Towards ensuring scalability, interoperability and efficient access control in a triple-domain grid-based environment

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThe high rate of grid computing adoption, both in academe and industry, has posed challenges regarding efficient access control, interoperability and scalability. Although several methods have been proposed to address these grid computing challenges, none has proven to be completely efficient and dependable. To tackle these challenges, a novel access control architecture framework, a triple-domain grid-based environment, modelled on role based access control, was developed. The architecture’s framework assumes three domains, each domain with an independent Local Security Monitoring Unit and a Central Security Monitoring Unit that monitors security for the entire grid.The architecture was evaluated and implemented using the G3S, grid security services simulator, meta-query language as “cross-domain” queries and Java Runtime Environment 1.7.0.5 for implementing the workflows that define the model’s task. The simulation results show that the developed architecture is reliable and efficient if measured against the observed parameters and entities. This proposed framework for access control also proved to be interoperable and scalable within the parameters tested