UNIVERSAL SCHEMA FOR REPRESENTING MANAGEMENT POLICY

• US 20080184201A1
• Filed: 01/26/2007
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Menzies, Derek, Burns, Steven Patterson, Westerinen, Andrea Rose, Vinberg, Anders
• Granted Patent: US 8,104,080 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/121
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• 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-readable storage medium has a data structure stored thereon for constructing expressions representing software configurations to be applied to software. The data structure includes a first data field including data identifying a name of software setting for the application. A second data field includes data representing an assertion portion of an policy rule for configuring the configurations identified in the first data field to be applied to the software. The data structure also includes a third data field storing data representing an action portion of the policy rule. The second data field and the third data field form the policy rule. A fourth data field stores metadata describing the policy rule represented by the first data field, the second data field, and the third data field.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium having a data structure stored thereon for constructing expressions representing software configurations to be applied to software, said data structure comprising:

a first data field including data identifying a name of software configuration for the software;

a second data field including data representing an assertion portion of a policy rule for configuring the configurations identified in the first data field to be applied to the software;

a third data field including data representing an action portion of the rule, wherein the second data field and the third data field forming the policy rule; and

a fourth data field storing metadata describing the policy rule represented by the first data field, the second data field, and the third data field.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second data field includes an assertion operator.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the second data field includes data representing a translated expression from the assertion portion of the rule included in the second data field 604 to a custom grammar.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the fourth data field stores metadata describing policy rule constraints for the policy rule.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the fourth data field stores metadata describing a condition before the assertion portion included in the second data field is evaluated.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, further comprising a data field storing data representing a feedback to be sent to a policy authority, said feedback indicating whether the condition has satisfied.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the first data field comprises data representing a state of the application effected by the software configuration for the application.

8. A computerized method for representing constraints in policy rule in a policy document for managing software state of software, said computerized method comprising:

receiving an expression representing the policy rule in the policy document, said expression including operators and operands;

identifying the operators and operands in the received expression;

translating the operators and operands in the received expression to generate expression based on the translated operators and operands; and

providing the constraints in the generated expression to the software, said constraints including values for managing the application state.

9. The computerized method of claim 8, wherein providing comprises providing the constraints in the generated expression in fragments to the software.

10. The computerized method of claim 8, wherein receiving comprises receiving the expression in XPath expression.

11. The computerized method of claim 8, further comprising receiving input from a user for managing the application state of the application.

12. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein receiving input from the user comprises receiving input from the user in the form of XPath expressions.

13. The computerized method of claim 12, further comprising combining the input received from the user and the generated expression, and wherein providing comprises providing the constraints in the generated expression based on the received input and the generated expression.

14. A computerized method for identifying a configuration constraint for configuring policy rules from software, said computerized method comprising:

receiving a request from a target device to configure the application;

identifying a constraint included in the received request, said identified constraints including values intending to modify software state of the software; and

providing, from the application, the configuration constraint in response to the identification, said configuration constraint identifying an effective constraint for modifying the application state of the application.

15. The computerized method of claim 14, wherein receiving the request comprises receiving the request in a policy document in a form of the policy rule effecting changes to the application state of the application.

16. The computerized method of claim 14, wherein providing comprises providing the configuration constraint in an XPath expression.

17. The computerized method of claim 14, wherein receiving comprises receiving input from a user specifying an additional policy rule, and wherein identifying comprises identifying another constraint included in the additional policy rule.

18. The computerized method of claim 17, further comprising merging the additional policy rule with the policy rule, and wherein identifying comprises identifying constraints in the merged policy rules.

19. The computerized method of claim 14, further comprising replacing the identified constraint in the received request with the provided configuration constraint.

20. The computerized method of claim 14, further comprising:

transmitting the received request to a translator, said translator generating an XML based custom grammar from the received request, and

further comprising receiving the XML based custom grammar from the translator,

wherein identifying comprises identifying the constraint included in the XML based custom grammar.