Multi-Tenant Cloud Policy Manager for Tested Enforcement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for providing policy structure, visibility, accessibility, and change management lack consistency and standardization, as policies are often hard-wired into code or defined in external configuration files, making them inaccessible and non-transparent across different teams within a domain.
Innovation Solution
A cloud-based policy manager platform that enables teams to define, approve, and enforce tenant-specific policies through a multi-level approval workflow, using APIs to transmit policies to subscribers while ensuring data security and accessibility only to authorized personnel, with features like non-production testing and scalable databases for policy management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If policies are hard-wired into code or stored in external configuration files, then policy implementation is straightforward, but policy visibility and accessibility across different teams deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized policy manager platform as an intermediary system that stores, manages, and distributes policies across the organization. This platform acts as a mediator between policy creators and consumers, ensuring policies are visible and accessible to authorized teams while maintaining a single source of truth for policy definitions.
2Adaptability or versatility
If policies are defined by domain-specific teams, then policy relevance to domain is improved, but accessibility to other teams deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The policy manager platform provides universal access to policies across different domains and teams. The system enables multi-tenant architecture where policies defined by one team can be accessed and applied by other teams as needed, while maintaining domain-specific customization capabilities through configurable policy scopes and access controls.
3Loss of information
If a centralized policy management platform is implemented, then policy visibility and accessibility are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the policy management system into distinct functional modules including policy definition, approval workflow, enforcement, and monitoring components. This modular architecture reduces overall system complexity by allowing independent development, testing, and maintenance of each component while maintaining centralized coordination.
4Reliability
If multi-level approval workflow is implemented, then policy quality and reliability are improved, but policy deployment time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-defining approval workflows, authorization levels, and policy templates before actual policy deployment. This allows for standardized review processes that can be rapidly executed without requiring ad-hoc approvals for each policy, thereby reducing overall deployment time while maintaining quality controls.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the disclosed technology include techniques and mechanisms for cloud-based policy definition and enforcement. Using a policy manager platform, entities associated with a tenant within a multi-tenant cloud environment define a policy and submit the policy for approval. The policy manager platform deploys the pending policy in a test environment for analysis by one or more entities associated with the tenant. The policy manager platform generates a pending policy protype for deployment in a subscriber environment. Policy manager platform receives an indication that the pending policy changed from a pending state to an active state based on policy performance analysis in both the test environment and the subscriber environment. Based on receiving the indication, the policy manager platform pushes the active policy to relevant policy subscribers associated with the tenant.