Systems and methods for managing database authentication and sessions
View Patent ↗Systems and methods enable remote (or “off-campus”) users complete authorized access to full-record content of 3rd-party databases subscribed to by the user's institution. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system that acts as a transparent conduit between the user and a remote database, managing relevant session/context information without the user's awareness and without the need for users to install plug-ins or configure browser proxies.
1. A database authentication and session management system that manages authorization and session for a user to access and search a plurality of databases, including:
at least one processor;
a memory embedded with computer instructions that are executed by the at least one processor, the executed computer instructions perform steps comprising:
bundling authentication and functional session context information for each of the plurality of databases in response to a search request, wherein the bundled packaged authentication and functional session context information includes log-in information and session information, the bundled authentication and functional session context information is unique to a user session and each database returning search results corresponding to the search request, and is associated with any full-record URLs targeted to each database;
transferring the bundled authentication and functional session context information of each of the plurality of databases, along with a target URL associated with the database, to a session manager for management of a full-record native database session for each of the plurality of databases associated with the target URL;
reconstructing and managing the user session for each of the plurality of databases associated with the corresponding target URL within the session manager, using the authentication and functional session context information that enables full-record access to each of the plurality of databases associated with the corresponding target URL without re-authenticating or backtracking within a session dialog.
2. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein the executed computer instruction further logging session-context-sensitive incidents of user activity within the plurality of databases.
3. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein the authorization and session is managed in manner that occurs transparently and automatically from a perspective of the user.
4. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein a plurality of disparate authorization and session is managed.
5. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein the transferring occurs transparently to the user.
6. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein the executed computer instructions further perform:
automatically compensating for user/database browser mismatches and diagnosing user session malfunctions caused by network configuration problems, firewall configuration problems, and proxy problems.
7. The database authentication and session management system of claim 1 , wherein
the plurality of databases is queried via a search interface;
the search request is received from the search interface in an access manager;
user authentication is performed by the access manager;
access information and session information is obtained for each of the plurality of databases via the access manager;
a search of the plurality of databases corresponding to the search request is performed via the access manager;
search results from the plurality of databases are parsed via the access manager, wherein the search results includes target URLs in the bundled authentication and functional session context information;
a selected search result is received in a context manager;
the bundled authentication and functional session context information and target URLs are parsed by the context manager;
the bundled authentication and functional session context information is stored in an internal database of the context manager;
data in the plurality of database is requested and obtained via the context manager; and
a virtual native database dialog is presented in a search result interface, wherein the virtual native database dialog appears to be the native content of the database corresponding to the selected search result.