Building Trust in Storage Outsourcing: Secure Accounting of Utility Storage

We are witnessing a revival of Storage Service Providers in the form of new vendors as well as traditional players. While storage outsourcing is cost-effective, many companies are hesitating to outsource their storage due to security concerns. The success of storage outsourcing is highly dependent on how well the providers can establish trust with their consumers. While significant work has been done to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data, a practical solution for accounting of outsourced storage is still at large missing. This paper presents Saksha, a secure accounting system that enables automated and verifiable metering of the resources utilized by the consumers. A provider that includes Saksha as a part of its storage service can prove to its customers the amount of resources utilized by them. As a result, Saksha will help to enhance trust by preventing any inflation or deflation of the service usage. Saksha is not restricted to any particular pricing ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: SRDS
• Authors: Vishal Kher, Yongdae Kim
• Keywords: SRDS 2007, Storage Outsourcing, Storage Service, Storage Service Providers