Taxonomy and Classification of Access Control Models for Cloud Environments

Abstract

Cloud computing is an emerging and highly attractive technology due to its inherent efficiency, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, scalability and pay-per-use characteristics. But alongside these advantages, many new problems have also sur- faced and some of these issues have become a cause of grave concern. One of the existing problems that have become critical in the cloud environment is the issue of access control and security. Access control refers to a policy that authenticates a user and permits the authorized user to access data and other resources of cloud-based systems. In access control, there are several restrictions and rules that need to be followed by the users before they can access any kind of data or resource from the cloud-based servers. In this context, there are many access control models suggested by researchers that currently exist. In this chapter, a brief discussion of the various access control models has been presented. Moreover, the taxonomy of access control schemes has also been introduced. Finally, based on the analysis of the mechanisms adapted therein, the access control models are classified into different classes of the proposed taxonomy.