The Host Identity Protocol and Packet Level Authentication
protocol are two recent protocol proposals that aim to introduce
security into the Internet.  Both protocols introduce a cryptographic
namespace that is used to solve security, mobility, and multi-homing
related issues. HIP is an end-to-end protocol whereas PLA is
hop-by-hop.  HIP can be seen as a control plane
for configuring data plane connections between hosts.
The aim of this work is to investigate how HIP and PLA can
be used in a datacenter environment and how they can
support secure communications between virtual machines.