Document Provenance in the Cloud: Constraints and Challenges

Abstract : The amounts of digital information are growing in size and complexity. With the emergence of distributed services over internet and the booming of electronic exchanges, the need to identify information origins and its lifecycle history becomes essential. Essential because it's the only factor ensuring information integrity and probative value. That's why in different areas like government, commerce, medicine and science, tracking data origins is essential and can serve for informational, quality, forensics, regulatory compliance, rights protection and intellectual property purposes. Managing information provenance is a complex task and it has been extensively treated in databases, file system and scientific workflows. However, provenance in the cloud is a more challenging task due to specific problems related to the cloud added to the traditional ones.