Articles
| Open Access | FPGA Acceleration for Security and Performance in Multi-Tenant Clouds with Hardware-Assured IP Protection
Abstract
The rapid proliferation of cloud computing services has necessitated an urgent focus on ensuring both performance efficiency and robust security in multi-tenant environments. In particular, the adoption of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in cloud infrastructures presents a promising avenue for accelerating computation-intensive workloads while simultaneously addressing critical security concerns associated with untrusted intellectual property (IP) cores. This study synthesizes contemporary research in FPGA-enabled cloud architectures, zero-trust frameworks for multi-tenant platforms, and hardware protection techniques for system-on-chip (SoC) designs to establish a cohesive perspective on securing cloud acceleration. We explore obfuscation strategies, statistical hardware Trojan detection, and voltage-based attack mitigation in FPGA environments. The research further examines encryption methodologies, including hybrid and elliptic curve-based algorithms, tailored to preserving data privacy in shared cloud infrastructures. By integrating hardware-centric security measures with advanced cryptographic techniques and cloud-native acceleration strategies, the paper proposes a multi-layered paradigm for enhancing resilience, performance, and trustworthiness in next-generation cloud services. The findings elucidate theoretical and practical implications, highlighting both the opportunities for deploying FPGAs at scale in public clouds and the complex security challenges that arise from multi-tenancy, shared resources, and potentially untrusted hardware modules. The study concludes by outlining future research trajectories, emphasizing adaptive security frameworks, dynamic resource isolation, and cross-layer verification methodologies as essential components of secure cloud acceleration.
Keywords
FPGA acceleration, cloud security, multi-tenant environments, hardware IP protection
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