Immutable Security Context for Reliable Workflow Authorization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Workflows often fail due to changes in requestor credentials or access control policies, leading to costly and difficult manual recovery, and existing authorization methods are insufficient to ensure reliable execution.
Innovation Solution
Implementing upfront authorization and providing an immutable security context that scopes workflow actions, ensuring the requestor's authorizations remain valid throughout execution, even with changes in credentials or policies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional authorization methods are used during workflow execution, then the system can respond to credential changes, but workflow reliability deteriorates due to authorization failures
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs upfront authorization validation before workflow execution begins. The workflow service validates the requestor's credentials and obtains an immutable security context token in advance, scoping the authorization to specific workflow actions. This preliminary action ensures authorization validity throughout execution without needing to check for credential changes during runtime, thus maintaining reliability while allowing credential changes to occur.
Solution Approach 2:
The authorization process is segmented into distinct phases: upfront credential validation, security context token generation, and workflow execution with immutable context. By separating the authorization validation from the execution phase and using a token to carry the scoped authorization, the system maintains reliability during execution while allowing the underlying credentials to change without impacting the running workflow.
2Reliability
If upfront authorization is implemented, then workflow reliability improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces a security context token as an intermediary between the authorization service and workflow execution. This token encapsulates the scoped authorization obtained through upfront validation, allowing the workflow engine to execute with guaranteed permissions without directly managing complex authorization logic. The token acts as a portable, immutable credential that simplifies the execution phase while maintaining reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The complex authorization validation logic is extracted from the workflow execution engine and placed in a dedicated security service. The workflow service handles upfront authorization and token generation, while the workflow engine simply validates the immutable security context token during execution. This extraction reduces the complexity burden on the core workflow system while maintaining high reliability through specialized authorization handling.
3Reliability
If authorization checks are performed continuously during workflow execution, then security is maintained, but execution time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs comprehensive authorization validation in advance before workflow execution begins. The security context token is generated with scoped permissions that are validated upfront, eliminating the need for continuous authorization checks during execution. This preliminary validation maintains authorization reliability while avoiding time losses during workflow runtime, as the immutable token is simply verified rather than re-evaluating credentials.
Data Source
AI summary
Up front authorization of a workflow and a security context for workflow execution are disclosed. All possible authorizations that may be required by a workflow definition are identified up front. A requestor is allowed to execute the workflow only when the authorizations of the user include the authorizations that may be required by the workflow. An immutable security context is generated and associated with the workflow or an instance thereof. The immutable security context can prevent or reduce failures associated with changes to a requestor's authorizations and may also scope or limit the workflow to at least the type or capacity of work requested and/or work uniquely identified in the security context. The immutable security context is managed in a security context that is separate and independent of the workflow execution context.