A Policy Language for the Management of Distributed Agents

A key issue in managing distributed agents is the provision of effective policy-based frameworks. To help realise such frameworks we have developed a new policy language that features dynamic fine-grained access controls and event-triggered condition-action rules, with abstractions for grouping objects/agents (domains), and grouping policies (roles, relationships and management structures). In our language policies apply to domains of objects. By changing a policy we change the behaviour of a system. By adding an object or agent to a domain we cause the domain’s policies to be applied to the newly added object. The language is declarative, strongly typed and object-oriented, which makes the language flexible, extensible and adaptable to a wide range of management requirements