Trusted Virtual Machines: Ensuring the Integrity of Virtual Machines in the Cloud

Abstract

In Chapters 3 and 4, we described how a service provider can ensure that the infrastructure on which the workloads and applications are instantiated has boot integrity, and how these workloads can be placed in trusted pools with compute assets exhibiting demonstrated trust that is rooted in hardware. This model provides an excellent framework for a trusted compute infrastructure, but it's not sufficient for the cloud. Cloud data centers today almost invariably run virtualized. Stopping the chain of trust at the bare hypervisor is clearly insufficient; that is but the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Protection needs to be extended to support the multi-tenancy and virtualized networks of the cloud. Extending the chain of trust described to encompass these virtualized resources, embodied in the concept of trusted virtual machines, is what this chapter is about.