Issues in Designing a Policy Language for Distributed Management of IT Infrastructure

The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, we introduce a novel policy language, called CIM-SPL (Simple Policy Language for CIM) that complies with the CIM (Common Information Model) Policy Model and fully incorporates CIM constructs. Currently, the CIM standards from Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) include a Policy Model, but there is no satisfactory way to render this policy model. CIM-SPL is a language that has been defined for this purpose. Second, we address design and implementation issues for policy languages in general, and for CIM-SPL in particular. The design of CIM-SPL was inspired by our previous experiences in designing various policy languages (e.g., PDL from Bell Laboratories, and ACPL from IBM) and lessons learned from studying other well-known policy languages (e.g., Ponder from Imperial College). We will discuss our design choices, evaluating the pros and cons of various alternatives. The ideas presented in this paper are meant to shed light on our design decisions, and provide guidance for those who want to build a CIM-based policy system or some other policy system in the future.