Service Mesh Attestation for Cloud-Edge Workload Migration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing approaches to attestation in networked computing environments, particularly in edge computing, face scalability issues due to the complexity of managing multiple services and instances, leading to unmanageable verification processes and lack of support for bidirectional workload migration across the cloud-to-edge spectrum with zero-trust and standardization.
Innovation Solution
A decentralized trust architecture that enables peer-to-peer trust establishment through attestation of workloads across nodes in the cloud-to-edge network, using a framework for generating and verifying attestation stamps that include metadata for secure migration, and a centralized trust architecture with immutable attestations for verifiable migration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If attestation is performed for each instance of every service in distributed software deployment, then trust and compute security are ensured, but the verification process becomes unmanageable and does not scale
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the attestation process by introducing a service mesh layer that intercepts and manages attestation requests. Instead of directly attesting each service instance, the service mesh proxies the attestation calls, dividing the complex verification task into manageable segments handled by the mesh infrastructure.
Solution Approach 2:
The service mesh acts as an intermediary between the relying party and the distributed service instances. It receives attestation requests, forwards them to the appropriate service instances, collects the attestation results, and returns them to the relying party, thereby simplifying the verification process while maintaining security.
2Measurement precision
If attestation is performed for each service instance, then integrity verification is complete, but the process becomes unmanageable due to the large number of services and instances
Solution Approach 1:
The service mesh enables self-service attestation by automatically managing the attestation process for service instances. The mesh intercepts requests, performs or coordinates attestation, and manages the results without requiring manual intervention, making the process manageable despite the large number of instances.
Solution Approach 2:
The service mesh intermediary automates the coordination of attestation across numerous service instances, handling the complexity of managing many individual verifications while maintaining complete integrity checking.
3Reliability
If the relying party has intimate knowledge of the distributed software architecture, then attestation can be performed, but this requirement limits scalability in real-world deployments
Solution Approach 1:
The service mesh intermediary abstracts the complexity of distributed software architecture from the relying party. The mesh handles the detailed interactions with service instances and architecture-specific details, while the relying party only needs to communicate with the mesh, enabling scalability without sacrificing attestation accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The service mesh provides a universal interface for attestation that works across different distributed software architectures and deployment scenarios. It handles the varied requirements of different services and instances through a standardized mechanism, enhancing both accuracy and scalability.
Data Source
AI summary
Various systems and methods are described for implementing attestation operations. A computing device includes a processor; and memory to store instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to: receive a workload from a source computing device over a network shared with the computing device; determine whether the workload has valid attestation; establish attestation for the workload when the workload does not have valid attestation; determine whether the attestation is compliant with a policy; and execute the workload when the attestation is compliant with the policy.