Barkhausen Institute: ccFOSSIL: Making shared storage securely usable

The new ccFOSSIL research project has been launched at the Barkhausen Institute. It deals with the question of how shared storage in data centers can be used securely when several computer systems access the same resources across servers.

The background to this is the uneven utilization of storage resources in data centers. While individual servers reach their limits, capacities remain unused elsewhere. Shared storage pools promise greater efficiency and flexibility, but place high demands on security, isolation and system performance.

A new research project has been launched at the Barkhausen Institute that focuses on secure shared storage in data centers. The ccFOSSIL project is investigating how multiple computer systems can access shared storage resources without incurring security risks.

Modern data centers want to use their hardware as efficiently as possible. One promising idea is for multiple machines to access a shared storage pool instead of just using their own local storage. This saves resources and makes systems more flexible. At the same time, new challenges arise: The systems must remain fast and sensitive data must not fall into the wrong hands despite the shared infrastructure.

In the ccFOSSIL project, the Barkhausen Institute is developing new approaches to enable precisely this. The aim is to ensure that each machine can only access the data for which it is authorized. To achieve this, the team combines hardware and operating system research and uses the institute’s own M³ platform to test new concepts in practice. The long-term aim is to enable shared storage on a large scale without weakening security. 

Project duration until the end of 2028

The project runs from 01.01.2026 to 31.12.2028. It is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – 502457159.

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Further links

👉 Read the original announcement

👉 www.barkhauseninstitut.org