Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Christopher Warner McCarron

Mark Fishel Novak

Nir Ben-Zvi

John Anthony Messec

Yevgeniy Anatolievich Samsonov

Varugis Kurien

Kinshumann

David Matthew Kruse

Anders Bertil Vinberg

Niels Thomas Ferguson

Marwan E Jubran

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Gershaft

Samartha Chandrashekar

Qiang Wang

Amitabh Prakash Tamhane

Ulrich Mueller

Kinshuman Kinshumann

Murari Sridharan

David Hepkin

Kevin Michael Broas

Allen Marshall

Narasimhan Agrahara Venkataramaiah

Mathew John

Yu-Shun Wang

Qi Cao

Nicholas Paul Duane

Siddharth Bhai

James J Simmons

Zhe (Jessie) Li

William S Jack, Iii

Richard Ciapala

Kenneth Nilsen

Methods, media, and systems for secure provisioning of servers within a cloud computing environment are provided for herein. In some embodiments, a management service can delegate provisioning of a server of the cloud computing environment to an imaging service. In response, the imaging service can generate an operating system image for the server and can utilize disk encryption to protect to operating system image. In embodiments, a volume encryption key of the disk encryption can be encrypted utilizing a public key of a trusted platform manager of the server, to produce an encrypted volume encryption key that is protected by the trusted platform module of the server. The encrypted operating system image and the encrypted volume encryption key can then be transmitted to the server to cause the server to be provisioned with the operating system image. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed herein.

Secure provisioning of operating systems

A virtual secure mode is enabled for a virtual machine operating in a computing environment that is associated with a plurality of different trust levels. First, a virtual secure mode image is loaded into one or more memory pages of a virtual memory space of the virtual machine. Then, the one or more memory pages of the virtual memory space are made inaccessible to one or more trust levels having a relatively lower trust level than a launching trust level that is used by a virtual secure mode loader to load the virtual secure mode image. A target virtual trust level is also enabled on a launching virtual processor for the virtual machine that is higher than the launching trust level.

Secure management of operations on protected virtual machines

Techniques for a recovery environment for a virtual machine are described herein. Generally, a recovery environment provides a secure environment in which a damaged virtual machine can undergo repair procedures without compromising the security of the damaged virtual machine. In at least some implementations, a recovery environment represents an instance of a virtual machine that is executed to wrap a damaged virtual machine to enable the damaged virtual machine to be repaired.

Recovery environment for a virtual machine

Booting a machine in a secure fashion in a potentially unsecure environment. The method includes a target machine beginning a boot process. The method further includes the target machine determining that it needs provisioning data to continue booting. The target machine contacts a secure infrastructure to obtain the provisioning data. The target machine provides an identity claim that can be verified by the secure infrastructure. As a result of the secure infrastructure verifying the identity claim, the target machine receives a request from the secure infrastructure to establish a key sealed to the target machine. The target machine provides the established key to the secure infrastructure. The target machine receives the provisioning data from the secure infrastructure. The provisioning data is encrypted to the established key. The target machine decrypts the encrypted provisioning data, and uses the provisioning data to finish booting.

Secure creation of encrypted virtual machines from encrypted templates

Obtaining a sealed secret. The method includes decrypting one or more BLOBs at a computing system from among a plurality of different BLOBs. Each of the BLOBs in the plurality of BLOBs contains the secret. Each of the BLOBs in the plurality of BLOBs is sealed to a different condition from among a plurality of conditions. A given condition is a reflection of a system state where the system state is indicative of whether or not the system can be trusted to receive the secret. The method further includes evaluating one or more of the conditions to determine if at least one of the one or more conditions is met. The method further includes, if at least one of the one or more conditions is met, then providing the secret to an external entity.

Preserving protected secrets across a secure boot update

A mechanism for performing a network boot sequence and provisioning a device may generate a command by a server and have the command executed by the device. The command may be used to verify the authenticity of the device, and may be used to establish ownership of the device. After authenticity and, in some cases ownership is established, bootable software may be downloaded and executed. The device may be provisioned with software applications.

Client authentication during network boot

Deploying an encrypted entity on a trusted entity is illustrated herein. A method includes, at a trusted entity, wherein the trusted entity is trusted by an authority as a result of providing a verifiable indication of certain characteristics of the trusted entity meeting certain requirements, receiving an encrypted entity from an untrusted entity. The untrusted entity is not trusted by the authority. At the trusted entity, a trust credential from the authority is used to obtain a key from a key distribution service. The key distribution service is trusted by the authority. The key is used to decrypt the encrypted entity to allow the encrypted entity to be deployed at the trusted entity.

Methods and apparatus are provided for controlling live migration of a virtual machine from a first host to a second host in a data center. A virtual machine manager may distribute to at least one host in a virtual network an updated mapping policy that maps a customer address of the virtual machine to a provider address of the migrated virtual machine. The updated mapping policy enables hosts in the virtual network to communicate with the migrated virtual machine. The updated mapping policy can be a shadow policy. The shadow policy is transmitted to hosts in the virtual network by the virtual machine manager before live migration of the virtual machine completes and is maintained by recipient hosts in an inactive state until triggered. The virtual machine manager notifies hosts in the virtual network to activate the shadow policy when live migration completes.

Virtual machine migration to minimize packet loss in virtualized network

A secure mechanism for performing a network boot sequence and provisioning a remote device may use a private key of a public key/private key encryption mechanism to generate a command by a server and have the command executed by the device. The command may be used to verify the authenticity of the remote device, and may be used to establish ownership of the device. After authenticity and, in some cases ownership is established, bootable software may be downloaded and executed. The remote device may be provisioned with software applications. One mechanism for performing the initial encrypted commands is through a Trusted Platform Module. In many embodiments, the public key for the initial encrypted communication may be provided through a trusted second channel.

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Hartford, CT, United States of America

Christopher Warner McCarron