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Title: A secure communications infrastructure for high-performance distributed computing

Conference ·
OSTI ID:508131

Applications that use high-speed networks to connect geographically distributed supercomputers, databases, and scientific instruments may operate over open networks and access valuable resources. Hence, they can require mechanisms for ensuring integrity and confidentially of communications and for authenticating both users and resources. Security solutions developed for traditional client-server applications do not provide direct support for the program structures, programming tools, and performance requirements encountered in these applications. The authors address these requirements via a security-enhanced version of the Nexus communication library; which they use to provide secure versions of parallel libraries and languages, including the Message Passing Interface. These tools permit a fine degree of control over what, where, and when security mechanisms are applied. In particular, a single application can mix secure and nonsecure communication, allowing the programmer to make fine-grained security/performance tradeoffs. The authors present performance results that quantify the performance of their infrastructure.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-31109-ENG-38
OSTI ID:
508131
Report Number(s):
ANL/MCS/P-613-0996; CONF-970835-3; ON: DE97007028; TRN: 97:004704
Resource Relation:
Conference: 6. IEEE international symposium on high peformance distributed computing, Portland, OR (United States), 5-8 Aug 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English