Data Modeling
Mathematical and Computational Data Modeling | Online ISSN 3143-9217
2
Citations
10.2k
Views
45
Articles
Volume 2 Number 1 2021
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
A Zero-Trust, Multi-Zone Secure Data Center Architecture for Cloud Virtualization with Load Balancing, Microservices, and Storage Scalability
Masba Uddin Rumi 1*
Data Modeling 2 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/data.2110895
Submitted: 15 April 2021 Revised: 04 June 2021 Accepted: 10 June 2021 Published: 12 June 2021
Abstract
Background: Cloud computing adoption continues to be constrained by unresolved security and data-center management concerns, and because virtualization underlies most cloud infrastructure, vulnerabilities at the virtualization layer propagate directly into cloud-wide risk. Prior work has addressed network security, virtualization security, load balancing, and storage scalability largely in isolation, leaving a gap for an integrated design. Methods: We propose a secured, zone-segmented data center architecture that combines redundant core routing, three-tier firewalling across militarized and demilitarized zones, zero-trust access control, load-balanced virtual machines, Docker-based microservice containerization, and multi-protocol storage (iSCSI, NFS, FCoE, fibre channel) configured with RAID redundancy. The design was partially implemented to verify architectural feasibility; formal performance and security testing were not conducted. Results: The architecture enforces layered access control between untrusted and trusted zones, distributes load across redundant components at every tier, and supports elastic storage allocation and container-based microservice deployment, while explicit single points of failure are minimised through component duplication. Conclusion: The proposed design offers a coherent, reproducible blueprint for integrating security, scalability, and service architecture concerns that existing literature treats separately, though empirical validation under realistic attack and load conditions remains necessary before broader claims of resilience can be made.
Keywords: cloud computing; data center security; zero-trust architecture; virtualization; load balancing
References
Ahmad, N. (2017). Cloud computing: Technology, security issues and solutions. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Anti-Cybercrime (ICACC) (pp. 30-36). IEEE.
Ali, M. N. B., Rahman, M. L., & Hossain, S. A. (2014). Network architecture and security issues in campus networks. In Fourth International Conference on Computing, Communications and Networking Technologies (ICCCNT'14). IEEE.
Almutairy, N. M., Al-Shqeerat, K. H., & Al Hamad, H. A. (2019). A taxonomy of virtualization security issues in cloud computing environments. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 12(3), 1-19.
Al-Shqeerat, K., Al-Shrouf, F., Hassan, M., & Fajraoui, H. (2017). Cloud computing security challenges in higher educational institutions - A survey. International Journal of Computer Applications, 161(6), 22-29.
Daya, B. (2013). Network security: History, importance, and future. University of Florida, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Devi, K. K., Gopalakrishnan, S., & Dhivya, R. (2018). Virtualization in cloud computing. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 7(11), 104-108.
Freet, D., & Agrawal, R. (2017). A virtual machine platform and methodology for network data analysis with IDS and security visualization. In SoutheastCon 2017 (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Gross, J. B., & Rosson, M. B. (2007). End user concern about security and privacy threats. In L. F. Cranor (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (pp. 167-168). ACM.
Hao, F., Lakshman, T. V., Mukherjee, S., & Song, H. (2010). Secure cloud computing with a virtualized network infrastructure. USENIX Association.
Islam, S., et al. (2018). Threat minimization by design and deployment of secured networking model. International Journal of Electronics and Information Engineering, 8(2), 135-144.
Kadhum, A. M., & Hasan, M. K. (2017). Assessing the determinants of cloud computing services for utilizing health information systems: A case study. International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, 7(2), 503-510.
Luo, S., et al. (2011). Virtualization security for cloud computing service. In International Conference on Cloud and Service Computing (pp. 174-179). IEEE.
Mohanty, M., Atrey, P., & Ooi, W. T. (2012). Secure cloud-based medical data visualization. In Proceedings of the 20th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (pp. 1105-1108). ACM.
Nyamtiga, B. W., et al. (2019). Blockchain-based secure storage management with edge computing for IoT. Electronics, 8(8), 828-850.
Pachghare, V. K. (2016). Microservices architecture for cloud computing. Journal of Information Technology and Sciences, 2(1), 1-13.
Rad, B. B., Bhatti, H. J., & Ahmadi, M. (2017). An introduction to Docker and analysis of its performance. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 17(3), 228-235.
Rao, G. B., & Kumar, M. S. (2020). Load balancing in data center. Journal of Information and Computational Science, 10(3), 947-962.
Rao, R. V. K. S. (2015). Data security challenges and its solutions in cloud computing. Procedia Computer Science, 48, 204-209.
Sareen, P. (2013). Cloud computing: Types, architecture, applications, concerns, virtualization and role of IT governance in cloud. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 3(3), 533-538.
Satariano, A., & Zhong, R. (2021, October 5). Facebook's apps went down. The world saw how much it runs on them. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-down-instagram-down-whatsapp-down.html
Shehabi, A., et al. (2016). United States data center energy usage report. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
V. Nandgaonkar, S., & Raut, A. B. (2014). A comprehensive study on cloud computing. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, 3(4), 733-738.
Wen, F., & Xiang, L. (2011). The study on data security in cloud computing based on virtualization. In IEEE International Symposium on IT in Medicine and Education (Vol. 2, pp. 257-261). IEEE.