Access Graph Visualization for Complex Permission Relationships
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems and methods struggle to efficiently manage and present complex data access permissions across multiple resources and data repositories, particularly in software applications with increasing user permissions and object hierarchies, leading to inefficiencies and compliance challenges.
Innovation Solution
An access management system utilizing an access graph that represents entities as nodes and relationships as edges, incorporating AI models to generate and visualize permission, member, and control relationships, enabling efficient management and presentation of access controls.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional systems manage data access permissions across multiple resources, then access control functionality is provided, but system complexity increases and efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the complex access management problem into distinct components: access entities (users, groups), resource entities (data, APIs), permission relationships (allow/deny rules), and member relationships (group hierarchies). This segmentation allows each component to be managed independently through the access graph, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining comprehensive access control functionality across multiple resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The access graph serves as an intermediary data structure that mediates between the diverse elements of access management. It provides a unified representation that connects access entities, resource entities, permission relationships, and member relationships, enabling efficient querying and management without requiring complex direct relationships between all components.
2Measurement precision
If detailed permission relationships are tracked across multiple resources, then access control accuracy is improved, but data redundancy increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple types of relationships (permission relationships and member relationships) into a single unified access graph structure. This consolidation allows the system to track detailed access control information accurately while avoiding data redundancy by representing all relationships through common graph nodes and edges, eliminating the need for separate detailed tracking mechanisms for each relationship type.
3Ease of operation
If access graphs visualize complex relationships, then presentation clarity is improved, but computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements partial visualization by selectively rendering access graph components based on user needs and interaction context. Rather than always displaying the complete access graph with all entities and relationships, the system can display relevant portions, adjust levels of detail, and load visualizations on-demand, reducing computational resource consumption while maintaining clarity for the specific access management task at hand.
Data Source
AI summary
In some examples, systems and methods for presenting access information are provided. For example, a method includes: receiving an indication of an entity, the entity being associated with one or more resource entities and one or more access entities; determining one or more permission relationships and one or more member relationships associated with the entity; generating the access graph representing the one or more permission relationships and the one or more member relationships, the access graph including a first set of nodes representing the one or more resource entities and a second set of nodes representing the one or more access entities, the access graph further including a first set of edges representing the one or more permission relationships connected to the first set of nodes and a second set of edges representing the one or more member relationships connected to the second set of nodes.