Modeling and Analyzing Zero Trust Architectures Regarding Performance and Security

Zero Trust is considered a powerful strategy for securing systems by emphasizing distrust of all resource access requests. There are different approaches to integrating ZTAs into a system, differing in their components, assembly, and allocation. Early evaluation and selection of the right approach can reduce the costs of resources. In this paper, we propose a novel zero trust architecture (ZTA) metamodel based on literature and industry applications. We introduce our proposed metamodel elements and provide a model instance using the Palladio Component Model (PCM). We describe the requirements for enabling two existing approaches to performance simulation and security data flow analysis on the architectural level and outline how we realize them in our PCM-based implementation. Our evaluation demonstrates the applicability of our ZTA metamodel. It can represent real-world ZTA approaches in various domains, enabling the simulation of performance impact and analysis of the correct implementation of zero trust principles at the architectural level.