Cluster Security as a Unique Problem with Emergent Properties: Issues and Techniques

Large-scale commodity cluster systems are finding increasing deployment in academic, research, and commercial settings. Coupled with this increasing popularity are concerns regarding the security of these clusters. While an individual commodity machine may have prescribed best practices for security, a cluster of commodity machines has emergent security properties that are unique from the sum of its parts. This concept has not yet been addressed in either cluster administration techniques or the research literature. We highlight the emergent properties of cluster security that distinguish it as a unique problem space and then outline a unified framework for protection techniques. We conclude with a description of preliminary progress on a monitoring project focused specifically on cluster security that we have started at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.