MECHANISM TO PROVIDE DEBUGGING AND OPTIMIZATION IN POLICY AND KNOWLEDGE CONTROLLED DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING SYSTEMS, THROUGH THE USE OF TAGGED POLICIES AND KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION ELEMENTS

• US 20080301630A1
• Filed: 05/31/2007
• Published: 12/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Arnold, William C., Levine, David M., Chess, David M., Snible, Edward
• Granted Patent: US 7,996,823 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/110
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3604 Software analysis for verifying properties of programs byte-code verification G06F9/44589

Abstract

A mechanism to provide debugging and optimization in policy and knowledge controlled distributed computing system through the use of tagged policies is provided. An aspect of the mechanism tags one or more policies, for instance, at their creation time, execution time and/or at any other time an event that affects the policies occur. Decisions made according to policy execution or evaluation may be traced using the tags.

Claims

1. A method for providing debugging and optimization in policy and knowledge controlled distributed computing system, comprising:

generating descriptive information associated with one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment;

associating a unique identifying tag with the descriptive information; and

storing the descriptive information and the unique identifying tag,

wherein said one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment can be debugged or optimized or combination thereof using the descriptive information and the unique identifying tag.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptive information includes expressions of policies, type of transformation being performed, or other information identifying nature of one or more activities occurring in the one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment, or combinations thereof.

3. The method of claim 1, further including:

tracing the unique identifying tag with the descriptive information to identify policy-violating source.

4. The method of claim 1, further including:

tracing the unique identifying tag with the descriptive information to identify a sub-optimal behavior in the one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment, or combinations thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to trace an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 1, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to set breakpoints during an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.

7. The method of claim 1, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to identify problems associated with an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.

8. A system for providing debugging and optimization in policy and knowledge controlled distributed computing system, comprising:

a policy creation module operable to create one or more policies and associated annotations;

a policy repository operable to store the one or more policies and associated annotations;

a knowledge repository operable to store at least one or more attributes associated with enforcing the one or more policies;

a policy enforcement module operable to retrieve information from the knowledge repository and the policy repository and enforce one or more policies in response to requests for policies.

9. The system of claim 8, further including:

a policy transformation module operable to transform the one or more policies, generate one or more annotations associated with transforming the one or more policies, and store the transformed one or more policies in the policy repository with the one or more annotations.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the policy enforcement module is further operable to annotate one or more policies during enforcing of the requests for policies.

11. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for providing debugging and optimization in policy and knowledge controlled distributed computing system, comprising:

generating descriptive information associated with one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment;

associating a unique identifying tag with the descriptive information; and

storing the descriptive information and the unique identifying tag,

wherein said one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment can be debugged or optimized or combination thereof using the descriptive information and the unique identifying tag.

12. The program storage device of claim 11, wherein the descriptive information includes expressions of policies, type of transformation being performed, or other information identifying nature of one or more activities occurring in the one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment, or combinations thereof.

13. The program storage device of claim 11, further including:

tracing the unique identifying tag with the descriptive information to identify policy-violating source.

14. The program storage device of claim 11, further including:

tracing the unique identifying tag with the descriptive information to identify a sub-optimal behavior in the one or more steps of one or more of policy creation, transformation and deployment, or combinations thereof.

15. The program storage device of claim 11, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to trace an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.

16. The program storage device of claim 11, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to set breakpoints during an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.

17. The program storage device of claim 11, further including:

using the unique identifying tag and the descriptive information to identify problems associated with an execution of one or more of policy enforcement, deployment or transformation activity, or combinations thereof.