Secure Private Cloud Design for Arms Control and Safeguards Applications: The Use of Virtualization and Mobility in Green Sensor Networks

nformation processing for future non - proliferation treaty verification regimes will demand flexibility, mobility, and higher bandwidths in sensor networks. State - of - the art sensing devices, including radiation and non - radi ation sensors, such as neutron, Gamma, and x - ray tomography, will require high - power computing platforms for OSI tasks. The number of tags - and - seals in storage might be in the thousands. Hence, arms control applications will require highly secure, reliabl e, flexible, mobile and scalable asynchronous sensor networks and computing architectures. Recent developments in in cloud - computing allow the design of highly secure cost - effective infrastructure to meet the demands for future treaty regimes, and be compl iant with international treaty protocols meeting the concerns of all parties, including the host country. However, many misconceptions and myths have led to a slow adaptation of cloud technology with respect to concerns on where secure information resides and how it can be accessed. Cloud technology can be designed with the same, if not better, security tools, protocols, hardware encryptions than currently used in the national security community. The data management aspect is also adaptable and secured resources can be accessed with much more ease and reliability. Since cloud computing is an emerging field, this paper is a tutorial for the treaty verification community on secure clouds. Cloud technology has evolved predominately in the public sector and has found value as well in the national security space in the areas of secure information management. The same values can be exploited through cloud virtualization in future treaty verification regimes. Architectures suitable for (i) safeguards, (ii) nuclear material control and accountability, and (iii) nonproliferation and arms control applications are included. We also discuss how the inherent agility of cloud technology and how “Cloud Virtualization” separates compute and commu nication resources from infrastructure and allows for the wielding of the technologies to be shaped and secured into almost any application. Finally, examples of architecture for nuclear tracking and accountability for cloud architectures we have developed and deployed are included.