Protecting cognitive code and client data in a public cloud via deployment of data and executables into a secure partition with persistent data

Abstract

A secure cloud computing environment protects the confidentiality of application code from a customer while simultaneously protecting the confidentiality of a customer's data from intentional or inadvertent leaks by the application code. This result is accomplished without the need to trust the application code and without requiring human surveillance or intervention. A client secure virtual machine (SVM) is accessible by a client who supplies commands, operand data and application data. An appliance SVM has the application code loaded therein and includes an application program interface that accesses a memory area shared by both SVMs. All access to the appliance SVM is initially revoked by an ultravisor, except for the shared memory and an encrypted persistent storage. The appliance SVM stores the application data in the persistent storage. The ultravisor manages an SVM by maintaining exclusive control over a device tree used by the operating system of the SVM.