Cached Policy Summaries for Efficient Cloud Access Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud service providers face challenges in efficiently analyzing access policies across large numbers of distributed systems and resources, leading to computational inefficiencies and high costs due to the complexity of access controls and growing reliance on cloud services.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that uses stored policy summaries in a tree structure to efficiently analyze access policies by reusing previously generated summaries, reducing the need for repetitive evaluations and optimizing computational resources.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If access policies are analyzed by evaluating all policies against each entity and resource, then accurate access control decisions are made, but computational complexity and processing time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-generates access policy summaries for entities and resources before actual access analysis is needed. These summaries capture the essential access control information in advance, so that during runtime, the system can quickly retrieve and compare pre-computed summaries instead of re-evaluating all policies from scratch, thereby reducing computational complexity while maintaining accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates simplified copies of access policy information in the form of policy summaries. These summaries are condensed representations that capture the critical access control rules without containing all the detailed policy information, allowing for efficient comparison and analysis while preserving the necessary accuracy for access decisions
2Reliability
If access policies are analyzed by evaluating all policies against each entity and resource, then complete access control coverage is achieved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary generation of access policy summaries that capture complete access control information in advance. This pre-computation ensures that all necessary policy coverage is established before runtime, allowing for rapid retrieval and comparison during actual access analysis without sacrificing completeness
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts essential access control information from comprehensive policies into condensed policy summaries. This extraction process identifies and isolates the critical elements needed for access decisions, separating them from redundant or less important policy details, thereby maintaining complete coverage while reducing processing time
3Measurement precision
If access policies are analyzed by re-evaluating all policies for each access request, then up-to-date access decisions are made, but computational resources are consumed excessively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-computes and stores access policy summaries that capture the current state of access controls. When access requests are made, the system retrieves these pre-computed summaries and performs minimal updates or comparisons, avoiding the need to re-evaluate all policies from scratch and thereby significantly reducing computational resource consumption while maintaining decision accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates condensed copies of policy information in the form of summaries that can be quickly retrieved and used for access decisions. These copies contain the essential information needed for accurate decisions without requiring full policy re-evaluation, thus reducing energy and computational resource usage
Data Source
AI summary
An access policy analysis system may use stored policy summaries to efficiently perform access analysis. A request that causes an access analysis of an entity in a cloud service provider with respect to a resource hosted in the cloud service provider may be received. An access policy summary generated for the entity based on a set of access policies applied by an access management system of the cloud service provider may be obtained. An access policy summary generated for the resource based on the set of access policies may be obtained. A tree structure that describes a hierarchy of entities in the cloud service provider may be traversed to identify a parent node of the entity in the hierarchy of entities. The access analysis may then be generated based on the access policy summaries for the identified node in the tree structure, for the entity and for the resource.