Authentication and Authorization in FELIX

Abstract

FELIX, the EU-Japan jointly-funded project, establishes a software defined networking (SDN) experimental facility which spans two continents and several administrative domains via dynamic transit network connections. The FELIX architectural blueprint provides an excellent example where key topics such as policy-based software-defined infrastructure instantiation is supported by resource orchestrators which manage multi-domain distributed compute and network resources including on-demand provisioning of transit network resources. In this context, FELIX implements a modern approach for authentication and authorization in SDN experimental facilities which enables fine-grained control and avoids single points of failure. This paper details the underlying mechanisms for user and transit network resource authentication and authorization in FELIX.