Evaluation of P2P and cloud computing as platform for exhaustive key search on block ciphers JunWeon Yoon 1,2 & TaeYoung Hong 1 & JangWon Choi 1 & ChanYeol Park 1 & KiBong Kim 3 & HeonChang Yu 2 Received: 10 April 2017 /Accepted: 2 March 2018 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Over the years, parallel computing models have been proposed to solve large-scale application problems. P2P and cloud computing are well-known distributed computing models and have the advantage of running and implementing the parallel computing. Applying the advantages of both models can enhance the benefits of parallel computing. In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of key search algorithm by combining P2P and cloud computing. For our experiment, we apply the key search algorithm in the field of cryptography. The length of the key, which is stable criterion of cryptographic algorithm, is judged according to the amount of exhaustive key search. And the key space required for the whole investigation is easy to divide and is very appropriate for parallel calculation of P2P environment. In addition, cloud computing can provide the fitting environment to meet the various user requirements using virtualization technology. We conduct the following two performance experiments with P2P and cloud computing. First, we propose the method to guarantee the performance in P2P environment based on virtualization. Next, we simulate the performance of the suggested encryption method in the aforementioned system environment. Results reveal effectiveness and validity of the proposed system environment, which can also provide both scalability and flexibility. Keywords P2P computing . Cloud computing . Virtualization . Block cipher . DES 1 Introduction The paradigm of parallel computing has been used to solve the large scale computational problems using a lot of distributed resources. This usually requires a single computer with mul- tiple processors, multiple computers connected to the net- work, or a combination of both [1]. Main purpose of parallel processing is to reduce overall execution time in solving of massive jobs. Another benefit is that it can extend the problem scale and complexity [2]. Therefore, parallel processing has been widely applied to solve difficult computational problems in the various areas of science and engineering such as atmo- sphere, physics, bioscience, chemistry, mechanical engineer- ing, mathematics, security, etc. P2P and cloud computing are representative distributed computing models and have various advantages in performing This article is part of the Topical Collection: Special Issue on Convergence P2P Cloud Computing Guest Editor: Jung-Soo Han * HeonChang Yu yuhc@korea.ac.kr; internet@korea.ac.kr JunWeon Yoon jwyoon@kisti.re.kr TaeYoung Hong tyhong@kisti.re.kr JangWon Choi jwchoi@kisti.re.kr ChanYeol Park chan@kisti.re.kr KiBong Kim kbkim@hit.ac.kr 1 Supercomputing Center, KISTI, Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea 3 Department of Computer Information, Daejeon Health Institute of Technology, Dong-Gu, Daejeon, Republic of Korea Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-018-0641-5