Secure search performance improvement

• US 8,332,430 B2
• Filed: 02/28/2007
• Issued: 12/11/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Koide, Hiroshi, Ture, Mark, Krishnaprasad, Muralidhar, Davis, Mark, Hsin, Cindy, Bhavsar, Meeten, Yang, Steve Chi-Ming, Nimani, Visar, Ouyang, Hui, Bhatkar, Sachin, Chang, Thomas, Baby, Thomas, Liao, Ciya
• Primary Examiner(s): Perveen, Rehana
• Assistant Examiner(s): BUI, THUY T
• Application Number:
  US11/680,571
• Publication Number:
  US 20070208746A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,113 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/783, 707/709, 707/711, 707/714
• US Class Current: 707/783
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6236 between heterogeneous systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0815 providing single-sign-on or federations

Abstract

A flexible and extensible architecture allows for secure searching across an enterprise. Such an architecture can provide a simple Internet-like search experience to users searching secure content inside (and outside) the enterprise. The architecture allows for the crawling and searching of a variety of sources across an enterprise, regardless of whether any of these sources conform to a conventional user role model. The architecture further allows for security attributes to be submitted at query time, for example, in order to provide real-time secure access to enterprise resources. The user query also can be transformed to provide for dynamic querying that provides for a more current result list than can be obtained for static queries.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of improving performance for a secure search, comprising:

generating indexing information for a document of a plurality of documents, the indexing information comprising information about content of the document and information about security access requirements for accessing the document;

wherein the information about security access requirements comprises a set of document authorization attributes;

wherein the set of document authorization attributes comprises an access control list, and the access control list comprises one or more access control list entries;

wherein each document of the plurality of documents is associated with at least one application of a plurality of applications, wherein the at least one application provides access to said each document when the security access requirements are met;

storing in an index, the indexing information generated for the document;

receiving a set of user identity attributes and a query on behalf of a user, the query including a set of search keywords;

wherein an identity management system is used to determine the set of user identity attributes;

in response to the query, using the index to identify a set of identified documents, wherein for each document in the set of identified documents;

a) the information about the content of said each document includes one or more keywords of the set of search keywords; and

b) the user identity attributes meet the security access requirements;

wherein said each identified document is determined to be accessible to the user based on the set of document authorization attributes stored in the index without further contacting said at least one application that provides secure access to said each identified document;

returning search results based on the set of identified documents;

wherein the search results are returned in rank order based on the relevance of each search result to the query.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the set of document authorization attributes comprises zero or more attributes, each attribute corresponding to one or more attribute values; and

an attribute value corresponding to at least one attribute of the set of document authorization attributes specifies at least one of a group, role, or project associated with the user.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein:

an attribute of the set of document authorization attributes is one of a grant or a deny attribute.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the attribute value comprises a global universal identifier (GUID).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one access control list entry of the one or more access control list entries includes a user identifier or a user role identifier.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one access control list entry of the one or more access control list entries includes a user group identifier or project identifier.

7. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising:

instructions for generating indexing information for a document of a plurality of documents, the indexing information comprising information about content of the document and information about security access requirements for accessing the document;

wherein the information about security access requirements comprises a set of document authorization attributes;

wherein the set of document authorization attributes comprises an access control list, and the access control list comprises one or more access control list entries;

wherein each document of the plurality of documents is associated with at least one application of a plurality of applications, wherein the at least one application provides secure access to said each document when the security access requirements are met;

instructions for storing in an index, the indexing information generated for the document ;

instructions for receiving a set of user identity attributes and a query on behalf of a user, the query including a set of search keywords;

wherein an identity management system is used to determine the set of user identity attributes;

instructions for using the index, in response to the query, to identify a set of identified documents, wherein for each document in the set of identified documents;

a) the information about the content of said each document includes one or more keywords of the set of search keywords; and

b) the user identity attributes meet the security access requirements;

wherein said each identified document is determined to be accessible to the user based on the set of document authorization attributes stored in the index without further contacting said at least one application that provides secure access to said each identified document;

instructions for returning search results based on the set of identified documents;

wherein the instructions cause the computer to return the search results in rank order based on the relevance of each search result to the query.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium according to claim 7, wherein:

the set of document authorization attributes comprises zero or more attributes, each attribute corresponding to one or more attribute values; and

an attribute value corresponding to at least one attribute of the set of document authorization attributes specifies at least one of a group, role, or project associated with the user.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium according to claim 8, wherein:

an attribute of the set of document authorization attributes is one of a grant or a deny attribute.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the attribute value comprises a global universal identifier (GUID).

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein at least one access control list entry of the one or more access control list entries includes a user identifier or a user role identifier.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein at least one access control list entry of the one or more access control list entries includes a user group identifier or project identifier.