Security and availability of data in the cloud

Abstract

With advances in the field of cloud computing many computing resources and/or services are being provided to the end user on a pay-as-you-use basis. Data outsourcing is a new paradigm in which a third party provides storage services. This is more cost effective for the user as there is no need of purchasing expensive hardware and software for data storage. The user is also relieved from administrative activities of software upgrades and maintenance. The private data of the enterprises can be stored at secure and reliable sites, and ubiquitously made available to the user on demand. CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) are the challenging issues associated with data storage management with/without data outsourcing. This paper proposes a method of data storage which achieves CIA using data dispersal. The practicality of this proposal is demonstrated by implementing it in a private cloud setup using the OpenStack cloud framework. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.