An Adaptive Policy-Based Framework for Network Service

Management Leonidas LymberopoulosEmil LupuMorris Sloman

Department of ComputingImperial College London

Roadmap

• Policy-based management• Service management issues• Ponder - Policy language• Policy adaptation within the Ponder

framework• Enforcement architecture for an adaptive

policy system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Policy-based management

• The fundamental objective of policy-based management is to allow flexible and adaptive management where the policies define the adaptation choices or strategy which can be modified without recoding or even shutting down the system.

• Service Adaptation– Service adaptation may take place either as a result

of failures within the system or to accommodate changes in clients application requirements.

Roadmap

Policy-based management• Service management issues• Ponder - Policy language• Policy adaptation within the Ponder

framework• Enforcement architecture for an adaptive

policy system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Service management issues

• Satisfy the Service Level Agreement’s (SLA’s) established in an enterprise.

• Guaranty the Quality-of-Service offered to the applications using a service.

• A management system that can automatically derive information from service specific information.

• Support dynamic service management.

• Authorization should be part of the management system.

Roadmap

Policy-based managementService management issues• Ponder - Policy language

– Obligation policies

• Policy adaptation within the Ponder framework• Enforcement architecture for an adaptive policy

system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Ponder - policy language

• Ponder is an object-oriented, declarative language for specifying management and security policies.– Subjects objects– Target objects– Domains

• Provides reuse by supporting definition of policy types.

Obligation policies

• Specify the actions that managers must perform when certain events occur, and provide the ability to respond to changing circumstances.

• Are event-triggered condition-action rules.

• Syntax

Roadmap

Policy-based managementService management issuesPonder - Policy language• Policy adaptation within the Ponder framework

– Run-time modification of policy parameters– Adaptation by dynamically selecting/enabling policies

from a set of policies• Enforcement architecture for an adaptive policy

system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Policy adaptation within the Ponder framework• Policy Adaptation

– Describe the ability of the policy-based management system to modify system behavior in one of the following ways:

• Run-Time modification of Policy parameters

• Adaptation by dynamically selecting and enabling policies from a set of policies

• Adaptation by learning which are the most suitable policy configuration strategies from the system behavior

Run-time modification of policy parameters• New adaptation strategies can be

incorporated into the management system by – adding new policies which react to different

evens using the existing policy actions– replacing existing policies with new versions,

which either implement • new actions on the managed objects• new action on the Policy Management Agents

Adaptation by dynamically selecting/enabling policies from a set of policies

• Higher-level control policies are triggered by reconfiguration events and determine which lower-level network policy must be enable/disable to adapt the configuration of the management system.

• Service Management Policies are an example of these higher-level policies.

Roadmap

Policy-based managementService management issuesPonder - Policy languagePolicy adaptation within the Ponder

framework• Enforcement architecture for an adaptive

policy system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Enforcement architecture for an adaptive policy system

Roadmap

Policy-based managementService management issuesPonder - Policy languagePolicy adaptation within the Ponder

frameworkEnforcement architecture for an adaptive

policy system• Implementation of a prototype adaptive

management system

Implementation of a prototype adaptive management system