Patent ID: 7467414

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an entitlement request from a downstream access control system seeking an entitlement permission; searching data relating to the downstream access control system and to a user associated with the request to provide details of the data in a customized format, wherein the searching of the data is performed in real-time via a search engine, retrieving the data, and matching the data with request information contained in the request; retrieving entitlement rules and roles from a metadata repository, the metadata repository includes metadata describing the entitlement rules and roles; matching the request information with the entitlement rules and roles and the metadata; granting the entitlement permission upon satisfaction of the entitlement rules and roles by the entitlement request; generating an audit trail of entitlement events by keeping track of the entitlement events relating to the granting of the entitlement permission, the audit trail having entitlement-related information, the tracking of the entitlement events including identifying missing information, the missing information is verified against the entitlement-related information being stored at a database, wherein the audit trail is further to perform one or more of track history of the user, identify the user, track updates to status of the user, and validate access-related information; tracking and maintaining data sources in real-time via an event tracker, wherein the data sources include the database; validating the granting of the entitlement request by accessing the audit trail; rejecting the entitlement permission upon dissatisfaction of the entitlement rules and roles by the entitlement request; and granting an exception to the downstream access control system, the exception comprises the downstream access control system submitting a second entitlement request to seek entitlement permission.