Certification infrastrUcture for MUlti-Layer cloUd Services (CUMULUS)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Destination: Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures
Action type: Collaborative project
Countries involved: Italy,Spain,United Kingdom,Spain,Germany,Spain,United Kingdom
Call:  (FP7-ICT-2011-8, 2011)
Start date: 2012-10-01
End date: 2015-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4217579.0
EU funding (EUR): 2845974.0
Participants: 8
Project status: CLOSED

Cloud technology offers a powerful approach to the provision of infrastructure, platform and software services without incurring the considerable costs of owning, operating and maintaining the computational infrastructures required for this purpose. Despite its appeal from a cost perspective, cloud technology still raises concerns regarding the security, privacy, governance and compliance of the data and software services offered through it. Such concerns arise from the difficulty to guarantee security properties of the different types of services available through clouds. Service providers are reluctant to take full responsibility of the security of their services once the services are uploaded and offered through a cloud. Also, cloud suppliers have historically refrained from accepting liability for security leak.. This reluctance stems from the fact that the provision and security of a cloud service is sensitive to changes due to cloud operation, as well as to potential interference between the features and behavior of all the inter-dependent services in all layers of the cloud stack. Still many cloud users, including institutional ones, would like to rely on cloud-based services they use to exhibit certified security properties. CUMULUS will address these limitations by developing an integrated framework of models, processes and tools supporting the certification of security properties of infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS) and software application layer (SaaS) services in cloud. CUMULUS framework will bring service users, service providers and cloud suppliers to work together with certification authorities in order to ensure security certificate validity in the ever-changing cloud environment. CUMULUS will rely on multiple types of evidence regarding security, including service testing and monitoring data and trusted computing proofs, and based on models for hybrid, incremental and multi-layer security certification. Whenever possible, evidence gathering will build upon existing standards and practices (e.g., interaction protocols, representation schemes etc.) regarding the provision of information for the assessment of security in clouds. To ensure large-scale industrial applicability, the CUMULUS framework will be evaluated in reference to cloud application scenarios in some key industrial domains, namely Smart Cities and eHealth services and applications,. CUMULUS is aligned with the recommendations of a recent industrial consultation to the European Commission which identified cloud certification as an enabling technology for building trust for end users through the deployment of standards and certification schemes relevant to cloud solutions, and included it in the ten key recommendations and actions for a cloud strategy in Europe.

Keywords: cloud computing,certification of cloud service,cloud service security