Firewall model for cloud computing

Abstract

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly popular in the business world due to the advantages that it offers by eliminating the need to have infrastructure within business premises and dedicated staff to maintain infrastructure. Apart from the advantages the cloud offers, it can also bring in some potential security threats to the organization by not having organization specific firewalls, monitoring mechanisms and physical security. This limits the chances that companies move onto the cloud, which could have otherwise become an extremely attractive alternative for the businesses. The need is to make cloud services more reliable and trustworthy for the businesses by providing a proper security mechanism that addresses the existing drawbacks in cloud computing. The key is a firewall model that constitutes a centralized Cloud Firewall Management Server and Firewall Clients that communicate with the Cloud Firewall Management Server. This enables the organizations to maintain their own control over the firewall and firewall policies. This model does not share any information with the cloud service provider thereby providing a fully trusted solution for the businesses and additionally caters for the audit needs of the businesses by making all the information available at the central Cloud Firewall Management Server.