A Functional Solution for Goal-Ooriented Policy Refinement

Abstract

Policy refinement is a key but still unsolved area of policy based management. Goal oriented requirements engineering methodologies have been suggested as a prominent alternative to address policy refinement. Practical approaches that capture the administrative requirements and enable systematic policy refinement are still missing although such integrated solutions are rather convenient to make policy-based management systems really useful. In this paper we present a functional solution for goal oriented policy refinement grounded in linear temporal logic and reactive systems analysis techniques. We describe the technical foundations and demonstrate how these were used to develop an integrated solution for policy refinement, focusing on the details of the implemented prototype. Our policy analysis techniques that enable systematic policy refinement are demonstrated through a scenario applied to the domain of QoS Management for Differentiated Services (DiffServ) networks.