Dynamic Firewall Policy Management Framework for Private Cloud

Abstract

In traditional networking environment, perimeter firewalls restrict the access to resources inside organizations’ private network. In cloud computing, every virtual instance has to be accessed by the external parties. Due to its unique computing environment, cloud computing requires tailor-made firewall systems. To provide the desired high-availability and low-latency system, cloud services are replicated and made available in multiple geolocations or availability zones. This often leads to violation of various compliance policies and policy conflicts. The other complex issue is to manage security policies across the distributed data centers. We address these issues and present a dynamic firewall policy management scheme that uses a centralized controller to manage all firewalls in distributed data centers of a private cloud.