Transactional sealed storage
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsNiels T. Ferguson, Stacy N. Stonich
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A transactional sealed storage system enables data to be accessed according to transactional properties and also enables access to the data to be restricted to secured applications. The transactional properties according to which the data may be accessed may include, for example, at least some levels of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability. The access to the data may be restricted by, for example, employing a double layer security policy that involves encrypting the data and also authenticating any application that requests access to the encrypted data.
Claims13
A transactional storage system comprising:
- an underlying transactional data collection that is accessed according to transactional properties, the underlying transactional data collection residing in a database and comprising an unsealed portion and a sealed portion;
- and
- a single unified data manager that provides access to the underlying transactional data collection,
- wherein the single unified data manager restricts access to the sealed portion such that the sealed portion is only accessible by at least one secured application;
- and
- wherein the single unified data manager provides access to the underlying transactional data collection, including both the sealed portion and the unsealed portion, according to the transactional properties.
A method for regulating access to data, the method comprising:
- receiving, in a computer system, a request from an application to access the data, the data being stored in one of an unsealed portion and a sealed portion of a data collection;
- if the data is stored in the sealed portion, using the computer system to determine whether the application is a secured application;
- if the application is a secured application, then providing the application with access to the data according to transactional properties administered by a single unified data manager;
- and
- if the application is not a secured application, then denying the request;
- and
- if the data is stored in the unsealed portion, then providing the application with access to the data according to the transactional properties administered by the single unified data manager that also administers the sealed portion,
- wherein the single unified data manager both restricts access to the sealed portion such that the sealed portion is only accessible by at least one secured application and also provides access to the data collection according to transactional properties.
A computer readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computer system, cause the computer system to perform operations comprising:
- receiving, in the computer system, a request from an application to access data, the data being stored in one of an unsealed portion and a sealed portion of a data collection;
- if the data is stored in the sealed portion, using the computer system to determine whether the application is a secured application;
- if the application is a secured application, then providing the application with access to the data according to transactional properties administered by a single unified data manager that both restricts access to the sealed portion and also provides access to the data collection according to transactional properties;
- and
- if the application is not a secured application, then denying the request;
- and
- if the data is stored in the unsealed portion, then providing the application with access to the data according to the transactional properties administered by the single unified data manager that also administers the sealed portion,
- wherein the single unified data manager both restricts access to the sealed portion such that the sealed portion is only accessible by at least one secured application and also provides access to the data collection according to the transactional properties.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.