A multi-layered access policy engine for reliable cloud computing

Abstract

The long awaited Cloud computing concept is a reality now due to the advancement and transformation of computer generations. However, security challenges are most important obstacles for the advancement of this emerging technology. Managing security policies based on capabilities of service provider and requirements of cloud customers is one of the potential issues due to the scalability and isolation concepts in clouds. In this paper, a multi-layered policy engine is presented to manage policies securely with the minimum consumption of processing power for enhancement of QoS in virtualized environments. Thus, a Policy Layer Constructor and Reasoning Engine are introduced to divide polices into several layers for enhancing quality and reliability of mapping access requests to cloud nodes. The suggested model has been evaluated with performance, security and competitive analysis, and the reliability and efficiency of multi-layered policy engine have been assured for defining, generating and applying security polices in clouds.