Exploring a security protocol for secure service migration in commercial cloud environments

Mobile users are making more demands of networks. They want to run applications such as network steaming of audio and video as well as immersive gaming that demand high Qualities-of-Service. One way to address this problem is by using mobile services that move around as users move around. This ensures that low latencies are maintained between the client and the server resulting in a better Quality-of-Experience. In addition, the advent of virtual machine technology for example, VMware, and container technology, such as Docker, have made the migration of services between different Cloud Systems possible. Furthermore, a Service Oriented Architecture that supports service migration in Cloud environments has been proposed. Though there are many things in place to support mobile services, a key component that is missing is the development of security protocols that allow the safe transfer of servers to different Cloud environments. In particular, it is important that servers do not end up being hosted on unsafe Cloud infrastructure and also Clouds do not end up hosting malicious servers. This paper proposes a new security protocol to address this issue. The protocol is specified and tested using AVISPA. The initial results indicate that the protocol is safe and therefore can be used in practical systems