Richard Hill

Hussain Al-Aqrabi, Phil Lane, Richard Hill

With the rapid development of various emerging technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), there is a need to secure communications between such devices. Communication system delays are one of the factors that adversely affect the performance of an authentication system. 5G networks enable greater data throughput and lower latency, which presents new opportunities for the secure authentication of business transactions between IIoT devices. We evaluate an approach to developing a flexible and secure model for authenticating IIoT components in dynamic 5G environments.

Hussain Al-Aqrabi, Richard Hill, Phil Lane et al.

Widespread interest in the emerging area of predictive analytics is driving industries such as manufacturing to explore new approaches to the collection and management of data provided from Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices. Often, analytics processing for Business Intelligence (BI) is an intensive task, and it also presents both an opportunity for competitive advantage as well as a security vulnerability in terms of the potential for losing Intellectual Property (IP). This article explores two approaches to securing BI in the manufacturing domain. Simulation results indicate that a Unified Threat Management (UTM) model is simpler to maintain and has less potential vulnerabilities than a distributed security model. Conversely, a distributed model of security out-performs the UTM model and offers more scope for the use of existing hardware resources. In conclusion, a hybrid security model is proposed where security controls are segregated into a multi-cloud architecture.

Hussain Al-Aqrabi, Richard Hill

Business analytics processes are often composed from orchestrated, collaborating services, which are consumed by users from multiple cloud systems (in different security realms), which need to be engaged dynamically at runtime. If heterogeneous cloud systems located in different security realms do not have direct authentication relationships, then it is a considerable technical challenge to enable secure collaboration. In order to address this security challenge, a new authentication framework is required to establish trust amongst business analytics service instances and users by distributing a common session secret to all participants of a session. We address this challenge by designing and implementing a secure multiparty authentication framework for dynamic interaction, for the scenario where members of different security realms express a need to access orchestrated services. This novel framework exploits the relationship of trust between session members in different security realms, to enable a user to obtain security credentials that access cloud resources in a remote realm. The mechanism assists cloud session users to authenticate their session membership, thereby improving the performance of authentication processes within multiparty sessions. We see applicability of this framework beyond multiple cloud infrastructure, to that of any scenario where multiple security realms has the potential to exist, such as the emerging Internet of Things (IoT).

Dharmendra Shadija, Mo Rezai, Richard Hill

Microservice Architectures (MA) have the potential to increase the agility of software development. In an era where businesses require software applications to evolve to support software emerging requirements, particularly for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, we examine the issue of microservice granularity and explore its effect upon application latency. Two approaches to microservice deployment are simulated; the first with microservices in a single container, and the second with microservices partitioned across separate containers. We observed a neglibible increase in service latency for the multiple container deployment over a single container.

Richard Hill, Dharmendra Shadija, Mo Rezai

Microservice architectures (MA) are composed of loosely coupled, course-grained services that emphasise resilience and autonomy, enabling more scalable applications to be developed. Such architectures are more tolerant of changing demands from users and enterprises, in response to emerging technologies and their associated influences upon human interaction and behaviour. This article looks at microservices in the Internet of Things (IoT) through the lens of agency, and using an example in the community health care domain explores how a complex application scenario (both in terms of software and hardware interactions) might be modelled.

Dharmendra Shadija, Mo Rezai, Richard Hill

Microservices architectures are a departure from traditional Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Influenced by Domain Driven Design (DDD), microservices architectures aim to help business analysts and enterprise architects develop scalable applications that embody flexibility for new functionalities as businesses develop, such as scenarios in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain. This article compares microservices architecture with SOA and identifies key characteristics that will assist application designers to select the most appropriate approach.