Access Control Metadata Pre-computation for Latency Reduction
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems incur latency due to the need to read metadata for access control checks every time a user accesses a resource, which can be improved without compromising security.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a server system with separate storage areas for each party, where a primary instance of resources includes permissions metadata, and a manager function that performs permission checks at access time, allowing secondary copies to be established for authorized users, reducing the need for repeated security checks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If permission checks are performed by reading metadata every time a user accesses a resource, then security is maintained, but access latency increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs permission checks in advance when resources are uploaded or shared, storing access control lists (ACLs) with the resource metadata. This preliminary action ensures that when users access resources, permission verification has already been completed, eliminating latency during actual access operations while maintaining security.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the permission checking operation from the resource access path by pre-processing and storing access control information separately in metadata. This separation allows resource access to proceed without blocking for permission checks, as the authorization decision has been made and stored in advance.
2Speed
If secondary copies are established for authorized users, then access speed improves, but storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates secondary copies of resources for authorized users, allowing them to access resources directly from their local storage without network requests. This copying mechanism dramatically improves access speed by eliminating network latency, while the patent manages storage requirements through selective replication based on access control lists.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a server system or other computer equipment for storing data of a first party and determining whether a second party is permitted access to that data based on metadata associated with the data. The disclosure provides a variety of techniques for reducing latency in a security check operation which involves reading this metadata to determine whether the second party is permitted access.