Cluster Workload Scheduling via Remote Node Attestation

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing cluster environments often fail to consider the trustworthiness of worker nodes during workload scheduling, which can compromise the security of the cluster.

Innovation Solution

Implementing remote attestation of worker nodes within the cluster environment, using a trust verifier and trust agent to verify the integrity and configuration of worker nodes, ensuring they are properly configured and have not been tampered with.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If remote attestation is implemented to verify worker node trustworthiness, then security reliability is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesecurity reliabilityVSAvoiddevice complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system segments the trust verification function into separate components: a trust agent running on each worker node and a trust verifier running on the control plane. This segmentation allows the control plane to maintain security reliability through verification while avoiding the complexity of implementing trust verification logic within the workload scheduling itself. The trust agent handles local integrity measurements and cryptographic operations, while the control plane handles verification decisions.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The trust agent acts as an intermediary between the worker node and the control plane. It measures the integrity of the worker node's hardware and software stack, collects attestation data, and communicates this information to the control plane. This intermediary approach allows the control plane to verify trustworthiness without directly managing the complex verification logic, thus improving security while managing complexity through delegation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If trust verification is performed during workload scheduling, then security is improved, but scheduling time increases

Engineering Contradiction:

ImprovesecurityVSAvoidscheduling time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs trust verification in advance of actual workload scheduling by maintaining continuous or periodic attestation of worker nodes. The control plane stores verification results and worker node status information for future scheduling decisions. When workload scheduling occurs, the control plane can quickly reference pre-verified trust information rather than performing verification in real-time, thus improving security without significantly increasing scheduling time.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The trust verification process operates continuously or periodically to maintain up-to-date information about worker node trustworthiness. This continuous action ensures that when scheduling decisions are made, the control plane already has current verification data, eliminating the need for time-consuming verification during the scheduling moment itself.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #20Continuity of useful action

Data Source

PatentUS20250053440A1Verifying trustworthiness of worker nodes of cluster environments during workload scheduling

Publication Date: 2025.02.13 NVIDIA CORP

AI summary

A system can include a memory and a processing device, operatively coupled to the memory, to perform operations including receiving a workload, selecting, from a set of worker nodes of a cluster environment, a worker node for scheduling of the workload, determining whether the worker node is valid, including determining whether the worker node is trusted, and in response to determining that the worker node is valid, scheduling the workload with the worker node.