Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
An XML-Seamless Policy Based Management
Framework
Félix J. García Clemente, Gregorio Martínez Pérez,
and Antonio F. Gómez Skarmeta
Departamento de Ingeniería de la Información y las Comunicaciones
University of Murcia, Spain
{fgarcia, gregorio, skarmeta}@dif.um.es
Abstract.
The great variety of policy representation forms currently existing
(e.g., LDAP schemas, PIBs, MIBs, plain text, etc.) is leading to interoperability
and manageability problems, mainly in inter-domain management environ-
ments, but also between the elements (i.e., PMTs, PDPs, and PEPs) dealing
with and exchanging policies inside one particular management domain. The
use of XML technologies provides a solution to this important limitation. This
paper describes the seamless integration of XML technologies in a policy-based
management framework. It includes a proposal for an XML-based management
architecture, the definition of an XML PIB (Policy Information Base) and a new
Java COPS (Common Open Policy Service) implementation supporting both
XML-encoding and BER-encoding of the policy data exchanged between PDP
servers and PEP clients. It also analyses the main techniques used to ensure the
provision of security services to the management of policies.
1 Introduction and Motivation
Policies that are exchanged between the components of a PBNM (Policy-Based Net-
work Management) system may assume different forms as they travel from a defini-
tion server to a repository or from a decision point to an enforcement point. At each
step, policies are usually represented in a way that is convenient for the current task. It
could be the case of policies defined as a text file by the administrator, stored in a di-
rectory according to a LDAP schema, distributed from a Policy Decision Point (PDP)
to a Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) using a PIB (Policy Information Base) [1].
As this variety of forms could lead to important problems when trying to define in-
teroperable and extensible multi-domain PBNM architectures, there is a clear need to
consolidate a common technology to define policy languages and establish a common
method for encoding policy data. XML technologies are a solution to this problem.
XML has also the advantage that it is widely accepted, which means that there are
many tools available supporting the implementation of some of the management func-
tionalities. In addition, XML facilitates the easy integration of different applications,
something that is particularly important for the cooperation of different policy-based
network and service management architectures in a multi-domain environment.
This paper describes in section 2 the design of an XML-seamless PBNM frame-
work using XML technologies along the whole policy life cycle. XML technologies
are used by all the components of the architecture to manage and monitor policies.
