Tenant Segmentation for Secure Cloud Setting Assistance

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing setting assistance systems for cloud tenants face challenges in preventing the leakage of confidential information during the setting and maintenance processes, as customer engineers may inadvertently access and modify sensitive data.

Innovation Solution

A setting assistance device and method that generate a work tenant with partial setting data from a preregistered client tenant, allowing for the acceptance and application of update data without exposing confidential information. This ensures that only authorized changes are made to the client tenant, preventing data leakage.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If a customer engineer logs into a tenant with a maintenance account to assist setting work, then setting assistance can be provided, but confidential information included in the tenant may leak

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesetting assistanceVSAvoidconfidential information leakage

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent divides the tenant into two separate tenants: a work tenant containing only the settings data needed for assistance, and a client tenant containing all original data including confidential information. This segmentation allows the customer engineer to access only the necessary settings data in the work tenant while the client tenant remains isolated and secure.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent extracts only the necessary settings data from the client tenant to create a separate work tenant. This extraction process removes confidential information from the accessible scope of the customer engineer while preserving the complete client tenant structure for the client to access.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

2Ease of operation

If all tenant data is made accessible to customer engineers for comprehensive setting assistance, then ease of operation improves, but data security deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesetting assistance capabilityVSAvoiddata security

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments tenant data into a work tenant (containing only settings data for assistance) and a client tenant (containing all original data). This segmentation enables comprehensive setting assistance capability for the customer engineer while maintaining data security by restricting access to confidential information within the client tenant.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The work tenant acts as an intermediary between the customer engineer and the client tenant. It provides the necessary settings data for assistance operations while serving as a buffer that prevents direct access to confidential information stored in the client tenant.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS20250200216A1Setting assistance device, setting assistance method and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium encoded with setting assistance program

Publication Date: 2025.06.19 KONICA MINOLTA INC

AI summary

A hardware processor included in a setting assistance device generates a work tenant including part of setting data defined by a preregistered client tenant, accepts update data obtained by adding, changing, or deleting data in the work tenant, and updates a client tenant with the update data.