Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for providing insight into applicability of policies that authorize access to at least one service through application programming interface (API) calls by multiple users. The method receives at least one authorization policy that defines access to the service by the users, where the policy includes two or more access rules. The method identifies a subset of unnecessary access rules in the received policy, based on a set of contextual data that is associated with the users, and filters the received policy by removing the identified subset of unnecessary access rules. The method receives a query regarding access to the service from a particular set of one or more users, and uses the filtered policy to provide a response to the query that describes access to the service for the particular user set.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for limiting data passed between an application and a process virtual machine (VM) embedded in the application that authorizes API (Application Programming Interface) calls to the application. The method receives a policy code comprising references to a group of parameters. The method modifies the policy code to remove references in the policy code to a set of the parameters that are not used during evaluation of the policy. The method generates a set of binary instructions from the modified policy code, where the process VM does not use the set of parameters while executing the binary instructions to make an authorization decision for a particular API call.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for gaining insight into authorization policy enforcement for application programming interface (API) calls to at least one service that includes multiple resources. The method generates a permissions graph including nodes that represent the resources and multiple users, based on two or more received authorization policies that restrict access to the service for the users. The method receives a selection of a node that corresponds to a user, and in response to the received selection, modifies the graph to display connections between the node corresponding to the user and one or more nodes associated with resources of the service that the user is authorized to access based on the authorization policies.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for evaluating a policy for authorizing an API (Application Programming Interface) call to an application. Based on a first set of parameters available before receiving the API call, the method evaluates only a portion of the policy to produce a partially evaluated policy. The method stores the partially evaluated policy in a cache. The method then receives an API call to authorize, and determines whether the API call should be authorized by fully evaluating the policy, using the partially evaluated policy retrieved from the cache first storage, and a second set of parameters associated with the API call. The method responds to the API call with a policy decision based on the fully evaluated authorization policy.

Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a system for defining, distributing and enforcing policies for authorizing API (Application Programming Interface) calls to applications executing on one or more sets of associated machines (e.g., virtual machines, containers, computers, etc.) in one or more datacenters. This system has servers that act as a logically centralized resource for defining and storing policies and parameters for evaluating these policies. The servers enforce these policies and distribute the policies and parameters to policy-enforcing local agents that execute near the applications that process the API calls. From an associated application, a local agent receives API-authorization requests to determine whether API calls received by the application are authorized. In response to such a request, the local agent uses one or more parameters associated with the API call to identify a policy stored in its local policy storage to evaluate whether the API call should be authorized.

Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a system for defining, distributing and enforcing policies for authorizing API (Application Programming Interface) calls to applications executing on one or more sets of associated machines (e.g., virtual machines, containers, computers, etc.) in one or more datacenters. This system has servers that act as a logically centralized resource for defining and storing policies and parameters for evaluating these policies. The servers enforce these policies and distribute the policies and parameters to policy-enforcing local agents that execute near the applications that process the API calls. From an associated application, a local agent receives API-authorization requests to determine whether API calls received by the application are authorized. In response to such a request, the local agent uses one or more parameters associated with the API call to identify a policy stored in its local policy storage to evaluate whether the API call should be authorized.

Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a system for defining, distributing and enforcing policies for authorizing API (Application Programming Interface) calls to applications executing on one or more sets of associated machines (e.g., virtual machines, containers, computers, etc.) in one or more datacenters. This system has a set of one or more servers that acts as a logically centralized resource for defining and storing policies and parameters for evaluating these policies. The server set in some embodiments also enforces these API-authorizing policies. Conjunctively, or alternatively, the server set in some embodiments distributes the defined policies and parameters to policy-enforcing local agents that execute near the applications that process the API calls.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for distributing a set of parameters associated with policies for authorizing Application Programming Interface (API) calls to an application. For a previously stored hierarchical first document that comprises a first set of elements in a first hierarchical structure, the method receives a hierarchical update second document that comprises a second set of elements in a second hierarchical structure corresponding to the first hierarchical structure, wherein at least a subset of elements in the first and the second documents correspond to the set of parameters for evaluating API calls. The method receives a first set of hash values for elements of the first document that are not specified in the second document, and generates a second set of hash values for a set of elements specified in the second document. The method generates an overall hash for the second document by using the received first set of hash values and the generated second set of hash values.

Abstract: Some embodiments of the invention provide a system for defining, distributing and enforcing policies for authorizing API (Application Programming Interface) calls to applications executing on one or more sets of associated machines (e.g., virtual machines, containers, computers, etc.) in one or more datacenters. This system has a set of one or more servers that acts as a logically centralized resource for defining and storing policies and parameters for evaluating these policies. The server set in some embodiments also enforces these API-authorizing policies. Conjunctively, or alternatively, the server set in some embodiments distributes the defined policies and parameters to policy-enforcing local agents that execute near the applications that process the API calls. From an associated application, a local agent receives API-authorization requests to determine whether API calls received by the application are authorized.