Performance Evaluation of Post-Quantum Cryptography in Virtual Machine Backup Systems: A Comprehensive Analysis Using the Krypton Cipher

This particular study aims to present a comprehensive performance evaluation of a custom-curated virtual machine backup system that employs post-quantum cryptography standards through the implementation of the Krypton Cipher, a modified version of the commonly used AES-256 encryption algorithm that inherently meets NIST post-quantum cryptography requirements. The paper analyzes the performance characteristics of the virtual machine backup system across the three chosen hypervisor platforms VMware, VirtualBox, and Hyper-V respectively, using three distinct evaluation metrics.

Those metrics are functional efficiency and usability testing, compression effectiveness, and backup duration scalability. Through the experiments carried out, the results obtained have shown that the implemented PQC first backup system achieves a 12.61% improvement in time efficiency compared to traditional manual backup methods, while also maintaining compression ratios exceeding 40% across all platforms. The system successfully completed medium-sized VM backups in under 5 minutes and large-sized backups within 10 minutes, validating its practicality and applicability within specific business or enterprise environments that aims to employ or implement quantum-resistant data protection. The integration of Z-Standard compression along with the Krypton Cipher provides a delicate but reliable balance between both security and performance, making it suitable for deployment in quantum-threatened environments.