Electronic Certificate Expiration Notification System
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud-based services, managing the expiration date of electronic certificates used for Single Sign-On (SSO) is cumbersome due to long expiration periods, requiring frequent updates and skilled operations, often outsourced to sales agents, leading to unnecessary notifications and potential missed updates when contact persons change.
Innovation Solution
An information processing system that associates electronic certificates with notification destination information, automatically identifying and notifying relevant users when the certificate's expiration date approaches, allowing for timely updates without frequent changes in notification settings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Duration of action of stationary object
If the electronic certificate expiration date is set to a long period (about two years), then the frequency of update operations is reduced, but it becomes difficult for the responsible contact person to remember the update period and change settings
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically monitors certificate expiration dates and sends notifications to the responsible contact person without requiring manual tracking. The notification system serves itself by automatically identifying when certificates are approaching expiration and who should be notified, eliminating the need for human memory or manual scheduling of updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback to the responsible contact person by sending automated email notifications when a certificate is approaching its expiration date. This feedback loop ensures that the contact person is informed at the appropriate time without needing to actively monitor or remember to check certificate statuses.
2Reliability
If notification settings are manually managed and contact persons change, then the notification system can be updated, but it requires frequent changes in notification destination settings which is troublesome
Solution Approach 1:
The notification destination is universally linked to the tenant's administrative contact information stored in the system, rather than requiring separate manual configuration for each certificate. When contact information changes, the system automatically uses the updated information for all notification purposes, eliminating the need to update notification settings individually.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the tenant's administrative contact information as an intermediary between the certificate management system and the notification system. This intermediary automatically receives updates when contact information changes, ensuring that notifications are always sent to the current responsible contact without requiring direct manual updates to notification settings.
3Reliability
If notifications are sent to all users of sales agents, then the responsible contact is likely to be notified, but unnecessary notifications are created for users handling services that do not require SSO
Solution Approach 1:
The notification system applies local quality by sending notifications only to specific users who have the appropriate role (users who can handle SSO settings) rather than all sales agent users. The system identifies and notifies only those users with the capability to perform certificate renewal operations, avoiding unnecessary notifications to users who cannot act on the notification.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing system comprises: a management unit that performs management by associating an electronic certificate for a first group with notification destination information regarding a user who belongs to a second group and has a role in managing to allow the service to be used by the user belonging to the first group; and a notification unit that, in response to a remaining period until an expiration date of the electronic certificate falling below a predetermined value, identifies the notification destination information regarding the user belonging to the second group associated with the electronic certificate from among notification destination information, and performs a notification to update the electronic certificate based on the identified notification destination information.