Trusted Execution Environment Elastic Launch via Self-Service Cloning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing trusted execution environments (TEEs) face challenges in elastic launching and scaling due to reliance on private cloud attestation services, which can lead to high latency, reduced availability, and increased costs, especially when handling 'elastic' workloads that frequently launch and shut down TEE instances.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system where each TEE instance maintains an encrypted secret and includes a cloning service to validate and provision newly launched TEE instances, allowing them to serve requests without relying on external attestation services, thereby enabling 'elastic' scaling and reducing the need for live migration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If TEE instances rely on private cloud attestation services for validation, then security is maintained, but latency increases and availability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
TEE instances perform self-validation by maintaining and verifying their own cryptographic measurements and secrets without requiring external attestation services. Each TEE instance can independently validate its own state and that of other TEE instances, eliminating the need for private cloud attestation services and thereby reducing latency and improving availability.
Solution Approach 2:
The validation function is extracted from external private cloud attestation services and moved into the TEE instances themselves. By taking out the dependency on external services, the system eliminates the latency and availability constraints imposed by those services while maintaining security through cryptographic verification.
2Productivity
If TEE instances frequently launch and shut down for elastic workloads, then scalability is improved, but reliance on external attestation services increases costs and reduces efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
TEE instances autonomously validate themselves and each other through cryptographic measurements, eliminating the need for costly external attestation services during frequent launch and shutdown cycles. This self-service mechanism enables elastic scaling without incurring additional costs for external validation services.
Solution Approach 2:
Cryptographic measurements and secrets are established in advance during TEE instance initialization, allowing for rapid validation during subsequent launch and shutdown operations. This preliminary setup enables efficient elastic scaling without requiring costly real-time external attestation services.
3Adaptability or versatility
If TEE instances validate each other through cryptographic measurements, then external service dependency is reduced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cryptographic measurement and validation mechanism serves multiple functions: it provides security verification, enables self-validation, supports elastic scaling, and eliminates external service dependency. This multi-functional approach achieves independence from external services without proportionally increasing complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A system includes a memory, a processor in communication with the memory, and a first TEE instance. The first TEE instance is configured to maintain an encrypted secret, obtain a cryptographic measurement associated with a second TEE instance, validate the cryptographic measurement, and provision the second TEE instance with the encrypted secret. Additionally, the first TEE instance and the second TEE instance are both configured to service at least a first type of request.