Distributed Ledger Governance for Cloud Compliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
The complexity of enterprise IT structures and the lack of oversight in cloud environments make it difficult for enterprise IT departments to enforce compliance and security across multiple business units and external vendors, leading to challenges in monitoring and managing IT systems effectively.
Innovation Solution
A distributed ledger service is implemented within a service provider environment to provide an immutable audit log and govern access rights to computing resources, enabling real-time monitoring and enforcement of policies across multiple accounts, ensuring data integrity and compliance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If enterprises allow business units and vendors to independently manage their own cloud accounts and infrastructure, then innovation and operational flexibility improve, but IT compliance enforcement and security monitoring deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a distributed ledger service as an intermediary between enterprise IT departments and independent cloud accounts. This mediator automatically receives, validates, and records compliance data from multiple sources without requiring direct control over individual accounts, thus maintaining operational flexibility while ensuring compliance enforcement through automated policy validation and immutable record-keeping
2Reliability
If enterprises require external parties to share audit logs and compliance data, then compliance monitoring improves, but data integrity and trust deteriorate due to potential tampering
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a distributed ledger where multiple independent copies of compliance data are maintained across different nodes in the network. Each participant receives identical copies of audit logs and compliance records, eliminating the need to trust any single source. The immutable nature of the distributed ledger ensures that once data is recorded, it cannot be tampered with or altered, preserving data integrity while enabling comprehensive compliance monitoring
3Reliability
If enterprises implement centralized oversight of all cloud accounts, then compliance enforcement improves, but system complexity and operational overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables cloud accounts and services to automatically publish their own compliance data and audit logs to the distributed ledger without requiring manual intervention from enterprise IT departments. The system self-regulates by automatically validating policies, recording compliance status, and maintaining immutable records. This automated self-service approach ensures compliance enforcement while minimizing the operational overhead and complexity for enterprise IT teams
Data Source
AI summary
Technology is described for a distributed ledger service within a service provider environment. The distributed ledger service may implement a distributed ledger formed from immutable append-only data structure and used for governance of computing resources. A policy governing a computing resource may be created and published to the distributed ledger on behalf of an account. The policy may be retrieved from the distributed ledger to govern access to the computing resource by the account.