Rule-Based Building-Block Architecture for Policy-based Networking
Kanada, Y. and O'Keefe, B. J., Journal of Network and Systems Management, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 253-275, 2003.
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Abstract: We developed two rule-based building-block architectures, i.e., pipe-connection and label-connection architectures, for describing complex and structured policies, especially network QoS policies. The latter is focused on in this study. The relationships or connections between building blocks are specified by the da-taflow and control flow between them. The dataflow is specified by tags, including virtual flow labels (VFLs), which are data attached to "outside packets". The control flow can be classified and specified by four control structures: concatenation, parallel application, selection, and repetition. We have designed fine-grained and coarse-grained building blocks and methods for specifying dataflow and control flow in differentiated services (Diffserv), and implemented the coarse-grained ones in a policy server. Two cases of building-block use are described, and we concluded that there are five advantages of building-block-based policies, i.e., expressibility, uniform semantics, simplicity, flexibility, and management-task-oriented design. We also developed techniques for transforming building-block policies into executable ones, which are called policy division and fusion.
Introduction to this research theme: Policy-based Networking