Secure Virtual Machine Migration via Cryptographic Session
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional methods for migrating virtual machines between host computing devices lack secure and efficient mechanisms, particularly in cloud computing environments where data security and resource utilization are critical.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a security scheme using asymmetric or symmetric cryptography to establish secure sessions for encrypted data transfer between source and destination host computing devices, ensuring mutual authentication and secure migration of virtual machines and other secured information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional migration methods are used, then migration simplicity is maintained, but security is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by establishing secure sessions and exchanging cryptographic keys before the actual virtual machine migration begins. The source and destination hosts authenticate each other and set up encrypted communication channels in advance, ensuring security is built into the migration process from the start rather than added as an afterthought.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses cryptographic protocols and secure session mechanisms as intermediaries between the source and destination hosts. These intermediaries facilitate secure key exchange and authentication without requiring direct trust between the migrating virtual machine and the destination host, thereby enhancing security while managing complexity through standardized protocols.
2Reliability
If encryption is implemented for secure data transfer, then data security is improved, but processing overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by encrypting only the state information data that requires protection during migration, rather than encrypting all data uniformly. The encryption is applied selectively to sensitive virtual machine state data while allowing the migration framework and control signals to proceed efficiently, thus balancing security requirements with migration performance.
Data Source
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AI summary
A formalized set of interfaces (e.g., application programming interfaces (APIs)) is described, that uses a security scheme, such as asymmetric (or symmetric) cryptography, in order to enable secure migration of virtual machine instances between multiple host computing devices. The migration is performed by receiving a request to migrate a virtual machine where the request includes public keys for the source host computing and the destination host computing. The source and destination hosts use the public keys to establish an encrypted session and then use the encrypted session to migrate the virtual machine.