A framework for dynamic monitoring of distributed systems featuring adaptive security

Abstract

Distributed systems play a crucial role in today’s information-based society, enabling seamless communication among governmental, industrial, social, and non-governmental institutions. As information becomes increasingly complex, the software industry is highly concerned about the heterogeneity and dynamicity of distributed systems. It is common for various types of information and services to be disseminated on different sites, especially in web 2.0. Since ‘information’ has become a prime tool for organizations to achieve their vision and mission, a high level of quality of service (QoS) is mandatory to disseminate and access information and services over remote sites, despite an unsecure communication system. These systems are expected to have security mechanisms in place, render services within an acceptable response time, dynamically adapt to environmental requirements, and secure key information. This research article proposes a framework for evaluating and determining a threshold up to which distributed systems can collect data to adapt to the environment. The study also proposes a dynamic security metric to determine the level of security disturbance caused by the monitoring system for adaptation and the measures to be implemented. Additionally, the paper details the role of the monitoring system in safeguarding the adaptive distributed system and proposes an adaptive monitoring system that can modify its functionality as per the environment.