APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR ESTABLISHING A REUSABLE AND RECONFIGURABLE MODEL FOR FAST AND PERSISTENT CONNECTIONS IN DATABASE DRIVERS

• US 20080263653A1
• Filed: 04/17/2007
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LinkedIn Corporation (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ostler, Paul A., Lee, Bilung, Gao, Huaxin
• Granted Patent: US 7,770,214 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32

Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method for establishing a reusable and reconfigurable trusted connection within a trusted context. The invention enhances interoperability with any existing authentication methods including the Kerberos, the DCE, and a combination of a user name and a password. The present invention includes common interfaces in a database driver for a middleware server to obtain a trusted connection. The invention enhances trusted context interoperability by allowing different types of trusted connections such as a normal connection, a pooled connection, or even a distribution transaction connection. The database driver generates unique identifiable information once a trusted connection is authenticated that can be utilized to reuse and reconfigure the trusted connection without re-authentication. The present invention allows various types of trusted connections to be established through any authentication mechanisms and allows those trusted connections to be reused and reconfigured, even by a different client, in a fast and persistent way.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a reusable and reconfigurable connection within a trusted context, the method comprising:

requesting utilizing a set of connection retrieval interfaces to generate a trusted connection request associated with a trusted context between a client application and a data server the trusted connection request specifying one of a normal connection, a pooled connection, and a distribution transaction connection, the set of connection retrieval interfaces configured to be interoperable with the trusted context to selectively establish each of at least a normal connection, a pooled connection, and a distribution transaction connection;

utilizing an authentication module to request authentication of the client application to the data server by utilizing one of a Kerberos protocol, a distributed environment (DCE) protocol, and a user name and password, the authentication module configured to be interoperable with the trusted context to selectively utilize each of a Kerberos authentication protocol a DCE protocol and a user name and password;

establishing a trusted connection in response to receiving an acknowledgment from the server of the trusted connection;

saving unique identifiable information regarding the trusted connection in a persistent storage such that the connection may be reused without re-authentication;

reusing the trusted connection without re-authentication based on the unique identifiable information;

utilizing a set of reconfiguration interfaces to reconfigure the trusted connection without re-authentication based on the unique identifiable information the set of reconfiguration interfaces configured to enable a currently connected client application to selectively request changes to one or more reconfigurable properties of the trusted connection the changes in the properties of the trusted connection changing the functionality of the trusted connection for the currently connected client application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more reconfigurable properties comprise one or more of a timeout locking threshold a username encryption type a trace file path, and a read/write property.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more reconfigurable properties comprise each of a timeout locking threshold a username encryption type a trace file path, and a read/write property.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein authenticating the client application to the data server utilizes an authentication protocol programmatically defined as one of a Kerberos authentication protocol and a DCE authentication protocol.

5-21. -21. (canceled)

22. A method for making a computer implemented process for establishing a reusable and reconfigurable connection within a trusted context, the method comprising:

instantiating first computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the first instructions configured to define a trusted context between a data server comprising at least one processor and a memory and a middleware server comprising at least one processor and a memory;

instantiating second computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the second instructions configured to utilize a set of connection retrieval interfaces to retrieve a trusted connection within the trusted context for communication with the data server, the trusted connection programmatically defined as one of a normal connection, a pooled connection, and a distribution transaction connection, the set of connection retrieval interfaces configured to be interoperable with the trusted context to selectively establish each of at least a normal connection a pooled connection and a distribution transaction connection;

instantiating third computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the third instructions configured to utilize authentication module to authenticate the trusted connection via an authentication mechanism using an authentication protocol programmatically defined as one of a Kerberos authentication protocol, a DCE authentication protocol, a user-defined authentication protocol, and a combination of a user name and a password the authentication module configured to be interoperable with the trusted context to selectively utilize each of a Kerberos authentication protocol a DCE protocol a user-defined protocol and a user name and password;

instantiating fourth computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the fourth instructions configured to generate and store unique identifiable information regarding the trusted connection in a persistent storage; and

instantiating fifth computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the fifth instructions configured to enable reuse of the trusted connection without re-authentication based on the unique identifiable information.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising instantiating sixth computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the sixth instructions configured to enable reconfiguration of the trusted connection without re-authentication.

24. The method of claim 22, further comprising further instantiating sixth computer instructions onto a computer readable medium, the sixth instructions configured to enable reconfiguration the trusted connection with re-authentication.