IAC Environment Access Profiles for Sensitive Infrastructure Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing infrastructure as code (IAC) management systems lack adequate mechanisms to control access to sensitive environments, leading to potential errors and unintended modifications due to similarities in cloud interfaces and reliance on Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an overlay grouping mechanism with additional metadata to categorize infrastructure sensitivity levels and introduce trusted profiles with limited session durations, ensuring authorized access and controlled deployment across environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If IAM policies are used to control access to IAC configurations, then basic access control is provided, but adequate protection against errors and unintended modifications in sensitive environments is not achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the infrastructure into multiple environments (development, testing, production) with different sensitivity levels. Each environment receives customized trusted profiles with specific access privileges, allowing granular control over who can modify IAC configurations in each environment. This segmentation enables differentiated protection strategies for each environment type.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by creating environment-specific trusted profiles with customized access privileges tailored to each environment's sensitivity requirements. Sensitive environments receive stricter access controls and shorter session durations, while less sensitive environments allow more flexible access. This localized approach ensures appropriate protection levels without uniformly restricting all access.
2Reliability
If trusted profiles with limited session durations are implemented, then access security is enhanced, but user convenience and ease of operation are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic session management where trusted profile session durations are adjusted based on environment sensitivity. Less sensitive environments allow longer session durations for user convenience, while sensitive environments enforce shorter sessions to enhance security. The system dynamically adapts session parameters to balance security requirements with operational efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the session duration parameter of trusted profiles based on the target environment's sensitivity level. By adjusting this parameter dynamically, the system provides extended sessions for routine operations in less sensitive environments while imposing shorter sessions for high-risk operations in sensitive environments, thereby balancing security and usability.
3Reliability
If environment-specific trusted profiles are created, then precise control over modifications is achieved, but system complexity and configuration overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates reusable trusted profiles that can be applied across multiple environments with similar sensitivity levels. A single trusted profile template can be instantiated for multiple development environments or multiple testing environments, reducing configuration overhead. The profiles serve multiple functions by supporting both access control and session management across different environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent involves preliminary configuration of trusted profiles with predefined access privileges and session parameters before deployment to environments. By pre-configuring profiles with appropriate permissions and session durations based on environment sensitivity, the system reduces runtime complexity and streamlines the deployment process. The preliminary setup ensures that profiles are ready for immediate use without requiring complex runtime configuration.
Data Source
AI summary
Managing access to computing environments is provided. A number of infrastructure as code (IAC) configurations are configured, wherein the IAC configurations are related to a same project. The IAC configurations are grouped into a number of environments, wherein the environments represent project stages or deployment situations, and wherein the environments have respective access privileges and allowed modifications for the respective IAC configurations within each environment. A number of user trusted profiles are automatically created that are linked to the access privileges and allowed modifications for the environments, wherein each trusted profile is specific to one of the environments. Modification are be deployed in an environment only after those modifications have been successfully deployed in a prerequisite environment.