CloudTree: A Library to Extend Cloud Services for Trees

In this work, we propose a library that enables on a cloud the creation and management of tree data structures from a cloud client. As a proof of concept, we implement a new cloud service CloudTree. With CloudTree, users are able to organize big data into tree data structures of their choice that are physically stored in a cloud. We use caching, prefetching, and aggregation techniques in the design and implementation of CloudTree to enhance performance. We have implemented the services of Binary Search Trees (BST) and Prefix Trees as current members in CloudTree and have benchmarked their performance using the Amazon Cloud. The idea and techniques in the design and implementation of a BST and prefix tree is generic and thus can also be used for other types of trees such as B-tree, and other link-based data structures such as linked lists and graphs. Preliminary experimental results show that CloudTree is useful and efficient for various big data applications

The Two secured Factors of Authentication

One of the popular challenges that faces the Cloud Computing is the authentication problem. Authentication is a mechanism to establish proof of identities to get access of information in the system. There are several solutions to overcome this issue that it can be gathered in three authentication mechanisms which lead to a multifactorial authentication schema. The multi factor is proposed in this paper confirms the user's identity without sending it to the cloud server, which will gain our solution more security and fast response over other solutions that depend on sending the user identity to the server to be authenticated. The User's credentials have never exchanged with the server, it is only saved in the user's mind. We present an efficient authentication schema which based on two authentication factors, the first is the password-based authentication, which is processed in the user's machine, and the second is the biometric-based authentication which adds more secure factors to the authentication process. We use the Elgamal Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem and the symmetric encryption to overcome the security threads on the authentication process. Furthermore; we use the 3D face image as a second challenge response factor in our proposed algorithm. In addition, to save the bandwidth and computation, we use a mobile agent to pass the first factor of the authentication code to be executed in the client machine, and let the second factor to be executed in the cloud server