(A) study on VPN load-balancing, security for WFMS, and knowledge and skill management for e-business

Abstract

This study focuses on the load-balancing strategy of virtual private network (VPN) servers, representative applications of E-Business, workflow management system``s security, and knowledge and skill for information security professionals. As the demand for the Virtual Private Network (VPN) increases, high speed VPN becomes more important. To achieve high speed, VPN servers should be adopted in a parallel manner using a load balancer. The load balancing issues for web servers have researched intensively. However, the work cannot be directly applied to the VPN because the services of the VPN are different from general web services. In this study, the load-balancing problem of parallel VPN configuration is formulated and solved in consideration of the characteristics of VPN services. Herein, four load-balancing strategies are suggested for VPNs. In computer simulations, the response-time performances of the proposed strategies are investigated as the measure of user-side perspective. Moreover, the load-uniformity performances are investigated as the measure of server-side perspective. With the expansion of WFMS across the Internet, collaboration among enterprises can increase. The security problems of Intranet-based WFMS, which is operated on intranet are not critical, but the effectiveness of Internet-Based WFMSs is deeply influenced by security. In this study, we analyze security requirements for the Internet-Based WFMSs. Based on the security requirements, this paper suggests the security architecture and security mechanisms for the Internet-Based WFMSs. For the security architecture of Internet-Based WFMSs, this paper introduces the Login Agent, the Security Agent, and Task Agents. This paper presents the flexible security policy and security mechanisms based on micro-protocols. The security mechanisms provide authentication, secure communication, membership, and rekeying for Internet-Based WFMSs. The features of mechanisms are very flexible to use in the Inte...