Policy-based Management System Research Articles

Explaining the operation of a home care system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to devise a general solution that allows a policy-based (i.e. rule-based) management system to explain its operation. In particular, a solution has been developed and evaluated in the context of an automated home care system. Design/methodology/approach – The work has built on an existing policy-based management system called Advanced Component Control Enhancing Network Technologies (ACCENT). This includes automated management of home care using two forms of rules: higher-level (user) goals and lower-level (system) policies. These rules can be defined by users (typically carers) to personalise how the system should support the resident. In new work, the system has been extended to include an explanation facility that allows the user to understand the past and future behaviour of the system. Findings – An explanation facility has been created to explain the past and future behaviour of the system. An initial evaluation of this has been carried out with carers. The participants in this evaluation found the facility to be understandable and were able to use it effectively. Research limitations/implications – The work has made a useful extension to the design of policy-based systems in general. The initial evaluation with a limited group of users identified small weaknesses in the explanation facility that will be addressed in future work. The updated approach will then be evaluated with a larger group of users. Practical implications – The enhanced home care system is now more usable and comprehensible, and so will be easier to deploy and maintain. Social implications – The explanation facility has made the home care system more usable and comprehensible for users, and so will enhance its acceptability in future deployment. Originality/value – Although expert systems have long been able to explain their operation, this kind of solution has not previously been attempted for policy-based management systems. The value to end users is that the approach makes automated support of home care more understandable and thus more acceptable and usable.

Static Analysis to Avoid Overlap of Policies in Policy-Based Management Systems

A management policy evolves over time by addition, deletion and modifications of rules. Policies authored by different administrators may be merged to form the final system management policy. Since policies are used to govern the system behavior, conflicts may arise in the set of policies and also may arise during the refinement process, between the high-level goals and the implementable policies. Moreover, policy conflict can result from propagation, action composition and other constraint policies, which cannot be detected by simply comparing authorization policies. Static and dynamic conflicts are considered as two classes of conflict which need to be understood and independently managed. Furthermore, the distinction between these two classed is important; as detecting and resolving of conflict can be computationally intensive, time consuming and hence, costly. However, a dynamic conflict is quite unpredictable, in that it may, or may not; proceed to a state of a realized conflict. In this paper we present static analyses to address the overlap cased when there are two or more policies are enforced simultaneously. Moreover, the paper provides temporal specification patterns to avoid each type of conflicts, and to ensure that policies are enforced correctly.

In Search of Synergies between Policy-Based Systems Management and Deep Boltzmann Machines Models for E-commerce

This paper discusses the motivations and principles of Deep Boltzmann Machines regarding learning algorithms for deep architectures. Policy-based systems management (PBM) and Deep Boltzmann Machines (DBM) are two of the many techniques available for artificial intelligence (AI), each having specific benefits and limitations, and thus different applicability; choosing the most appropriate technique is the first of many challenges faced by the developer. The discussion forms a backdrop for a detailed evaluation of the two techniques, in which the concepts underpinning each of PBM and EBM are reviewed and placed into context with each other as well as with the other popular techniques for AI. After considering the operation and suitability of the techniques in isolation, the focus shifts to look at how PBM and DBM could be combined in complementary ways to achieve more sophisticated and versatile AI systems for E-commerce..

Policy-based QoS management for SLA-driven adaptive routing

This paper proposes a policy-based quality of service (QoS) management framework for adaptive routing decisions. We present an approach considering interior gateway protocol (IGP) for path discovery mechanisms and QoS-aware policies for configuring the network elements. The integration of the aforementioned modules into this policy-based network management (PBNM) system is demonstrated by conducting experiments in a real environment, the hellenic public administration network SYZEFXIS. These experiments combine different traffic conditioning mechanisms through event detectors, consider IP service level agreement mechanisms that interoperate with the PBNM system and analyze the enforcement of IGP and QoS policies. Finally, validation and measurement tools are used to prove the efficiency of this framework. It is shown that this architecture offers significantly increased performance and learning capabilities, while the PBNM system achieves adaptive QoS routing through automated configuration considering the avoidance of suboptimal routing issues or under-performance conditions of the network entities.

