Patent ID: 7200865
Filing Date: 2007-04-03
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of managing communications between service components in a computing environment, the computing environment comprising an interconnection system, an entity external to the interconnection system and communicatively linked with the interconnection system, and a plurality of processing nodes interconnected by the interconnection system, each of the service components having a respective identity, the method comprising: assigning to each service component a respective trustworthiness measure and a respective criticality measure; for each service component, using the trustworthiness and criticality measures assigned to the service component so as to determine one or more of the processing nodes onto which the service component should be programmed; programming each service component onto the one or more processing nodes determined to be the one or more processing nodes onto which the service component should be programmed; based on the identity of at least one of the service components, establishing access-control logic restricting inter-node communication involving the at least one service component; programming the external entity with the access-control logic; at the external entity, receiving from the interconnection system a signal indicating detection of an attempted inter-node communication involving the at least one service component; in response to receiving the signal, the external entity providing at least a portion of the access-control logic to the interconnection system; and applying the access-control logic provided to the interconnection system, to block the attempted inter-node communication involving the at least one service component, wherein the trustworthiness measure for each service component represents an assessment of a potential threat the service component poses to other objects, and wherein the criticality measure for each service component represents a measure of concern for what the other objects may do to the service component.