International Business Machines Corporation

Robert R Gensler, Jr

Serban C Maerean

Christopher V Derobertis

Hemant R Suri

Felipe Knop

Myung Mun Bae

Michael Anthony Schmidt

John Robert Hare

Robert K Gardner

Johannes Sayre

Clarence B Parker, Jr

A system to improve communication security in cluster machine processing may include interconnected computers that can jointly process data. The system may also include a shared secret key used by each of the interconnected computers to encrypt, decrypt, and/or authenticate data being sent, or received, from one of the interconnected computers to another of the interconnected computers. The system may further include a new shared secret key used by each of the interconnected computers to encrypt, decrypt, and/or authenticate data being sent, or received, from one of the interconnected computers to another of the interconnected computers. In addition, the new shared secret key may coexist with the shared secret key without adversely affecting the joint processing of data performed by the plurality of interconnected computers.

Secure communications in computer cluster systems

Generic session keys are pre-generated and stored in a pool of session keys for later use in communicating within a communications environment. The session keys that are stored in the pool are pre-encrypted with the private key of the entity storing those keys. To communicate between entities, a pre-encrypted session key is extracted from the pool and then further encrypted with the destination entity's public key to ensure data integrity and data confidentiality. The encrypted key is then forwarded to the destination entity and used during communications between the two entities.

Pre-generation of generic session keys for use in communicating within communications environments

The problem of providing and interacting with a number of different security mechanisms in a clustered data processing environment is solved by providing a Mechanism Abstract Layer which presents a consistent interface to applications running on the various nodes within the cluster. Mechanism Pluggable Modules are provided for each security mechanism that one wishes to employ. The Pluggable Modules provide a mechanism for mapping individualized security mechanism parameters through an interface with the Mechanism Abstract Layer. This provides a consistent interface for applications running on the nodes and it also avoids costly adaptations that would otherwise be necessary to accommodate new security mechanisms or variations in prior security mechanisms.

Mechanism independent cluster security services

In a distributed computing environment having a plurality of processing nodes, a technique is presented for referencing failure information representative of multiple related failures. A first failure report is created upon detection of an initial failure condition in a first program running in the distributed computing environment. The first program failure report is assigned a first identifier which uniquely identifies the report. Upon detecting a second program failure condition at a second node which is related to the first program failure condition, a second program failure report is created by recording information on the second program failure condition. A second identifier is assigned to the second program failure report which uniquely identifies the second program failure report, including a reference to the first identifier for the first program failure report. Thus, the first program failure report can be retrieved using the first identifier after retrieval of the second program failure report using the second identifier. Reports on a chain of related program failure conditions can therefore be created and subsequently referenced.

Technique for referencing failure information representative of multiple related failures in a distributed computing environment

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Hyde Park, NY, United States of America

Robert R Gensler, Jr