A Consistency Model for Identity Information in Distributed Systems

In distributed IT systems, replication of information is commonly used to strengthen the fault tolerance on a technical level or the autonomy of an organization on a business level. In particular, information related to the identity of a user, which is used to authorize service access, is often replicated for these reasons. To ensure correct authorization decisions, replicas have to be kept consistent. However, an appropriate definition of "consistency" is required that takes into account the need for the following aspects: (i) semantic and causal relations between identity information, and (ii) temporal aspects with respect to an acceptable duration of the dissemination of occurring attribute changes. Both identity-information specifics and temporal aspects are not addressed sufficiently by existing consistency models. In this paper we introduce a consistency model for identity information in distributed systems named ID-consistency. IDconsistency is based on a formalization...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: COMPSAC
• Authors: Thorsten Höllrigl, Jochen Dinger, Hannes Hartenstein
• Keywords: Causal Relations, COMPSAC 2010, Identity Information, Software Engineering, Temporal Aspects