Fault-Tolerant Distributed AAA Architecture Supporting Connectivity Disruption

Abstract

Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting (AAA) infrastructure provides a vital cog in the authentication and authorisation security frameworks of both small and large organisations. In many scenarios, organisations have come to rely on the high-quality Internet connectivity in order to deploy AAA services to the cloud, or become part of a larger AAA federation. However, many scenarios, such as with industrial networks deployed in challenging environments, constant high-bandwidth connectivity is not guaranteed. We therefore propose a novel distributed AAA architecture capable of service delivery even during connection disruption or connectivity intermittence. The architecture relies on co-operating AAA servers to provide replication and fault-tolerance residing on-premise and in cloud/core-based deployments.