Security SLA in next generation data centers, the SPECS approach

Next generation Data Centers (ngDC) provide a significant evolution how storage resources can be provisioned. They are cloud-based architectures offering flexible IT infrastructure and services through the virtualization of resources: managing in an integrated way compute, network and storage resources. Despite the multitude of benefits available when leveraging a Cloud infrastructure, wide scale Cloud adoption for sensitive or critical business applications still faces resistance. One of the key limiting factors holding back larger adoption of Cloud services is trust. To cope with this, datacenter customers need more guarantees about the security levels provided, creating the need for tools to dynamically negotiate and monitor the security requirements. The SPECS project proposes a platform that offers security features with an as-a-service approach, furthermore it uses Security Service Level Agreements (Security SLA) as a means for establishing a clear statement between customers and providers to define a mutual agreement. This paper presents an industrial use case from EMC that integrates the SPECS Platform with their innovative solutions for the ngDC. In particular, the paper illustrates how it is possible to negotiate, enforce and monitor a Security SLA in a cloud infrastructure offering.