Techniques and System to Deploy Policies Intelligently

• US 20100223287A1
• Filed: 05/11/2010
• Published: 09/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blue Jungle Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Blue Jungle Incorporated
• Inventors: Lim, Keng
• Granted Patent: US 8,185,548 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• 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 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/38 Graded-service arrangements, i.e. some subscribers prevented from establishing certain connections queuing arrangements H04Q3/64

Abstract

In an information management system, relevant policies are deployed to targets while policies which are not relevant are not. By deploying relevant policies, this reduces the amount of space requirements at the target to store the policies and the amount of data that needs to be sent to the target. Also, execution speed at the target may increase since the target does not need to evaluate policies that are not relevant.

Claims

1. A method executing on a processor of a computer, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of policies, wherein the policies are applicable to a plurality of target profiles, each target profile having a set of target attributes;

analyzing a policy to determine whether that policy is relevant to a specific target profile with a set of specific target attributes; and

determining a policy is relevant when a value of at least one of the specific target attributes is used during an evaluation of the policy.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one of the specific target attributes specifies a capability of a target having the specific target profile.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one of the specific target attributes specifies the device type of a target having the specific target profile.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one of the specific target attributes specifies the location of a target having the specific target profile.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one of the specific target attributes specifies at least one user at a target having the specific target profile.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one of the specific target attributes specifies at least one application program running at a target having the specific target profile.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the target attributes specify at least one of capability, device type or location, or user or application.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of policies comprises policy abstractions.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein each policy comprises a conditional statement having a policy abstraction and a corresponding action that will be performed when the conditional statement is satisfied, and each policy abstraction has a corresponding definition statement stored separately from the policy.

10. The method of claim 1 comprising:

when the policy is determined to be relevant, transferring the policy to a specific target having the specific target profile; and

when the policy is determined to not be relevant, not transferring the policy to the specific target having the specific target profile.