Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Wei-qiang Guo

Yordan Ivanov Rouskov

Rui Chen

Lynn Ayres

Sarah Faulkner

Lin Huang

Vikas Rajvanshy

Vaishali De

Geoffrey John Hulten

Lei Sun

Murali R Krishnan

Neelamadhaba Mahapatro

Patrick Simek

Kok Wai Chan

Balinder Malhi

Kyle Stapley Young

Ankur Jauhari

Le Chang

Randy David Thomson

Corey Roussel

Sean Lamont Grant Livingston

Ramu Movva

Orville Charles McDonald

Fuyuan Bie

Brad Smith

Dylan Thomas Nunley

Ajay Wadhawan

Jacek T Dudziak

Guilherme Rodrigues Nogueira De Souza

In one embodiment, a network file management systemmay use a persistent metadata storeand an access control listto facilitate a batch rollout. The network file management systemmay maintain a content database. A network file management systemmay store a metadata set for the content databasein a separate persistent metadata store

Large scale network system upgrade

A federated realm discovery system within a federation determines a 'home' realm associated with a portion of the user's credentials before the user's secret information (such as a password) is passed to a non-home realm. A login user interface accepts a user identifier and, based on the user identifier, can use various methods to identify an account authority service within the federation that can authenticate the user. In one method, a realm list of the user device can be used to direct the login to the appropriate home realm of the user. In another method, an account authority service in a non-home realm can look up the user's home realm and provide realm information directing the user device to login at the home realm.

Federated realm discovery

Authentication is widely used to protect consumer data and computing services, such as email, document storage, and online banking. Current authentication models, such as those employed by online identity providers, may have limited options and configurations for authentication schemes. Accordingly, as provided herein, a model based authentication scheme may be configured based upon a policy and/or an authentication mechanism list. The policy may define the target resource, a user, a group the user belongs to, devices used to connect to the target resource, a service owning the target resource, etc. The authentication mechanism list may comprise predefined authentication mechanisms and/or user plug-in authentication mechanisms (e.g., user created authentication mechanism). Once the authentication scheme is configured, it may be enforced upon authentication requests from a user. Feedback may be provided to the user based upon patterns of usage of the target resource.

Model based multi-tier authentication

Techniques and systems are disclosed that can measure capacity of a server farm, and project capacity needs based on traffic and resources. Server farm system information is collected for managing the server farm by identifying a list of servers in the server farm. Performance metrics are collected from identified servers and stored in a collection database. The stored performance metrics are analyzed in accordance with a server farm management request.

Server farm management

A centralized account reputation system differentiates between illegitimate users and legitimate users using reputation scores associated with the users' online accounts. The system restricts the access of illegitimate users to certain network services while minimizing its negative effects on legitimate users. The system can manage the life cycle of an online account, considering data about the account that is obtained throughout the account network to compute the online account reputation score and allocating access to network services based on the online account reputation score. For example, a reputation score may be embedded in a security token that can be accessed by multiple services on the account network, so that each service can determine the appropriate level of access to be granted to the associated user account based on the reputation score. Various types of online account behavior over time can improve or diminish the online account's reputation.

Centralized account reputation

A device identifier (ID) is used across enterprise boundaries. A user can use the device ID to publish a device for sharing with other remote users. The remote users can discover devices that are shared by other users based on device IDs, connect to a selected device, and then verify that they have connected to the correct device based on its device ID. An account authority service may be used to manage the publication and/or discovery of the shared devices and their device IDs.

Device-specific identity

A transaction handling system and associated method are described for handling transactions based on a plurality of rule sets that apply to point sets (where the point sets contain points that can be consumed for goods and services, or have some other end-use connotation). Namely, the rule sets can be associated with respective point lots to define the characteristics and behavior of the respective point lots. For example, one rule in an applied rule set can determine whether a consumer is permitted to make a purchase without having sufficient points in the consumer's point lot, thus incurring a negative balance in the point lot. Another rule (e.g., a sandbox rule) can determine whether the consumer is permitted to use points only within a limited identified environment, or whether the consumer can use the points in any environment. An override rule set can override a default rule set on an individual account basis or on an individual consumer basis. Upon a transaction that affects a point lot, the transaction handling system can log the transaction in a record that is associated with the point lot.

Strategies for handling transactions based on policies

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Wei-qiang Guo