Authentication Service SSO Credential Caching
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Users face the inconvenience of having to manage multiple authentication credentials for different services, which can lead to the lack of awareness of notifications or events when not logged into a specific service.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a single sign-on (SSO) system where users authenticate once through an identity manager, which caches authentication information for seamless access to multiple services, allowing background authentication and notification monitoring through a polling service.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users authenticate with each service separately using different credentials, then each service can independently verify user identity, but users must manage multiple credentials and repeatedly authenticate across services
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple authentication credentials into a single credential set by introducing an authentication service that stores and manages credentials for multiple services. The user interface displays a unified set of credentials that can be used across different services, eliminating the need for users to manage separate credentials for each service.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal authentication mechanism where a single credential set generated by the authentication service can be used to authenticate with multiple different services. The credential set includes information that enables authentication across service boundaries, making the authentication process multi-functional rather than service-specific.
2Reliability
If users must be logged into a service to receive notifications, then services can ensure authenticated users receive updates, but users are unaware of events when not logged in
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a polling service as an intermediary that runs in the background to receive and manage notifications from services. This polling service can access the user's credential set to authenticate with services and retrieve notifications even when the user is not actively logged in, then relay these notifications to the user through the user interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service notification retrieval by allowing the polling service to automatically authenticate with services using the stored credential set and fetch notifications without requiring active user login. The user interface then presents these retrieved notifications to the user, making the notification system self-acting rather than user-triggered.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are various approaches for relaying and caching authentication credentials. A single sign-on (SSO) token is received, the SSO token representing a user account authenticated with an identity manager. An authentication request is then sent to a service that is federated with the identity manager in response to receipt of the SSO token, the authentication request including the SSO token. An access token is received in response to the authentication request, the access token providing access to the service for the user account authenticated with the identity manager for a predefined period of time. The access token and a link between the access token and the SSO token are then cached.