Architectures for MLS Database Management Systems
LouAnna Notargiacomo · 2006
This essay presents a survey of the basic architectures that have been used in the research and development of trusted relational database management systems (DBMSs). While various approaches have been tried for special-purpose systems, the architectures presented here are those developed for general-purpose trusted DBMS products. In addition, this essay presents research approaches proposed for new trusted DBMS architectures, although worked examples of these approaches may not exist in all cases. While recent research has begun on the development of trusted DBMSs based on object-oriented models [JAJO90a, KEEF89, LUNT89], and a study was completed to design and prototype a trusted DBMS using the entity-relationship model [LEFK89], the majority of research and development efforts are based on the relational data model. This survey describes architectures that use the relational model. Although this survey attempts to include all documented architectures, the scope is limited to information in the public domain. This survey presents architectures in their abstract form. This includes the definition of each component of the architecture, and a description of the relationships and flow of information between each component. The survey then presents a discussion of the benefits of the architecture in meeting mandatory and discretionary security requirements as well as preserving data integrity, followed by a presentation of known problems introduced by each approach.