The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 25, 2016
Filed:
Aug. 18, 2014
Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc, Redmond, WA (US);
Himanshu Raj, Issaquah, WA (US);
Stefan Saroiu, Redmond, WA (US);
Alastair Wolman, Seattle, WA (US);
Paul England, Bellevue, WA (US);
Anh M. Nguyen, Urbana, IL (US);
Shravan Rayanchu, Madison, WI (US);
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
In a cloud computing environment, a production server virtualization stack is minimized to present fewer security vulnerabilities to malicious software running within a guest virtual machine. The minimal virtualization stack includes support for those virtual devices necessary for the operation of a guest operating system, with the code base of those virtual devices further reduced. Further, a dedicated, isolated boot server provides functionality to securely boot a guest operating system. The boot server is isolated through use of an attestation protocol, by which the boot server presents a secret to a network switch to attest that the boot server is operating in a clean mode. The attestation protocol may further employ a secure co-processor to seal the secret, so that it is only accessible when the boot server is operating in the clean mode.