US 7,139,775 B2Granted

Method and arrangement for providing an audit of a replica database

AssigneeSolid Information Technology Oy

InventorsTimo Hotti, Jarmo Parkkinen

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Abstract

The invention is in the area of distributed system and database security. The invention relates to a method and an arrangement for increasing the level of trust between a master and a replica database by allowing the master database to perform an “unpredictable” audit of the replica database whenever deemed appropriate by the master database. The master database may for example define and generate an audit application and send it to at least one replica database using push synchronization and force the replica database to perform the audit application. The master database may also prepare expected results of the audit of the replica database and store them for later verification. After auditing the replica database may synchronize the results of the audit back to the master database for verification. The information flow between the master and replica databases is advantageously encrypted in a secure manner.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A method for establishing an audit ofa database system comprising at least one first database and at least one second database, comprising the steps of:

at least one first database, said first database being an auditing database sending an audit request to at least one second database to force said at least one second database to perform an audit of contents of said at least one second database, said second database being a to be audited database,
based on contents of said first database, said first database preparing an expected results of the audit of the contents of said at least one second database,
said at least one second database executing at least one audit procedure based on data of said audit request,
said execution of said audit procedure producing, based on the contents of said at least one second database, a set of data items as a result data of said execution,
said at least one second database sendingsaid result data of said execution to said at least one first database, and
said at least one first database verifying said result data by comparing said result data with data from said expected results prepared by said first database, wherein,
said audit request comprises at least one of i) one data item and ii) a computer executable instruction.

4 more elements

An arrangement for establishing an audit to a database system comprising at least one first and at least one second databases, the arrangement comprising:

at least one first database, said first database being an auditing database, arranged to send an audit request to at least one second database to force said at least one second database to perform an audit of contents of said at least one second database,
based on contents of said first database, said first database preparing an expected results of the audit of the contents of said at least one second database,
said at least one second database arranged to execute at least one audit procedure based on data of said audit request, and arranged so that the execution of said audit procedure produces, based on the contents of said at least one second database, a set of data items as a result data of said execution,
said at least one second database arranged to send said result data of the execution to said at least one first database,
said at least one first database arranged to verify said result data by comparing said result data with data from said expected results prepared by said first database, wherein,
said audit request comprises at least one of i) one data item and ii) a computer executable instruction.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/985,028Filed 1 Nov 2001
Published: US 2003/0084073 A11 May 2003
Granted: 21 Nov 2006
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

G06F 16/275
Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system…:…
Y10S 707/99942
Database schema or data structure: manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
Y10S 707/99943
Database schema or data structure: generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
Y10S 707/99944
Database schema or data structure: object-oriented database structure