Extending infrastructure security to services in a cloud computing environment

Abstract

A cloud deployment appliance (or other platform-as-a-service (IPAS) infrastructure software) includes a mechanism to deploy a product as a 'shared service' to the cloud, as well as to enable the product to establish a trust relationship between itself and the appliance or IPAS. The mechanism further enables multiple products deployed to the cloud to form trust relationships with each other (despite the fact that each deployment and each product typically, by the nature of the cloud deployment, are intended to be isolated from one another). In addition, once deployed and provisioned into the cloud, a shared service can become part of a single sign-on (SSO) domain automatically. SSO is facilitated using a token-based exchange. Once a product registers with a token service, it can participate in SSO. This approach enables enforcement of consistent access control policy across product boundaries, and without requiring a user to perform any configuration.