Evaluation by Implementation of the Policy-based Network Management System Called DACS System

As the work for managing a whole LAN effectively withoutlimited purposes, there are works of Policy-based networkmanagement (PBNM). The existing PBNM is defined in someorganizations including the Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF). However, it has structural problems. For example,communications sent from many clients concentrate on acommunication control mechanism called PEP (PolicyEnforcement Point). To improve the problems, we have beenstudying next generation PBNM called Destination AddressingControl System (DACS) Scheme. The DACS Scheme controlsthe whole LAN through communication control by the clientsoftware as PEP which locates on a client computer. We havebeen studied on the aspect of principle until now. In thisresearch, we implement a DACS system to realize a concept ofthe DACS Scheme, and show implement method and results offunctional experiments.

A Novel Framework and the Application Mechanism with Cooperation of Control and Management in Multi-domain WSON

Multi-layer and multi-domain optical networks have drawn much attention in current research, and the wavelength switched optical network (WSON) is viewed as one of the best solutions in optical networks. In this paper, a novel Cooperative Control and Management Framework (CCMF) in multi-domain WSON is proposed to support the arising intelligent applications and optimize resource utilization with more scalability and robustness. In CCMF, we focus on the mechanism with the consideration of requirements of intelligent applications with complex flows, performance guarantees and traffic engineering in a traditional optical network. Thus, a combined provisioning approach, synergetic between the control plane (CP) and the management plane (MP), is presented with the policy based management system, in which a mobile agent is introduced to support the communication between MP and CP. Furthermore, one application, a novel multi-domain impairment aware routing and wavelength assignment (MIA-RWA) algorithm at the Bit Error Rate level, based on the proposed CCMF, is presented. It is proposed to improve the routing performance in multi-domain WSON. Finally, comprehensive simulations are conduced to verify the effectiveness of CCMF and the proposed mechanisms.

Coordinating Allocation of Resources for Multiple Virtual IPTV Providers to Maximize Revenue

Network virtualization is seen by many as a key technology to help overcome some of the constraints of the current Internet architecture and help build a “human centric” Future Internet. As IPTV gains popularity, creating virtual networks for IPTV Service Providers can allow them to deploy specific protocol suites, routing algorithms and resource allocation strategies without affecting other IPTV providers that share the same underlying infrastructure. However, from the perspective of the underlying networking infrastructure provider (the “carrier”) virtualization presents new management challenges, in particular how to efficiently and fairly allocate available resources to multiple virtual networks. In this paper we describe a framework in which management systems associated with virtual IPTV provider networks communicate with the management system of the carrier to provide coordinated resource allocation. The proposed approach allows policy-based management systems to control a bio-inspired resource management mechanism, based on species competition for biological systems, that a carrier can use to allocate resources to competing IPTV providers in a manner that maximizes the carrier's revenue. Results of a simulation study are presented, which show that this approach outperforms uncoordinated virtual network management approaches.

Research on service-oriented policy-driven IAAS management

Cloud computing refers to the provision of computational resources on demand via a computer network. It is considered to be the third IT revolution following personal computer revolution and the Internet revolution. IAAS, a kind of service provided by cloud computing, can supply users with the convenience and flexibility of virtual resources to achieve the same power supply as the water supply. Though there are kinds of existing IAAS solutions, but they are all common system architecture design, without taking into account the characteristics of applications resulting in inefficient service provision. In this paper, by referencing service-oriented philosophy IAAS platform is reconstructed. Based on loosely coupled physical resources by virtualization technology, a policy-based management system is provided to optimize service monitoring and service scheduling. Prototype implement show that it will effectively improve the performance of service running on IAAS.

Practical and analytical approaches for designing scalable on-demand policy-based resource allocation in stateless IP networks

Today the policy-based management (PBM) approach is recognized as an efficient solution to simplify the complex task of managing and controlling networks. To this end, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has introduced a reference framework to build PBM systems. However, this framework only addresses the provisioning of relatively long validity period services based on predefined service-level agreements. Furthermore, very little work addresses the scalability properties of the instantiation of this framework in a real network. This work aims to extend the IETF PBM framework in order to support dynamic provisioning of short-term services (end-system signalling) as well as an instantiation scheme that is scalable (distributed provisioning of edge routers). This instantiation scheme is based on the distribution of the provisioning process while keeping centralized only the parts that involve critical resources, namely bandwidth brokerage. The performance properties of the proposed scheme are then demonstrated throughout both extensive experimentation and an analytical study. The extension of this performance analysis to the case where multiple bandwidth brokers are used is also discussed. The results of this work are intended to be used as a guideline to help network operators to design a scalable PBM system in order to offer to their customers services with quality of service assurance on an on-demand basis. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Scheduling-capable autonomic manager for policy-based IT change management system

