Architectural approaches to secure databases

  • Authors:

  • H. Rex Hartson

  • Affiliations:

  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGSMALL Newsletter
  • Year:
  • 1980

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Abstract

The functional requirements of secure database systems, and underlying security mechanisms needed to support these requirements impose the need for these very general characteristics in a system design: modularity, simplicity, isolatability, and flexibility. It has been observed MANOF77 that thus far the solutions to data security problems have largely been ad hoc and brute force. A view that can stand back and consider the entire system architecture, rather than concentrating on tuning up individual mechanisms, offers hope for more elegant solutions in the future. Perhaps the single most important conclusion of this report is, not to suggest a solution or a particular system, but to recommend a direction and an approach. The bulk of the evidence and information that went into the making of this report points toward system architecture approaches as the most effective way to satisfy the increasingly complex and often competing requirements. In fact, it appears to be the only approach in which the design of such large systems can be understood and believed to be secure.