POLICY ENGINE

• US 20070027975A1
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Published: 02/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MCI Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Welch, Gregory, TAI, Yung-Hwa, Verlare, James
• Granted Patent: US 7,975,037 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• 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 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4557 Directories for hybrid networks, e.g. including telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/123 where the packet-switched network is an Internet Protocol Multimedia System-type network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/128 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0025 Provisions for signalling
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0045 involving hybrid, i.e. a mixture of public and private, or multi-vendor systems

Abstract

A system includes a policy engine in an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). The policy engine may be configured to store a group of policies associated with the IMS, and forward the group of policies to a group of policy components in the IMS.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a central repository to;

store a plurality of policies; and

a group of policy decision points in an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), each policy decision point being configured to;

store a subset of the plurality of policies, and

process a received request based on one or more policies of the subset of policies.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the central repository is further configured to associate at least one of the plurality of policies with subscribers to the IMS.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the central repository is further configured to:

receive an update to a first policy of the plurality of policies,

update the first policy, and

forward the updated first policy to one or more policy decision points of the group of policy decision points in response to updating the first policy.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the one or more policy decision points are associated with the first policy.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the central repository is further configured to:

receive a resource status message,

update a first policy of the plurality of policies based on the resource status message, and

forward the updated first policy to one or more policy decision points of the group of policy decision points in response to updating the first policy.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the first policy relates to a resource identified in the resource status message.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the central repository is further configured to:

receive a new policy, and

forward the new policy to one or more policy decision points of the group of policy decision points in response to receiving the new policy.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the central repository is further configured to:

receive an indication that a first policy of the plurality of policies is to be deleted,

delete the first policy in response to receiving the indication, and

cause the first policy to be deleted from any policy decision point with which the first policy is associated.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one policy of the plurality of policies relates to routing traffic in the IMS.

10. A system comprising:

a policy engine in an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) configured to;

store a plurality of policies associated with the IMS, and

forward the plurality of policies to a plurality of policy components in the IMS.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the policy engine is further configured to:

receive a status message identifying one or more resources,

update one or more policies of the plurality of policies in response to receiving the status message, and

forward the updated one or more policies to at least one policy component of the plurality of policy components in response to updating the one or more policies.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein the plurality of policy components includes at least one of a border gateway function, a serving call session control function (S-CSCF), a proxy call session control function (P-CSCF), a breakout gateway control function (BGCF), or a break in gateway control function (BIGCF).

13. The system of claim 10 wherein the policy engine stores a copy of all policies used in the IMS.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein the policy engine is further configured to:

receive an update to a first policy of the plurality of policies,

update the first policy, and

automatically forward a copy of the updated first policy to at least one policy component of the plurality of policy components.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein the policy engine forwards the plurality of policies to a plurality of policy components in the IMS using an extensible markup language (XML) protocol.

16. A method comprising:

providing a central repository for storing a plurality of policies in an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS); and

forwarding updates to the plurality of policies to one or more policy decision points in the IMS in real time or near real time.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

receiving a resource status message identifying one or more resources;

identifying at least one policy of the plurality of policies in response to receiving the resource status message; and

updating the identified at least one policy based on the resource status message.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

forwarding the updated at least one policy to a policy decision point of the plurality of policy decision points in real time or near real time.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein each policy of the plurality of policies relate to accessing the IMS.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

routing, via the plurality of policy decision points, traffic through the IMS based on the plurality of policies.