Event management for a remote network policy management system

• US 20030041139A1
• Filed: 08/13/2002
• Published: 02/27/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ENDFORCE, Inc. (Sophos Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: SmartPipes, Incorporated (Sophos Group Ltd.)
• Inventors: Bell, Raymond J., Russo, Kevin A., Emerick, William S., Mulh, Kenneth E., Beadles, Mark A.
• Application Number:
  US10/219,187
• Publication Number:
  US 20030041139A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

An event manager for a remote network management system. The event manager provides dynamic response for the purposes of controlling policy updates, generation and deployment. Dynamic events are used to communicate the fact that policy changes/updates/creations have occurred. In prior art systems, a user would simply make a data update, and then the system would retrieve the latest data from the data storage synchronously.

Claims

1. A method for managing policy for a network, comprising:

dynamically detecting a user input of a network policy description as an event; and

automatically generating a network policy responsive to said user input.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

dynamically detecting a change to said network policy description as an event; and

automatically regenerating said network policy responsive to said change.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

dynamically determining when a network policy should be deployed; and

configuring a device with said network policy responsive to said determining.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said automatically generating comprises:

creating a separate flat file for each device impacted by said network policy.

5. An event manager for a remote, modular network management system, comprising:

an event scheduler for scheduling events;

an event store for storing events;

an interface to a presentation module for receiving events indicating a timing for generating a network policy; and

an interface to a network policy generator for providing a network policy generating event.

6. The event manager of claim 5 further comprising:

an interface to a device plug-in module for providing events including a device configuration event and a policy deployment event.

7. The event manager of claim 5 wherein an event is not acknowledged by a module until said event is completed.

8. The event manager of claim 5 wherein each event includes:

a scheduled date and time for the event;

an expiration date and time for the event in the absence of an acknowledgment;

a generic global unique identification number to identify the event;

a replace event flag to indicate if a previously existing event should be replaced; and

a priority for the event.

9. An event manager for a remote, modular network management system, comprising:

an event scheduler for scheduling events;

an event store for storing events;

an interface to a presentation module for receiving events indicating a timing for generating a network policy;

an interface to a network policy generator for providing a network policy generating event; and

an interface to a device plug-in module for providing events including a device configuration event and a policy deployment event;

wherein an event is not acknowledged by a module until said event is completed.

wherein each event includes

a scheduled date and time for the event,

an expiration date and time for the event in the absence of an acknowledgment,

a generic global unique identification number to identify the event,

a replace event flag to indicate if a previously existing event should be replaced, and

a priority for the event.