Credential Management Enforcement and Secure Data Storage in gLite

Abstract

This article describes new security solutions for Grid middleware, and specifically faces the issues related to the management of users’ and servers’ credentials, together with storing and secure data transmission in the Grid. Our work, built on Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI), provides new capabilities (i.e. smart card Grid access, and strong security file storage XML-based) to be used on top of different Grid middlewares, with a low level of changes. This work is currently implemented on gLite and accomplishes the access to Grid resources in a uniform and transparent way. These improvements enable the Grid computing toward the new processing model known as business services.