VMInformant: an instrumented virtual machine to support trustworthy cloud computing. (2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Al-Said, Taimur; Rana, Omer; Burnap, Peter
• Is Part Of: International journal of high performance computing and networking. Volume 8:Number 3(2015)
• Page Start: 222
• Page End: 234
• Publication Date: 2015
• Subjects: performance evaluation -- cloud security -- instrumented virtual machines -- trustworthiness -- cloud computing -- introspection -- virtual machine monitoring -- performance overheads; High performance computing -- Periodicals; Computer networks -- Periodicals; High performance computing; Periodicals; 004.05
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-0562

Abstract

We describe how a virtual machine (VM) owner can increase visibility about how a VM and its data are stored and processed in the cloud. We present 'VMInformant', a monitoring system which can keep the user informed about events that take place on their VM (both inside the VM and via calls made through a hypervisor). A taxonomy of VM security-related events is presented, along with performance overheads associated with monitoring such events using CPU and I/O intensive benchmarks. We argue that having this level of transparency is essential to improve trust between a cloud consumer and provider.