Granular Permission Assignment via Role Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud computing, existing permission assignment systems lack granularity and flexibility, making it difficult to efficiently manage permissions across ephemeral virtual machines and diverse resource types, leading to challenges in preventing unauthorized access and ensuring secure action execution.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for defining roles based on resource types and action sets, allowing for customizable permission grants and reusable role definitions, which can be applied globally or to individual resources, enabling more granular permission management through a permission server that integrates with cloud computing environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional permission assignment systems are used in cloud computing, then implementation is simple, but granularity and flexibility of permission management are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The permission system is segmented into distinct components: roles, resources, and actions. Roles are defined as collections of actions that can be assigned to users for specific resources. This segmentation allows granular permission management by combining different roles and resources in flexible ways, while keeping each individual component simple to define and manage.
Solution Approach 2:
The role definition mechanism serves multiple functions: it defines permission sets, establishes resource access rules, and enables inheritance hierarchies. A single role can be assigned to multiple users across different resources, and roles can be combined through inheritance to create complex permission structures from simple building blocks, reducing overall system complexity.
2Reliability
If granular permission assignment is implemented, then security and control are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting permissions into discrete roles with specific action sets, the system achieves granular security control without requiring complex individual permission configurations for each user-resource pair. Each role encapsulates a coherent set of actions, making security management both granular and manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
Roles are pre-defined with specific action sets before assignment to users. This preliminary structuring of permissions into reusable role templates allows the system to maintain high security through granular control while reducing the complexity of ongoing permission management, as administrators can reuse existing roles rather than creating new permission configurations.
3Measurement precision
If roles are defined with specific action sets for resource types, then permission precision is improved, but ease of operation decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Roles serve as universal permission templates that can be applied across multiple resources of the same type. By defining actions in terms of resource types rather than specific instances, the system achieves precise permission control while maintaining ease of operation through reusable templates. A single role definition can precisely control access to numerous resources, reducing the operational burden of managing individual permissions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system allows roles to be parameterized by resource type and action set, enabling precise permission definitions that can be adapted to different contexts. By changing the parameters of role definitions (which resource types they apply to and which actions they permit), the system achieves high precision in permission assignment while maintaining ease of operation through a consistent role-based framework.
4Adaptability or versatility
If permission grants are made reusable and applicable globally or individually, then flexibility is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Role definitions are designed to be universally applicable across multiple resources and users. A single role can be assigned to numerous users and applied to multiple resources of the appropriate type, providing extreme flexibility in permission management. The system handles both global and individual applications automatically through the role assignment mechanism, without requiring complex configuration for each scenario.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges the concepts of user permissions, resource access control, and action authorization into a unified role-based framework. By combining these functions into a single role assignment operation, the system achieves high flexibility in permission grant application while reducing overall system complexity through consolidation rather than separate mechanisms for each function.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for storing role definitions for cloud provider systems, receiving a first request to assign a user to a first role specifying a first cloud computing resource of a respective resource type, identifying a role definition corresponding to the first role that includes an action set permitted, and creating the first role for the user on the first cloud computing resource by associating the identified role definition with the first cloud computing resource and the user. A second request to assign the user to a second role is received specifying a second cloud computing of the respective resource type, and the second role is created for the user on the second cloud computing resource, where the identified role definition corresponds to the first and second roles, and wherein creating the second role includes associating the identified role definition with the first cloud computing resource and the user.