Client device systems and methods for providing secure access to application services and associated client data hosted by an internet coupled platform

• US 8,706,800 B1
• Filed: 12/21/2007
• Issued: 04/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Ahmed, Zahid N., Perkett, Richard, Saiyed, Junaid
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong, Lan-Dai T
• Application Number:
  US11/962,687
• Time in Patent Office: 2,314 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201, 709/202, 709/203, 709/217, 709/218
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/335 for accessing specific resources, e.g. using Kerberos tickets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/629 to features or functions of an application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/468 Specific access rights for resources, e.g. using capability register
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0807 using tickets, e.g. Kerberos cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using tickets or tokens H04L9/3213

Abstract

An extensible servicing hosting platform is provided that supports the design, build and concurrent deployment of multiple web accessible services on a services hosting platform. The services hosting platform comprises a services hosting framework capable of hosting multiple service applications, each of which may be shared by multiple tenants that each customize their use of a particular application service by extending the application service to exploit run time platform services within a service execution pipeline. The services hosting framework may easily be leveraged by applications to decrease the time associated with developing, deploying and maintaining high quality services in a cost effective manner.

Claims

1. A network system, comprising:

a plurality of client devices coupled to a services hosting platform via a network;

an application invocation framework stored in a computer readable memory and executable by at least one processor of the services hosting platform, the application invocation framework comprising at least one entry point to a sharable instance of an application service, the application service hosted by the services hosting platform for use by the plurality of client devices, wherein the application invocation framework is used to augment the sharable instance of the application service for each of the plurality of client devices via the selective invocation of at least one security platform service to secure content stored by the services hosting platform on behalf of each of the plurality of client devices, wherein the sharable instance of the application service and the at least one security platform service form a services extension pipeline in which the application invocation framework selectively invokes the at least one security platform service to augment the sharable instance of the application service based on a security requirement of each respective one of the plurality of client devices accessing the sharable instance of the application service, and wherein the at least one security platform service secures the content for each of the plurality of client devices in accordance with respective policies and security credentials corresponding to each respective one of the plurality of client devices;

wherein the application invocation framework further include a client side agent that comprises a lockbox service for storing encryption keys retrieved from a key management service of the application services framework for the particular client device;

wherein a key stored by the lockbox service is used by a plurality of different sharable services invoked by at least one of the plurality of client devices.

2. The network system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of client devices is a virtual client.

3. The network system of claim 1, wherein at least two of the plurality of client devices use different transport or messaging technology to access the services hosting platform.

4. The network system of claim 1, wherein the application invocation framework further includes at least one of a service related stub, a client side handler, a client execution pipeline, a client side agent and messaging and transport services.

5. The network system of claim 4, wherein the client side agent comprises an error logging service for logging errors associated with the application service and for prompt reporting of the errors to the hosting services platform.

6. The network system of claim 4, wherein the client execution pipeline accesses one or more entry points associated with an application service in order and wherein at least one of the entry points includes an entry point to a client side handler.

7. The network system of claim 6, wherein the client side handler comprises program code which is downloaded from the services hosting platform for an associated service.

8. The network system of claim 7, wherein the client side handler performs at least one of a de-duplication service, an indexing service and a compression service.

9. The network system of claim 8, wherein an indexing client side handler includes a schema downloaded from the services hosting platform.

10. The network system of claim 1, wherein a key stored by the lockbox service is used by a plurality of different sharable services invoked by at least one of the plurality of client devices.

11. The network system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sharable services are selected from a group include storage, backup and recovery and archiving services.

12. The network system of claim 1, wherein at least one additional platform service of a plurality of additional platform services is further accessible to augment the application service, the plurality of additional platform services including:

tenant lifecycle management (TLM), order management, service level management (SLM), Ticket Management, usage tracking, billing, development, deployment, event logging, problem detection root cause analysis, messaging, logical routing, policy management and component repository storage.