Smart Secret Rotator Bridge for AWS EKS Vendor Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vendor components deployed in AWS EKS face integration issues with AWS Services like ElastiCache and MSK due to lack of support for AWS Secrets Manager, necessitating a solution for seamless secret rotation and credential management.
Innovation Solution
A platform-agnostic smart secret rotator module is implemented to retrieve and rotate secrets, tokens, and passwords from various sources, providing scheduled integration and enabling seamless connections to services across different cloud platforms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If vendor components are deployed in AWS EKS, then application deployment is enabled, but integration with AWS Services fails due to lack of Secrets Manager support
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a bridge component that acts as an intermediary between vendor applications and AWS Services. This bridge retrieves secrets from AWS Secrets Manager and makes them available to vendor components through a standardized interface, enabling integration without requiring direct support for AWS Secrets Manager in the vendor components.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution creates a universal secret retrieval mechanism that works across multiple AWS Services (ElastiCache, MSK, etc.) and vendor components. The bridge component provides a single point of integration that can serve multiple purposes, making the system adaptable to different service providers while maintaining reliable connections.
2Reliability
If manual secret rotation is performed, then credential freshness is maintained, but development time and operational complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by automatically retrieving and rotating secrets before they are needed by applications. The bridge component proactively updates credentials in advance, ensuring that when applications need access to services, valid credentials are already in place, eliminating the need for manual intervention.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-service secret rotation where the bridge component automatically manages credential renewal without human involvement. The process is fully automated, retrieving new secrets from AWS Secrets Manager and updating applications transparently, thereby maintaining credential validity while reducing operational complexity and development time.
3Ease of operation
If AWS Secrets Manager is integrated directly, then secret management is simplified, but vendor components without support fail to connect
Solution Approach 1:
The bridge component serves as a translator and intermediary that converts AWS Secrets Manager's secret management mechanism into a format and interface that vendor components can understand and use, enabling compatibility between AWS Services and third-party applications without requiring changes to either side.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution segments the secret management functionality into a separate bridge component that handles the complexity of AWS Secrets Manager integration, while vendor components only need to interact with the simplified interface provided by the bridge, maintaining ease of operation while achieving broad compatibility.
Data Source
AI summary
Various methods, apparatuses/systems, and media for programmatically generating and rotating secrets for applications to read them to connect to various services are disclosed. A processor determines, in a preconfigured time interval, whether secrets/credentials corresponding to a service provider has been changed; calls a first API to retrieve the changed secrets/credentials from the corresponding service provider; stores the changed secrets/credentials to a corresponding predefined location; causes an application to call a second API to retrieve the changed secret or the credential from the corresponding predefined location; and automatically establishes a connection between the application and the corresponding service provider based on a determination that the changed secrets/credentials retrieved from the predefined location matches with the changed secrets/credentials retrieved from the corresponding service provider during the preconfigured time interval.