System and method for enforcing role membership removal requirements

1. A computer-implemented method for enforcing role membership removal requirements in a role-based system, the method comprising:

responsive to receipt of a removal request, performing a role evaluation of the removal request to generate a policy request, wherein the performing a role evaluation is executed by a computer-implemented role manager, and the policy request is associated with the removal request;

performing a policy evaluation of the policy request;

generating a policy response in accordance with the policy evaluation; and

enforcing the policy response, wherein the policy response is responsive to the removal request and includes doing nothing or doing at least one action;

wherein the performing a role evaluation, performing a policy evaluation, generating, and enforcing are all performed by a computer and further comprises checking for applicable conditions based on a role relationship, wherein the relationship is defined by at least one of a nested group and an aggregation.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the performing a role evaluation comprises checking for at least one of identity information changes affecting role membership, changes in role relationships, negative permission conditions, system privilege reduction conditions, and arbitrary user-supplied conditions.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the performing a policy evaluation is executed by a computer-implemented policy manager.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the performing a policy evaluation comprises at least one of retrieving an applicable policy, combining multiple policy statements, forming a new policy statement, selectively enforcing a policy statement, and forming a policy statement using an intermediate result.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the generating a policy response comprises at least one of doing nothing, formulating a command, creating a document, calling a function, calling an external system, describing a role information change, describing a policy change, and requesting a procedure.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the enforcing a policy response comprises at least one of doing nothing, allowing an action, denying an action, transforming the removal request, transforming the policy request, reporting a status, creating a record, executing a function, calling an external function, calling an external system, changing role information, changing a policy, performing a procedure, and effecting a user-specified procedure.

7. A system for enforcing role membership removal requirements in a role-based system, the system comprising:

means for managing role information,

means for associating at least one policy with the role information,

means for receiving a removal request related to the role information, the policy is associated with the removal request;

means for enforcing at least one policy in response to the removal request, including doing nothing or doing at least one action;

means for evaluating a removal request by checking for applicable conditions based on a role relationship, wherein the relationship is defined by at least one of a nested group and an aggregation;

means for generating a policy request; and

means for evaluating at least one policy in response to the policy request.