Connection Pool Mediator for Microservice Authentication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Micro-services implemented on different platforms or hosts, subject to different security constraints, face difficulties in secure communication and independent scaling, leading to resource overload and complex authentication management.
Innovation Solution
A connection manager service provides a connection pool that allows independent scaling of services, decouples authentication, and traverses disparate networks, enabling secure communication between micro-services without requiring each service to store authentication information of the other.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If micro-services are implemented on different platforms or hosts with independent scaling, then service flexibility and resiliency are improved, but secure communication becomes more difficult and resource overload occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway service as an intermediary between micro-services running on different hosts. The gateway manages authentication tokens and service-to-service communication, allowing services to scale independently while maintaining secure communication through centralized token validation and connection pooling.
2Ease of operation
If each micro-service stores authentication information of other services, then direct communication is simplified, but security constraints are violated and authentication management becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts authentication information and token management from individual micro-services and centralizes it in the gateway service. Each service only needs to communicate with the gateway for authentication, eliminating the need to store or manage other services' credentials locally while maintaining simple direct communication through the gateway interface.
3Productivity
If one micro-service scales to a point where its communications overwhelm another micro-service, then the first service achieves high availability, but the second service experiences resource overload
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway service acts as a buffer and mediator between micro-services with different scaling characteristics. It implements connection pooling and request queuing mechanisms that allow high-traffic services to communicate with lower-capacity services without overwhelming them, maintaining resource stability while preserving service scalability.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are described for facilitating authentication of hosted network services to other services. A target service, such as a database, may require specific authentication information, such as a username and password, to access the target service. While this information could be manually specified in the hosted network service, de-centralized storage of authentication information is generally discouraged by security best practices. This disclosure provides an authentication proxy system that reduces or eliminates a need for hosted network services to store authentication information for target services. Rather, the authentication proxy system can obtain authentication information for the hosted network service that is provided by a hosting system, and authenticate the hosted network service using that authentication information. If authenticated, the proxy system can retrieve authentication information for the target service, and pass operations from the hosted network service to the target service using the authentication information for the target service.