Secure Access Connector for Mobile Enterprise Content
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Solution Overview
Problem
Enterprise content access via mobile devices poses challenges in maintaining control and ensuring secure, unified access to network resources across different platforms like end user devices, home directories, and SharePoint systems.
Innovation Solution
A mobile app and infrastructure solution that provides secure access to network resources by using secure access connectors, enforcing policies at multiple layers, and utilizing user credentials to manage access privileges, allowing seamless and secure access while adhering to access control lists and location-based policies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If mobile access to enterprise content is enabled, then user convenience and accessibility are improved, but network security and access control are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
A gateway server acts as an intermediary between mobile devices and enterprise network resources. The gateway receives authentication requests from mobile devices, validates credentials against the Active Directory domain controller, and establishes secure connections without requiring mobile devices to directly access internal network resources. This mediator architecture enables mobile access while maintaining network security boundaries.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication and access control system is segmented into distinct layers: mobile device authentication, gateway server validation, domain controller verification, and resource access control. Each layer handles specific security functions independently, allowing mobile access to be enabled without compromising the security of internal network resources. The segmentation isolates mobile device risks from the core enterprise network.
2Productivity
If unified access to multiple enterprise resources is provided, then user productivity is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway server is designed as a universal access point that handles multiple types of enterprise resources including file shares, SharePoint sites, and other network resources through a single authentication mechanism. Mobile devices can access diverse resources uniformly through the gateway without requiring separate authentication systems for each resource type, simplifying the user experience while maintaining backend complexity management.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication system implements feedback loops where the gateway server continuously monitors authentication outcomes, connection status, and resource access patterns. Based on this feedback, the system dynamically adjusts authentication tokens, updates session management, and coordinates with domain controllers to maintain secure access states. This feedback mechanism automates complex coordination tasks across multiple system components.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques to perform secure authentication to provide mobile access to shared content are disclosed. In various embodiments, a user credential associated with a request to access content is received at a connector node from a mobile application running on a mobile device. The user credential is used to create at the connector node a secure credential token that includes the user credential. The secure credential token is used to provide to the mobile application on the mobile device, via the connector node, access to content on two or more servers residing on a protected network with which the user credential is associated.