6. Roles and Entities

6. Roles and Entities

An entity in the RATS architecture includes at least one of the roles defined in this document.

An entity can aggregate more than one role into itself, such as being both a Verifier and a Relying Party or being both a Reference Value Provider and an Endorser. As such, any conceptual messages (see Section 8 for more discussion) originating from such roles might also be combined. For example, Reference Values might be conveyed as part of an appraisal policy if the Verifier Owner and Reference Value Provider roles are combined. Similarly, Reference Values might be conveyed as part of an Endorsement if the Endorser and Reference Value Provider roles are combined.

Interactions between roles aggregated into the same entity do not necessarily use the Internet Protocol. Such interactions might use a loopback device or other IP-based communication between separate environments, but they do not have to. Alternative channels to convey conceptual messages include function calls, sockets, General-Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) interfaces, local buses, or hypervisor calls. This type of conveyance is typically found in composite devices. Most importantly, these conveyance methods are out of scope of the RATS architecture, but they are presumed to exist in order to convey conceptual messages appropriately between roles.

In essence, an entity that combines more than one role creates and consumes the corresponding conceptual messages as defined in this document.