We consider the distributed access enforcement problem for Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) systems. Such enforcement has become important with RBAC's increasing adoption, and the proliferation of data that needs to be protected. We provide a platform for assessing candidates for access enforcement in a distributed architecture for enforcement. The platform provides the ability to encode data structures and algorithms for enforcement, and to measure time-, space- and administrative efficiency. To validate our platform, we use it to compare the state of the art in enforcement, CPOL [6], with two other approaches, the directed graph and the access matrix [9, 10]. We consider encodings of RBAC sessions in each, and propose and justify a benchmark for the assessment. We conclude with the somewhat surprising observation that CPOL is not necessarily the most efficient approach for access enforcement in distributed RBAC deployments.

We consider the distributed access enforcement problem for Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) systems. Such enforcement has become important with RBAC's increasing adoption, and the proliferation of data that needs to be protected. We provide a platform for assessing candidates for access enforcement in a distributed architecture for enforcement. The platform provides the ability to encode data structures and algorithms for enforcement, and to measure time-, space- and administrative efficiency. To validate our platform, we use it to compare the state of the art in enforcement, CPOL [6], with two other approaches, the directed graph and the access matrix [9, 10]. We consider encodings of RBAC sessions in each, and propose and justify a benchmark for the assessment. We conclude with the somewhat surprising observation that CPOL is not necessarily the most efficient approach for access enforcement in distributed RBAC deployments.