Authorization Routing Service for Secure Credential Management
Solution Overview
Problem
Distributed computing systems face challenges in secure resource management due to the need for sharing and rotating authentication credentials across multiple administrators and resources, which can lead to security risks and inefficiencies, especially as the number of resources grows beyond 100,000.
Innovation Solution
A resource authorization system with an authorization routing service that authenticates clients and resources separately, establishing a connection without requiring administrators to maintain or know resource credentials, using a switch matrix for secure communication and credential rotation, and integrating with credential rotation services for ongoing updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If administrators share and rotate authentication credentials across multiple resources, then access control and security management are improved, but the risk of credential leakage and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an authorization routing service as an intermediary between administrators and resources. This service maintains credential stores and manages authentication independently, allowing administrators to access resources without directly handling credentials. The routing service mediates the authentication process, reducing credential leakage risk while simplifying administrator workflows.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts credential management responsibilities from the administrator's direct control and places them in a dedicated authorization routing service. By separating credential storage and authentication logic into a standalone service, the system reduces the complexity administrators face while maintaining strong security controls through centralized credential management.
2Ease of operation
If administrators directly authenticate with each resource, then access control is simplified, but credential security and rotation become difficult to manage
Solution Approach 1:
The authorization routing service acts as a mediator that administrators interact with for resource access. Instead of administrators directly authenticating with each resource (which would require them to manage multiple credentials), they authenticate once with the routing service, which then handles credential verification with individual resources. This maintains operational simplicity while securing credentials.
Solution Approach 2:
The authorization routing service performs self-service credential management by automatically storing, retrieving, and rotating credentials without administrator intervention. The service independently manages the credential lifecycle, including secure storage in credential stores and automated rotation, eliminating the burden of manual credential management while maintaining strong security.
3Productivity
If the number of resources grows beyond 100,000, then system scalability is improved, but credential management becomes infeasible
Solution Approach 1:
The authorization routing service provides universal credential management functionality that scales with the number of resources. Instead of requiring separate authentication mechanisms for each resource, the routing service handles authentication for any number of resources through a single interface. This multi-functional approach allows the system to scale to 100,000+ resources without proportionally increasing credential management complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The authorization routing service automatically manages credentials for large numbers of resources through self-service operations. It independently stores credentials in credential stores, retrieves appropriate credentials based on authentication context, and performs automated credential rotation. This automation eliminates the need for manual credential management that would be infeasible at scale, enabling the system to handle 100,000+ resources efficiently.
Data Source
AI summary
A resource authorization system includes an authorization routing service that is executed on a computing device to authenticate a client to form a client login session, and to receive, from the client, a request to establish a connection to one or more of the resources of a distributed computing system. The authorization routing service then obtains a list of the resources associated with the client login session in which the list of resources includes those that the client is authorized to communicate with. When the requested resource is included in the list of resources, the authorization routing service authenticates the requested resources to form a resource login session, and establish the connection by communicatively coupling the client login session and the resource login session. The resource login session is established independently of the client login session.