Functional components for a security manager within future inter-cloud environments

Especially in the public sector, great efforts can be seen towards the Inter-Cloud (e.g., USA Federal Government´s Cloud Computing Initiative). In order to make a contribution towards the challenges of security management in Cloud Computing respectively Inter-Cloud, this paper focuses on the identification of functional components for a Security Manager. Therefore, we present identified functional components (basic function and process components) for a Security Manager architecture. These components together with identified security data artifacts will support the Cloud provider community to implement a security management system, and facilitate the adoption of this results in the private and public sector. As a first step towards this, we present a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the security management functional components within current Cloud approaches, which can serve as a basis for future developments towards Inter-Cloud environments.