Secure and trusted inter-cloud communications in the arrowhead framework

The concept of local automation clouds was first initiated by the Arrowhead framework in order to cover special requirements of the Industrial Internet of Things domain. The security, real-time, and engineering requirements are tackled in local clouds, in which systems can exchange information with external systems through inter-cloud servicing. There are various challenges with information exchange between local clouds. First, service consumers and the service providers must find each other and then their interactions must be monitored. This is already supported through the inter-cloud orchestration process, carried out by the core systems of Arrowhead. This mechanism involves the administration of the connections, aided by Gatekeepers. Secure end-to-end data transfer, however, is still troublesome — especially in-between closed local clouds. Challenges include issues with trust, data path control, and relaying between clouds. The current paper proposes a new, supporting core system, the Gateway, which can facilitate solving these issues, when controlled by the Gatekeeper.