Intermediary Token Authorization for Secure Cross-Tenancy Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud computing environments face challenges in ensuring secure and precise control mechanisms for cross-tenancy access, where service providers need authorization to perform maintenance without compromising tenant data security, considering architectural, security, legal, and regulatory factors.
Innovation Solution
A system that confirms an active tenancy link between governing and subject tenancies, issuing resource principal tokens for authorization, enabling services to configure features within the subject tenancy, and providing dedicated or private label cloud environments for secure access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If cross-tenancy access is enabled for service providers to perform maintenance and updates, then service capability and system availability are improved, but security risks and data isolation concerns worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary authorization mechanism that mediates between service providers and tenant data. The system uses authorization policies, tokens, and approval workflows as intermediaries to enable service providers to perform maintenance tasks while maintaining security boundaries. This resolves the contradiction by allowing service capability improvement without directly exposing security risks to tenant data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments access permissions into granular authorization policies that can be selectively applied to different service providers, tenants, and resource types. By dividing access control into discrete, manageable segments with specific scopes and conditions, the system enables necessary service access while isolating and controlling security risks at granular levels rather than applying blanket restrictions or permissions.
2Measurement precision
If granular authorization control is implemented for cross-tenancy access, then security precision is improved, but system complexity worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal authorization framework that handles multiple authorization scenarios (cross-tenancy access, service provider access, administrative access) through a single integrated system. The authorization service provides multi-functional capabilities including policy management, token issuance, approval workflows, and audit logging, reducing the need for separate complex systems for each access control scenario while maintaining high authorization precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary authorization actions by pre-defining authorization policies, roles, and permissions before access requests occur. Authorization policies are configured in advance with specific conditions, scopes, and approval requirements, allowing the system to automatically evaluate and enforce precise authorization decisions without complex real-time computations, thereby reducing operational system complexity.
3Reliability
If service providers are granted access to perform maintenance tasks, then system availability is improved, but data isolation concerns worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic authorization that adjusts access permissions based on real-time conditions, service provider credentials, tenant policies, and the specific maintenance task being performed. Authorization tokens include dynamic scopes, expiration times, and conditions that adapt to the current operational context, allowing system availability to be maintained through flexible access while preserving data isolation through context-aware permission enforcement.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different authorization rules and permission levels to different data domains, resource types, and tenant configurations. Each tenant can define local quality requirements for their data isolation needs, and service providers receive tailored authorization scopes that match the specific maintenance requirements for each tenant's resources, maintaining data isolation stability while enabling necessary access for system availability.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for facilitating a connection between a governing tenancy and a subject tenancy are disclosed. A configuration request is received by an intermediary from a service that is associated with a governing tenancy. The configuration request is a request to configure a feature associated with a subject tenancy. The intermediary determines if any active tenancy link has been established between the governing tenancy and the subject tenancy. In response to confirming that an active tenancy link has been established between the governing tenancy and the subject tenancy, the intermediary a) issues a resource principal token that forms a basis for authorization for the first service within the governing tenancy to initiate actions, associated with the feature, within the subject tenancy and b) responds to the configuration request with the resource principal token.