Data Division and Replication Approach for Improving Security and Availability of Cloud Storage

Large, distributed network systems such as the Cloud cater to the immense data storage needs of people around the world. This data stored upon the cloud may be sensitive, which makes the Security aspect of these Cloud systems extremely imperative. The Cloud nodes host this data. If these nodes are compromised by a malicious entity then consequences may be dire. In this paper we have proposed and put forth the results of a system which will implement a storage methodology that uses the Division and Replication strategy for storing the data. In this system, the file will be fragmented and these fragments will be replicated according to the replication factor before storing it upon the cloud. The fragments are dispersed such that consecutive nodes on the Cloud do not hold the fragments of a same file and so that even if a node is compromised no significant information is leaked to the attacker. This system will enhance cloud security using Division and Replication of data in Cloud for Optimal Performance and Security (DROPS) methodology. This additional security will come without any cryptographic techniques being applied. Lack of these computation heavy cryptographic techniques will mean that security will come without the compromise of increasing the computation load. The system will analyze the performance of our methodology by portraying it in a virtual environment comprising of virtual machines which form a Cloud network. We will depict the results of our system and how it handled storing data onto the cloud.