Managing large IT environments is expensive and labour intensive. Maintaining and upgrading with minimal disruption and administrative support has always been a challenging task for system administrators. One challenge faced by IT administrators is arriving at schedules for applying one or more change requests to one of the system components. Most of the time, the impact analysis of the proposed changes is done by humans and is often laborious and error-prone. Although this methodology might be suitable to handle changes that are planned way ahead in time, it is completely inappropriate for changes that need to be done sooner. In addition, such manual handling does not scale well with the size of the IT infrastructure. In this article, the focus is on the problem of scheduling change requests in the presence of organisational policies governing the use of its resources. The authors propose two approaches for change management scheduling and present the implementation details of two prototypes that prove the feasibility of the proposed approaches. Their implementation is integrated with an autonomic manager which they had described in their earlier work.

A system for visual role-based policy modelling

The definition of security policies in information systems and programming applications is often accomplished through traditional low level languages that are difficult to use. This is a remarkable drawback if we consider that security policies are often specified and maintained by top level enterprise managers who would probably prefer to use simplified, metaphor oriented policy management tools. To support all the different kinds of users we propose a suite of visual languages to specify access and security policies according to the role based access control (RBAC) model. Moreover, a system implementing the proposed visual languages is proposed. The system provides a set of tools to enable a user to visually edit security policies and to successively translate them into (eXtensible Access Control Markup Language) code, which can be managed by a Policy Based Management System supporting such policy language. The system and the visual approach have been assessed by means of usability studies and of several case studies. The one presented in this paper regards the configuration of access policies for a multimedia content management platform providing video streaming services also accessible through mobile devices.

Using policy-based MPLS management architecture to improve QoS on IP network

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is in the process of standardization by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It is regarded as a technology for traffic engineering and QoS in IP-networks. We proposed an IETF Policy-based Network Management Framework and policies with MPLS specific classes. It uses a three-level policy architecture, which includes managing on device, network, and service level using policies for supporting Inter-serve and Diff-serve based end-to-end QoS in the Internet. A prototyping of policy-based management system for MPLS Traffic Engineering is operating on MPLS network elements. Several experiments illustrate the efficiency and feasibility in this architecture. The results show it can reduce the time of the setup of MPLS traffic engineering tunnel over hops and MPLS traffic engineering tunnel deletion. The proposed integrated policy based management architecture will allow network service providers to offer both quantitative and qualitative services while optimizing the use of underlying network resources.

A methodological approach toward the refinement problem in policy-based management systems

Policy refinement is meant to derive low-level enforceable policies from high-level guidelines. Although recent advances have been made to solve this open problem, the holistic implications confronting systematic policy refinement have not been explicitly addressed. This article presents a methodological approach towards the policy refinement problem. We provide a generic procedure to define policy hierarchies, which is essential to achieving systematic policy refinement. We also provide the considerations while defining high-level guidelines, and describe a policy refinement framework that formalizes the requirements to refine high-level guidelines into executable policies. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach with a scenario applied to the quality of service (QoS) management domain

Policy lifecycle model for systems management

In an enterprise, policies are the glue that hold network and systems management activities, tools, managed resources, and process participants together. Nevertheless, gaps between management objectives, policy definitions, and policy enforcement are inevitable during policy deployment. Policy definitions will rarely satisfy all management requirements and can be difficult to understand and enforce. Moreover, system administrators often ignore or circumvent policies intentionally or unintentionally in daily management activities. Policy-based management offers a promising solution to the problem of managing complex systems. It provides a means by which to simplify and largely automate the management procedure. These authors propose a policy lifecycle model, based on proven software development procedures; it can guide the deployment of a policy-based information management system in an enterprise.

