CReW: Cloud Resilience for Windows Guests through Monitored Virtualization

Clouds are complex systems subject to an increasing number of anomalies and threats. In this paper we briefly revisit the issues related to Windows guest cloud service resilience and later provide some preliminary results on the resilience of Windows cloud guests via virtualization. In particular, we propose an architecture, Cloud Resilience for Windows (CReW). CReW can transparently monitor guest Windows VMs and can also react to both security breaches and system integrity violation, improving the dependability of cloudified Windows systems. CReW can also improve resilience from software misconfiguration by restoring the guest latest safe state. Effectiveness and performance of a CReW prototype have been evaluated; obtained results show the feasibility of such a system.