US 7,249,176 B1Granted

Managing user access of distributed resources on application servers

AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.

InventorsJonathan C. Salas, Sanjeev Radhakrishnan

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Abstract

A method and system to manage user access to resources and computing tasks on servers located on a network. The preferred embodiments of this system would enable a resource provider to manager user access to resources based on user specific criteria and resource specific criteria. The invention creates user associated access session(s) and generates tokens corresponding to such access session(s) to allow user access. The system is able to manage any type or any combination of licensing criteria, to manage different licensing criteria associated with the same user, to manage different licensing criteria associated with the same resource, and to manage different licensing relationship among users and resources. The system is scalable as additional sets of license managers can be added to manage additional users and resources. Optionally, secondary access sessions are provided to users to allow for completion of a current task when initial access session(s) are depleted.

Claims16

Dependent claims

An apparatus, comprising:

a client coupled, via a network, to a plurality of resources, wherein said plurality of resources is located on an application server;
and
a system configured to control access to said plurality of resources, the system including:
a database configured to store a first license policy type, a second license policy type, a first policy instance, and a second policy instance, wherein the first policy instance is generated using the first license policy type and a first user specific parameter and the second policy instance is generated using the second policy type and a second user specific parameter, wherein the first user specific parameter and the second user specific parameter are associated with a same user;
a license manager configured to generate a token using the following steps:
creating a first sub-token using the first policy instance;
creating a second sub-token using the second policy instance;
and
combining the first sub-token and the second sub-token to generate the token,
wherein the token enables the user to access one of said plurality of resources;
and
a token monitor configured to initiate and terminate access to said one of said plurality of resources according to said token, wherein the token monitor is located on said application server.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.