A Virtual Cloud Storage Architecture for Enhanced Data Security

Abstract

The sensitive data stored in the public cloud by privileged users, such as corporate companies and government agencies are highly vulnerable in the hands of cloud providers and hackers. The proposed Virtual Cloud Storage Architecture is primarily concerned with data integrity and confidentiality, as well as availability. To provide confidentiality and availability, the file to be stored in cloud storage should be encrypted using an auto-generated key and then encoded into distinct chunks. Hashing the encoded chunks ensured the file integrity, and a newly proposed Circular Shift Chunk Allocation technique was used to determine the order of chunk storage. The file could be retrieved by performing the operations in reverse. Using the regenerating code, the model could regenerate the missing and corrupted chunks from the cloud. The proposed architecture adds an extra layer of security while maintaining a reasonable response time and storage capacity. Experimental results analysis show that the proposed model has been tested with storage space and response time for storage and retrieval. The VCSA model consumes 1.5x (150%) storage space. It was found that total storage required for the VCSA model is very low when compared with 2x Replication and completely satisfies the CIA model. The response time VCSA model was tested with different sized files starting from 2 to 16 MB. The response time for storing and retrieving a 2 MB file is 4.96 and 3.77 s respectively, and for a 16 MB file, the response times are 11.06 s for storage and 5.6 s for retrieval.