A measurement-based approach for dynamic QoS adaptation in DiffServ networks

This paper presents a practical approach to managing multimedia traffic in DiffServ network, using network monitoring feedback and control. We exploit the flexibility of multimedia traffic and process network level parameters to adapt the traffic according to the current state of the network. The latter is determined based on reports sent by bandwidth monitors installed on each node of a DiffServ Domain. The bandwidth monitors interact with a policy server which, depending on the network state, decides the policy(ies) that should be enforced by the DiffServ network. The implementation of the selected policies typically leads to accepting, remarking, or dropping the multimedia traffic entering the network. Multimedia streams may be assigned different levels of QoS, as interpreted by the marker at the DiffServ edge router and marked according to network state. To achieve such dynamic QoS adaptation for multimedia applications, we have implemented and evaluated a policy-based management system. Performance evaluation shows that multimedia applications adapt better to network conditions using our approach.

Self‐aware management of IP networks with QoS guarantees

AbstractSelf‐aware management allows the network to react and to adapt to changes of situation. In this paper an architecture is described for self‐aware management of IP networks offering QoS guarantees. This architecture uses policy‐based management and multi‐agent systems. The originality of the present approach lies in the intention to give a real autonomy to the components intervening in the chain of services in terms of internal decisions and configuration. Our solution allows the self‐configuration, self‐provisioning and self‐monitoring of service as well as the proactive service level agreement management. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Design and performance evaluation of active bandwidth brokers

With the arrivals of critical data transactions and multimedia applications, the needs of network services with different Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees increase rapidly. In order to ensure the delivery of information with a desired quality at the application layer, policy-based management (pbm) systems should be deployed at network service providers for configuring network devices properly. A policy-based management system is capable of resolving and enforcing policy rules in realizing end-to-end QoS for all kinds of network connections. In this paper, a novel design of policy-based management system based on active networks is proposed. Active network technology empowers network routers the ability to execute and move data and program code as needed. It is used in the proposed design (Active Bandwidth Broker architecture) to achieve the goals of system scalability and reliability. Moreover, policy control operations can be distributed among different active nodes. Thus, the architecture reduces the aggregate amount of policy control traffic in networks and expedites the response times on policy requests. Furthermore, the Policy Decision Point is a mobile agent that moves and avoids encountering network congestion situations. A system prototype has been constructed to implement the designed architecture. It has successfully demonstrated that the new design framework offers architecture flexibility, improves system reliability, and provides system scalability in handling a large number of service requests.

Scalable design of a policy-based management system and its performance

The recommended policy-based management system by the IETF is a two-tiered architectural design. It exhibits several observable fundamental limitations, for example, system scalability and cross-vendor hardware compatibility problems. In this article, a multitiered architecture, the unified policy-based management system, is proposed. The middle-tier agents, introduced between policy managers and network routers, offer flexibility and scalability to the design. A dynamic unified information model can be achieved between the policy decision and enforcement points of the system by properly extending network protocols, by installing or removing hardware interpretation modules on the fly, and by interpreting and translating request/decision messages at the agents. To complete the UPM design, novel load sharing and balancing communication protocols are implemented to improve system scalability. The system performances of the UPM are compared to the recommended PBM system of the IETF through extensive experiments. The results indicate that the UPM is a high-performance and scalable policy-based management design.

End to End IP QoS Assurance Using Policy Based Multi-Agents SLA Management Systems

The development of Internet as well as overall communication technologies has created a very competitive communication market. In fact, there is no doubt that in the near future, every company and perhaps every person in the world will have an physical or wireless Internet access via an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Thus, the Internet became a very complex global network which represents an opportunity to provide worldwide value-added services requiring a certain level of quality of service (QoS) such as QoS-VPN (Virtual Private Network), VoD (Video On Demand). telelearning, e-Cornmerce, etc. Thus, we propose in this work to extend this approach in order to integrate new mechanisms that will allow customers to request end-to-end services. This assurance covers the QoS as well as associated parameters such as cost. The proposed solution introduces interoperability mechanisms between ISP policy based management systems and uses mobile agents to facilitate the negotiation between domains. The agent negotiation process is constrained by a set of predefined policies in order to limit the boundaries of the SLA parameters such as the cost. QoS, etc.

Towards implementing policy-based systems management

Managing modern information systems becomes increasingly complex. Therefore, the need for flexible mechanisms which assist system managers is evident. Management policies are means to control object behaviour. Considerable work has been done on the specification and classification of policies, but their enforcement is still an open research topic. In this paper we propose an event-driven approach to policy-based management, where a manager delegates policy enforcement to an agent. We introduce a policy controller object, which holds management information in the form of rules and controls the behaviour of arbitrary objects. We also present performance results and an example using the introduced concepts which is implemented on the ANSAware distributed platform.