Privilege Graph Traversal Using Schema-Based Path Pruning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern enterprises face difficulty in tracking and managing user access privileges across diverse and complex data environments due to high cardinality and varying database systems, making it challenging for human administrators to manage user access effectively.
Innovation Solution
A privilege graph is used to track user privileges, employing a canonical schema to standardize permissions and a traversal method that ignores non-potential paths based on schema-defined connections, along with pagination to manage result sets.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional traversal methods are used to track user access privileges across complex data environments, then complete privilege information can be obtained, but the traversal process becomes extremely time-consuming and computationally intensive
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-computes and stores the privilege graph structure, including node types, relationships, and access paths, before actual privilege queries are executed. This preliminary structuring of data enables rapid traversal by eliminating the need to compute relationships in real-time during privilege tracking operations
Solution Approach 2:
The privilege graph is divided into distinct node types (user nodes, role nodes, resource nodes) with defined relationships between them. This segmentation allows the traversal algorithm to navigate through specific node type transitions rather than examining all possible connections, significantly reducing the search space while maintaining complete privilege tracking accuracy
2Loss of information
If comprehensive privilege graph traversal is performed across all data environments, then complete access permission information is obtained, but computational resources and processing overhead increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different processing strategies to different node types within the privilege graph. User nodes trigger specific traversal patterns, role nodes have predefined relationship mappings, and resource nodes have constrained access paths. This localized optimization allows the system to expend computational resources only where necessary while maintaining complete privilege information
Solution Approach 2:
The traversal algorithm performs only the minimum necessary actions to obtain complete privilege information by leveraging the pre-established graph structure. Instead of exhaustively checking all possible paths, the system follows defined node type transitions that are sufficient to determine access permissions, avoiding excessive computational action while ensuring information completeness
3Adaptability or versatility
If the privilege graph structure is expanded to accommodate multiple data environments and platforms, then coverage and versatility improve, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The privilege graph uses a universal node type framework that can represent users, roles, and resources across diverse data environments and platforms. Each node type has standardized relationships and traversal rules that work consistently regardless of the underlying data environment, allowing the system to accommodate multiple platforms without proportionally increasing structural complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The system manages graph complexity by parameterizing node properties and relationships rather than creating unique structures for each data environment. Node types are defined with configurable attributes that can adapt to different platforms while maintaining the same fundamental graph structure, enabling versatility through parameter variation rather than structural expansion
Data Source
AI summary
The technology disclosed herein accelerates traversal of a privilege graph indicating access permissions to resources of data environments. In a particular example, a method provides identifying a first node type of a start node of a plurality of nodes in a privilege graph and a second node type of an end node of the plurality of nodes. The privilege graph indicates access privileges for a plurality of users to features of a plurality of data environments. The method also provides identifying one or more possible paths between the first node type and the second node type based on a schema of the privilege graph and traversing the plurality of nodes from the start node to the end node while ignoring paths that are not included in the one or more possible paths.