Providing Authentication & Authorization Mechanisms for Active Service Charging

Active network technology enables fast deployment of new network services tailored to the specific needs of end users, among others features. Nevertheless proper charging for these new added value services require suitable authentication and authorization mechanisms. In this article we describe a security architecture for SARA (Simple Active Router-Assistant) architecture, an active network platform deployed in the context of the IST-GCAP project. The proposed solution provides all the required security features, and it also grants proper scalability of the overall system, by using a distributed key-generation algorithm.