An authentication : authorization approach for a microservices architecture
Dissertant
Thesis advisor
University
Birzeit University
Faculty
Faculty of Engineering and Technology
Department
Department of Computer Systems Engineering
University Country
Palestine (West Bank)
Degree
Master
Degree Date
2020
English Abstract
Microservices architecture is an evolving trend in software engineering that enables building large scale, highly scalable, available and flexible systems.
However, microservices are not a silver bullet, they have their challenges and complexities.
One of these main challenges is security.
State-of-the-art shows that microservices security and their aspects are an important challenge that is not well researched and needs more attention.
Among these aspects are authentication and authorization.
For microservices applications to be secure, a proper authentication and fine-grained authorization framework should be in place.
In this research, we propose a new security framework for authentication and fine-grained authorization (MSFAA) that relies on the use and coordination of a set of security standards and frameworks to tackle the security requirements in a microservices architecture.
Our solution is based on a combination of OAuth2, JWT and Open Policy Agent (OPA).
To evaluate our results, we adopted an industrial motivating use case, the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
On top of it, we implemented our security framework and evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
To study the performance implications of our security framework, we designed and conducted an experiment in which we measured the overhead caused by the proposed security framework in terms of API latency.
Our results show that the performance overhead of the security framework is around 12%.
We believe that this is an acceptable overhead due to two main reasons.
The first reason is that security is an essential and critical aspect in a microservices systems.
The second reason is that microservices are tolerant to API latency due to their distributed nature.
Main Subjects
Information Technology and Computer Science
No. of Pages
130
Table of Contents
Table of contents.
Abstract.
Chapter One : Introduction.
Chapter Two : Background.
Chapter Three : Literature review.
Chapter Four : Microservices security framework for authentication and fine grained authorization (MSFAA).
Chapter Five : Methodology and experimental design.
Chapter Six : Experiment.
Chapter Seven : Discussion.
Chapter Eight : Conclusions and future work.
References.
American Psychological Association (APA)
Aruri, Muhammad. (2020). An authentication : authorization approach for a microservices architecture. (Master's theses Theses and Dissertations Master). Birzeit University, Palestine (West Bank)
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1429203
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Aruri, Muhammad. An authentication : authorization approach for a microservices architecture. (Master's theses Theses and Dissertations Master). Birzeit University. (2020).
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1429203
American Medical Association (AMA)
Aruri, Muhammad. (2020). An authentication : authorization approach for a microservices architecture. (Master's theses Theses and Dissertations Master). Birzeit University, Palestine (West Bank)
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-1429203
Language
English
Data Type
Arab Theses
Record ID
BIM-1429203
