Policy based system management

• US 20050172015A1
• Filed: 03/27/2003
• Published: 08/04/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Fisher, Michael A., Rana, Sohail P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,313 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• 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

A computer network comprises a plurality of components governed by policies from a policy manager (70). Where conflicts arise between policies, a conflict management policy (100) is inherent in the system and is implemented to detect and resolve such conflicts.

Claims

1. A computer network management system comprising a policy-based manager arranged to implement a conflict management policy at run time.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1 in which the policy-based manager comprises a distributed policy-based manager.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1 in which the conflict management policy manages conflicts between policies.

4. A system as claimed in claim 1 in which the conflict management policy includes conflict detection.

5. A system as claimed in claim 4 in which a conflict is detected if a network event triggers more than one policy.

6. A system as claimed in claim 1 in which the conflict management policy includes conflict resolution.

7. A system as claimed in claim 6 in which the conflict management policy identifies a conflict ranking and resolves the conflict according to the ranking.

8. A system as claimed in claim 6 in which the conflict management policy includes at least one of identifying a property defining a resolution policy, identifying a policy creator rank and resolving the conflict according to the creator rank, and implementing a resolution policy inherent in the conflict management policy.

9. A method of managing conflicts in a computer network comprising a plurality of interconnected components whose behaviour is determined by a plurality of policies, the method comprising the steps of determining at run time if, in respect of any given triggering event, a possible conflict may arise in respect of one or more of said policies activated by said triggering event and, if so, passing the or each respective activated policy as an argument to a conflict resolution process operating in accordance with one or more conflict management policies.

10. A computer network manager arranged to implement the method of claim 9.

11. A computer network including a manager as claimed in claim 10.

12. A computer program comprising processor implementable instructions for causing a processor to carry out the method of claim 9 during execution of the computer program.

13. A carrier medium carrying the computer program of claim 12.