Authorization Intermediary Caching for Streaming Access Approval
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content streaming applications incur substantial network traffic and processor utilization due to frequent interactions with front-end and back-end authorization systems, leading to inefficiencies in authentication and authorization processes.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an authorization intermediary that generates and manages tokens for authenticated content streaming applications, allowing subsequent content authorization requests to be granted based on a local cache or front-end authorization system approval, thereby reducing direct interactions with the back-end system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If content streaming applications frequently interact with front-end and back-end authorization systems to verify content access rights, then authorization reliability is improved, but network traffic and processor utilization increase substantially
Solution Approach 1:
The authorization intermediary performs preliminary authentication and generates tokens in advance, storing authorization decisions in a cache. This allows subsequent content access requests to be fulfilled using cached credentials without repeatedly querying the back-end authorization system, thereby reducing network traffic and processor utilization while maintaining authorization reliability
Solution Approach 2:
An authorization intermediary is introduced as a mediator between content streaming applications and the front-end/back-end authorization systems. The intermediary caches authorization decisions and validates token-based requests locally, reducing the frequency of interactions with the back-end system and thereby decreasing network traffic and processor utilization while preserving authorization reliability
2Reliability
If content streaming applications authenticate with the back-end authorization system for each content access request, then access control security is improved, but network traffic increases substantially
Solution Approach 1:
Authentication is performed in advance and the resulting credentials are cached in the authorization intermediary. Subsequent content access requests are validated against the cached credentials rather than requiring new authentication transactions with the back-end system, significantly reducing network traffic while maintaining access control security through the token validation mechanism
Solution Approach 2:
The authorization intermediary creates and distributes token copies that contain authentication credentials. These tokens can be validated locally by the intermediary without requiring continuous communication with the back-end authorization system, reducing network traffic while preserving access control security through cryptographic token validation
Data Source
AI summary
An authorization intermediary determines that a content streaming application executing on a content streaming device has been authenticated to access at least a subset of content of a plurality of contents offered by a service provider. The authorization intermediary generates a token that is uniquely associated with the content streaming application. The authorization intermediary sends, to the content streaming application, the first token. The authorization intermediary subsequently receives from the content streaming application, a content authorization request to access a content of the plurality of contents, the content authorization request including the token. The authorization intermediary determines that the content authorization request is to be granted based on one of a content authorization cache maintained by the authorization intermediary and an approval from a front-end authorization system, and sends, to the content streaming application, information indicating that the content authorization request has been approved.