Smart translation of generic configurations

• US 20050091068A1
• Filed: 10/23/2003
• Published: 04/28/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Jennifer Fu, Sundaresan Ramamoorthy
• Original Assignee: Jennifer Fu, Sundaresan Ramamoorthy
• Inventors: Fu, Jennifer, Ramamoorthy, Sundaresan
• Application Number:
  US10/690,605
• Publication Number:
  US 20050091068A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/022 Multivendor or multi-standard integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management

Abstract

System and method for implementing a policy in a network, the network having a device-agnostic policy implementation; a plurality of network devices, at least two of the devices being dissimilar; and a plurality of device translators, each device translator corresponding to a respective one of the plurality of network devices, at least two of the device translators being dissimilar, each of the plurality of device translators translating the device-agnostic policy implementation into corresponding device-specific implementations.

Claims

1. A system for implementing a policy in a network, said system comprising:

a device-agnostic policy implementation;

a plurality of network devices, at least two of said devices being dissimilar; and

a plurality of device translators, each device translator corresponding to a respective one of said plurality of network devices, at least two of said device translators being dissimilar, each of said plurality of device translators translating said device-agnostic policy implementation into corresponding device-specific implementations.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said device-agnostic policy implementation is selected from the group consisting of firewall, Virtual Private Network, Java 2 Enterprise Edition Application, and custom operating system.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said device-agnostic policy implementation implements a policy selected from the group consisting of access control, quality of service, backup, and availability.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said device translators are represented by Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) code.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein said device-agnostic policy implementation is Extensible Markup Language (XML) code.

6. The system according to claim 3, wherein said policy is represented by Extensible Markup Language (XML) code.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the device-specific implementation is represented by Command Line Interface (CLI) code.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the device-specific implementation is represented by Application Programming Interface (API) code.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the device-specific implementation is represented by Java code.

10. A method comprising:

representing a vendor-agnostic configuration;

building a translator for a specific policy and vendor;

identifying a device;

loading said translator; and

translating said vendor-agnostic configuration into vendor-specific configuration using said translator.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said vendor-agnostic configuration is represented by Extensible Markup Language (XML) code.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein said translator is represented by Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) code.

13. The system according to claim 10, wherein said specific policy is selected from the group consisting of firewall, Virtual Private Network, Java 2 Enterprise Edition Application, and custom operating system.

14. The system according to claim 10, wherein said specific policy is selected from the group consisting of access control, quality of service, backup, and availability.

15. The system according to claim 10, wherein the vendor-specific configuration is represented by Command Line Interface (CLI) code.

16. The system according to claim 10, wherein the vendor-specific configuration is represented by Application Programming Interface (API) code.

17. The system according to claim 10, wherein the vendor-specific configuration is represented by Java code.

18. A computer readable medium containing instructions for implementing a policy in a computer network, said instructions comprising:

representing a vendor-agnostic configuration;

building a translator for a specific policy and vendor;

identifying a device;

loading said translator; and

translating said vendor-agnostic configuration into vendor-specific configuration using said translator.