Rule and Policy Promotion Within A Policy Hierarchy

• US 20070282986A1
• Filed: 06/05/2006
• Published: 12/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rajamony, Ramakrishnan, Goldberg, Itzhack, Childress, Rhonda L., Tross, Martin J., Herger, Lorraine M., Rafalovich, Ziv, Hensbergen, Eric Van
• Granted Patent: US 7,747,736 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management

Abstract

A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer program product for nominating rules or policies for promotion through a policy hierarchy. An administrator at any level in a policy hierarchy may create a rule or policy. The administrator may then nominate the rule or policy for inclusion in a next higher level in the policy hierarchy. The rule or policy is evaluated at the next higher level. Responsive to an approval of the next higher level to include the rule or policy in the jurisdiction of the next higher level, the rule of policy is provided to all users under the jurisdiction. The nominating, evaluating, and providing steps may then be repeated for each higher level in the policy hierarchy.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method in a data processing system for distributing rules and policies in a policy hierarchy, the computer implemented method comprising:

creating a rule or policy at a level in a policy hierarchy;

nominating the rule or policy for inclusion in a next higher level in the policy hierarchy;

evaluating the rule or policy at the next higher level;

responsive to an approval of the next higher level to include the rule or policy in a jurisdiction of the next higher level, providing the rule or policy to all users under the jurisdiction; and

repeating the nominating, evaluating, and providing steps for each higher level in the policy hierarchy.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the rule or policy is created by an administrator at a bottom level of the policy hierarchy.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the evaluating step includes evaluating the nominated rule or policy according to processes and bylaws of the next higher level'"'"'s jurisdiction.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the approval specifies that the rule or policy is either mandatory or optional.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein each rule or policy nomination includes information indicating its relative worth.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the relative worth information includes at least one of a subject ranking of the rule or policy, a number of administrators currently using the rule or policy, an enterprise-wide adoption rate of rules or policies previously created or nominated by administrators handling the policy until that point, a risk assessment of implementing or not implementing the rule or policy, or a number of outstanding trouble tickets handled by implementing the rule or policy.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the policy hierarchy is implemented within a service delivery environment.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the creating step further comprises:

establishing a set of criteria in the policy, wherein the criteria defines rule attributes necessary for automatic inclusion of a rule in the policy.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 8, further comprising:

identifying a rule having rule attributes which meet the set of criteria specified in the policy;

performing a conflict check to determine if inclusion of the rule results in a conflict with another rule in the policy; and

responsive to a determination that no conflict exists, automatically adding the rule to the policy.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein rule attributes are associated with a rule by one of a user tagging a rule with rule attributes, inheritance of rule attributes from a policy of which the rule is a member, or inheritance of rule attributes from a profile with which the rule is associated.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein rule attributes are set or overridden per association with a particular profile or server.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein the step of adding the rule to the policy is performed automatically or semi-automatically.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 12, further comprising:

if the step of adding the rule is performed automatically, transparently adding the rule without prompting for user approval.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 12, further comprising:

if the step of adding the rule is performed semi-automatically, providing a suggestion to a user of rules eligible to be added to the policy, and adding the eligible rules only upon receiving user approval.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 9, further comprising:

associating a profile to the policy.

16. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein rules are moved among policies as the rules'"'"' attributes change.

17. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein a rule is a member of one of zero, one, or more policies.

18. A data processing system for distributing rules and policies in a policy hierarchy, the data processing system comprising:

a bus;

a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device contains computer usable code;

at least one managed device connected to the bus;

a communications unit connected to the bus; and

a processing unit connected to the bus, wherein the processing unit executes the computer usable code to create a rule or policy at a level in a policy hierarchy, nominate the rule or policy for inclusion in a next higher level in the policy hierarchy, evaluate the rule or policy at the next higher level, provide the rule or policy to all users under a jurisdiction of the next higher level in response to an approval of the next higher level to include the rule or policy in the jurisdiction, and repeat the nominating, evaluating, and providing steps for each higher level in the policy hierarchy.

19. A computer program product for distributing rules and policies in a policy hierarchy, the computer program product comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer usable program code tangibly embodied thereon, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code for creating a rule or policy at a level in a policy hierarchy;

computer usable program code for nominating the rule or policy for inclusion in a next higher level in the policy hierarchy;

computer usable program code for evaluating the rule or policy at the next higher level;

computer usable program code for providing the rule or policy to all users under a jurisdiction of the next higher level in response to an approval of the next higher level to include the rule or policy in the jurisdiction; and

computer usable program code for repeating the nominating, evaluating, and providing steps for each higher level in the policy hierarchy.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the rule or policy is created at a bottom level of the policy hierarchy.