Encryption as a Service (EaaS): Introducing the Full-Cloud-Fog Architecture for Enhanced Performance and Security

The main goal of Encryption as a Service (EaaS) is to deliver cryptography services to limited-resource devices. However, due to the massive number of devices connecting EaaS platforms, they face challenging issues, such as high service delays and uncovered requests. The existing EaaS architectures lack in adequately taking advantage of both cloud and fog layers, by which the performance can be improved. Therefore, this article proposes a novel EaaS architecture called full-cloud-fog that focuses on increasing the EaaS throughput by locating the frequently accessed components on the fog layer and resolving resource allocations utilizing the cloud nodes. We have analyzed the security aspects of the proposed architecture and then implemented it in a real testbed. The evaluation results show that the proposed full-cloud-fog architecture improves the EaaS throughput by 81%.