A benchmark of transparent data encryption for migration of web applications in the cloud

Abstract

Cloud computing is a new computing style which provides IT infrastructure and software as dynamic, scalable, and pay-per-use services. One of its characteristics is that enterprise data are hosted by storage service providers in the cloud. Hence strong data security must be taken into account for planning migration of business applications into the cloud. In this paper we analyze privacy requirements for the cloud applications and discuss data encryption approaches for securing ecommerce applications in the cloud. To provide quantitative estimation of performance penalties caused by data encryption, we made a benchmark for an online marketplace application as a case study. Lessons learned from the benchmark are also discussed in the paper to provide some recommendations for avoiding unnecessary encryption costs. © 2009 IEEE.