SecNetworkCloudSim: An Extensible Simulation Tool for Secure Distributed Mobile Applications

Abstract

Fueled by the wide interest for achieving rich-storage services with the lowest possible cost, cloud computing has emerged into a highly desired service paradigm extending well beyond Virtualization technology. The next generation of mobile cloud services is now manipulated more and more sensitive data on VM-based distributed applications. Therefore, the need to secure sensitive data over mobile cloud computing is more evident than ever. However, despite the widespread release of several cloud simulators, controlling user’s access and protecting data exchanges in distributed mobile applications over the cloud is considered a major challenge. This paper introduces a new NetworkCloudSim extension named SecNetworkCloudSim, a secure mobile simulation tool which is deliberately designed to ensure the preservation of confidential access to data hosted on mobile device and distributed cloud’s servers. Through high-level mobile users’ requests, users connect to an underlying proxy which is considered an important layer in this new simulator, where users perform secure authentication access to cloud services, allocate their tasks in secure VM-based policy, manage automatically the data confidentiality among VMs and derive high efficiency and coverage rates. Most importantly, due to the secure nature of proxy, user’s distributed tasks can be executed without alterations on different underlying proxy’s security policies. We implement a scenario of follow-up healthcare distributed application using the new extension.