A Logic-based Policy Definition Language for Network Management

Policies are increasingly used to manage large-scale distributed system. This paper proposes a logic-based policy definition language termed LPDL and defines its syntax, execution model and semantic. LPDL supports management operations that consider system’s states and which need cooperating policy servers. System’s states are stored in a state repository and can be manipulated by the policy server based on predefined policies when certain messages are received. LPDL has Petri Net’s expressive power and Turing Machine’s computing power. Administrator can use LPDL to describe system’s analysis and decision functions or encapsulate these functions into physical codes flexibly based on actual need. Finally, LPDL-based network management model, its prototype and application are presented to show that LPDL can meet the requirements of network management’s dynamic growth.