-175 UML 262, 264-266, 274, 281-283
Tools 1, 5-6, 6, 12-13, 18, 27, 42, 59, 70-72, 76, 86,
122, 124, 146, 154, 160, 187, 201, 213, 230,
250, 267, 273

344

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