Service-Oriented Architecture for Secure Service Discovery and Selection in Specialized Mobile Networks

• Published in: International journal of computer science and information security 2015-09, Vol.13 (9), p.45-45
• Main Authors: Serhani, M Adel, Gadallah, Yasser, Barka, Ezedin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access control; Ad hoc networks; Algorithms; Allocations; Architecture; Communication; Computer information security; Confidentiality; Emergency response; Mathematical models; Medical personnel; Mobile communication systems; Public Key Infrastructure; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 1947-5500

Special operations such as emergency response as well as military missions are usually characterized by the limited resources available to handle generally large-scale operations. Precise resource discovery and allocation thus becomes an important factor for the success of such operations. This task has been recognized as a challenging research issue. This is due to the dynamic nature of the emergency response elements e.g., personnel and equipment. One of the important requirements of these operations is achieving the security of the communications involved in the resource discovery and allocation tasks. Security ensures the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the communicated information. Therefore, solutions that are intended for selecting best matching service(s) should not only rely on the functional properties of the service but also on level of security under which this service is provided. In this study, we propose a secure multicast service discovery architecture that is based on a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) of operation participants. The main objective is to locate, select, reserve and assign certain resources to parties that are in need of these resources. The involved communications are designed to be secure multicast-based, utilizing features of the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Model. We describe the details of the proposed communication protocol. We then qualitatively compare our architecture to other alternative MANET-based service discovery architectures. The comparison highlights the merits of the proposed architecture. Finally, we conduct and present the results of a set of experiments to evaluate key features of our proposed architecture.