Carmen and Cloud Computing

We are just about to launch the first release of our prototype software (nicknamed CARMEN) and I am about to finish the security services I produced for this system. I have started thinking about cloud computing lately and security approaches to cloud authentication and authorisation. It seems that federation techniques behind the cloud in conjunction with cloud identities for accountability are a good idea. Grid computing is rich with technologies paradigms and patterns we can use ore re-use although I think we need to approach this neiche area more systematically than Grid. We need to establish concrete solutions for areas such as provenance and security without getting bogged down with overlapping and loosely formal specs. I am hoping the work I have been doing during my spare time on SecPAL to be a step towards this direction. Maybe grid serves as a good rehearsal towards what we call cloud computing. I am in the process of elaborating on these ideas more and I aim towards a contribution to the next OGF meeting in Singapore. Similar ideas are being developed by my colleague Pierre who is looking into dynamic service composition. We are hoping to submit a paper to an IEEE conference next month. Next month will see the launch of the Carmen prototype and (assuming I manage to get my contract suspended) the SecPAL API for JAVA. Exciting times ahead. Will write more soon.
panos on 03.26.08 @ 10:35 AM gmt [link]